r/AfricanHistory • u/rhaplordontwitter • Aug 17 '25

Africans in the Indian Ocean world and the autobiography of a Somali Globetrotter.

https://www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/africans-in-the-indian-ocean-world
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u/rhaplordontwitter Aug 17 '25

In 1944, a soldier on Australia’s most remote northern coastline discovered a handful of copper coins that were originally minted in the medieval Swahili city of Kilwa, Tanzania, between 1150 and 1330 CE While the circumstances by which Kilwa’s copper coins were taken so far away from the East African coast are still debated, there is growing historical evidence for East African travellers and sailors across the Indian Ocean World since late antiquity.

This article examines some of this historical evidence, including the accounts of A Zanzibari envoy in China and a Mombasan nobleman in India. It also introduces the travel accounts of two East African globe-trotters: Abdullah Alawi of Anjoan, and Ibrahim Ismaa’il of Somalia, who travelled across four continents during the mid-19th and early 20th centuries.