The East African coast refers to an area that lies between the towns of Sofala in Mozambique and Mogadishu in Somalia. The East African coast covers a distance of about 3000 kilometres long from the North to the south. Along this coastline exists inlets and harbours as well as off shore islands such as Lamu and Mombasa. It was around these harbours and islands that civilisation started by the year 1000. The level of civilisation was quite different from what was in the interior of East Africa at that time.

The East African coast civilisation was a result of a contribution from different groups of people and that is why this civilisation was different from other areas in East Africa. That civilisation either came from the people who lived on the coast or those who came from else where as well as the interior. Different tribes and races managed to settle in this area and most of them came from the North West and the south.

From the Nile valley came the Hamitic Cushites who settled along the Northern part of the coast immediately to the south of Mogadishu. From the south, the Bantu group settled along the rivers and other cultivatable places.  They lived a humble life of cattle keeping and crop cultivation. They also developed special interest in trade and iron working.

The coastal area between Mogadishu and cape Delgado that is found in Mozambique was referred to as the land of the Zenj/ Zanj, a phrase that means the land of the Black people.  Their existence came to form what was known as the Zenj Empire.

THE SWAHILI COAST (500-1498)

Arab geographers knew the coast of East Africa as the land of Zanj, a word referring to the black coloured natives' skin. Around the year 500 A.D., the first Arab traders docked at this corner of the Indian Ocean and launched their long colonization process during which they introduced their culture, their mosques, their religion, their bazaars, ...

From the 9th century, cities like Pate, Lamu and Malindi were founded, giving rise to a new civilization which was Bantu-Arab in origin but developed its own personality, including a new language.

Swahili or Kiswahili was born as a blend of the Bantu grammar and the Arab vocabulary, and was initially written with Arab characters. The word Swahili appears to be a derivation of the plural of the Arab term Sahel, meaning "coast". Centuries later, adapted to the Latin alphabet, it would become the most widespread language in East Africa. Traders found here fertile grounds for their business, exploiting the wealth of this virgin territory. It was then when the Arabs started organising their caravans to the inner lands, where they captured natives to be sold as slaves, giving birth to a form of trade that would thrivefor centuries.

The routes so defined by the Arab tradesmen would remain as the only paths inland, that would even be used by the first European explorers who would arrive hundreds of years later.

The maritime routes of this nascent commerce linked the East African coast with the Indies. Textiles and other manufactured products brought by sailors from the Arab countries, from India or China were exchanged for iron, ivory, gold or slaves, promoting this region to a flourishing development that would persist without interference until the arrival of the Portuguese ships. These commercial flows were also used by the Persians, who arrived in the coast pushed by the monsoon winds in their lateen dhows. In the 14th century, the Persian traders founded the city of Mombasa. The Chinese and the Malaysians visited these shores as well, using the routes established in this golden age of East Africa.

The slave trade was the cause of the dissemination of African natives throughout the Indian Ocean shoreline and its areas of influence. In Mesopotamia and even in South China there were African slaves since 800 years ago. On the other hand, the presence of the new settlers left a perdurable trace in the East African  coast: today, some 40,000 descendants of those first Arab traders still inhabit this region. Conversely, the influence of the East Indies was scarcely significant in those days, regardless the fact that over the past two thousand years there were small settlings in the coast. Currently, most of the Kenyan and Tanzanian Indian community, Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims and Goans, has its origin in the days of the British East Africa, hundreds.

THE ZENJ EMPIRE

Before AD 1500, the East African coast was referred to as the land of the Zenj/Zanj by the early visitors from Arabia and Persia. Zenj is Persian word for black and “bar” means coast. The Greeks referred to the East African coast as Azania also implying the land of the black people. The period from AD 975 when Hassan bin Ali and his sons took refugee at the East African coast to 1498 when Vasco da Gama sailed to Mombasa, is often referred to as the time of the Zenj Empire. The Zenj Empire covered the area between Mogadishu in the present Somalia and cape Delgado in Mozambique. Also the Indian Ocean islands of Pemba, Zanzibar and Mafia were part of the Zenj Empire.

The empire was not a united political entity under one administration, but it comprised of 37 principle settlements and centres of wealth and power each under its own rulers.

Conceivably because of the common cultural attachments and the same commercial way among the people who settled along the coast of East Africa that it was referred to as an empire. The peoples’ way of life was mercantile and affluent as most inhabitants were occupied with both internal and external trade from which they made high profits.

The original inhabitants were the Bushmen who were hunters and food gatherers. The Zenj or Zanj coast was also populated by the Bantu people from the interior who lived largely by farming

The African population also included Cushites from the North. The Cushites herded cattle and sheep and also grew crops. By AD 1000, many Arabs and Persians had also settled at the East African coast.

By AD 1200, the Shiraz people migrated to the East African coast. They came from Somalia but they are believed to have descended from Persia.

This prosperous Zenj Empire came to a halt and abrupt end, in the 16^th century after the conquest of the East African coast by the Portuguese invaders.

Why it was wrong to describe the Coast of East Africa as a Zenj Empire

The term Zenj or Azania were words used by the Greeks and Arabs to describe the coastal states in East Africa. These terms meant the land of Black people or the empire of the Black people.

These words (Zenj or Azania) were used by the Greeks and Arabs who conducted trade across the Indian Ocean with the coast of East Africa around 250 B.C. However, the term Zenj Empire was wrongly and incorrectly used to describe the coastal stales during that time.

What every reasonable historian should have in mind is that there had never been an empire at the coast of East Africa before the coming of the Portuguese.

The coast of East Africa had many independent states each under its own king or sultan. Each coastal state lived an independent life.

The coastal states always rivalled and fought each other because of the need to monopolise trade e.g. Malindi clashed with Mombosa quite often.

By AD 1000 there were many races that lived along the coast not only Blacks as the Greeks and Arabs want to deceive the world!

The first empire along the coast of East Africa started in the sixteenth century under the Portuguese and it was never a black empire. It was a multiracial empire.

After A.D1000 more Arabs, Persians, Greeks, Indonesians and Blacks lived at the coast.

Although some Arabs and Persians came as refugees, by the Eleventh century they had permanently established themselves along the coast and became the coastal race.   

Stronger states such as Kilwa controlled Pemba, Sofala and Zanzibar as her vassal states. Therefore Kilwa's imperial tendency disapproves the Greek and Arab assertion about the East African Coast being a Zenj Empire. Similarly the Galla and the Somalis (coastal inhabitants) were not pure Blacks.

The Way of Life of the Coastal People Before A.D. 1500

By 1500 AD, the East African Coastal areas had developed a highly civilised social, political and economic organisation that enabled them to operate independently.

Political Organization

Politically, towns were mainly built on the islands and some strategic places on the mainland for defensive purposes.

Secondly, most cities were fortified for security reasons against external attacks.

Thirdly, there was fierce rivalry among coastal states in order for the powerful states to control weak ones.

Most of them were politically unstable. Rulers of coastal towns were always referred to as Sultans.

The Sultans ruled in accordance with the Islamic code of public moral conduct. The quad was in-charge of law courts and the Islamic system of law.

 Economic organisation

The way of life was mercantile. It involved both internal and external trade. Internal trade involved sale of locally made goods such as salt, iron tools and food stuffs while external trade involved exchange of slaves, ivory with other foreigners across the Indian ocean.

Cowrie shells were used as the medium of exchange. Sometimes barter trade was used.

Agriculture was also important along the coast of East Africa. People grew bananas, coconuts, oranges, lemons, fruits and vegetables.

Livestock in terms of cattle, goats, fat tailed sheep and poultry were raised.

Cotton weaving was the biggest craft industry. Other crafts included curving bones, precious metals, pottery, shipbuilding and repairs.

Social organisation

Most people were islamised. Moslem fasts and feasts were highly observed. They built mosques to worship in and stone monuments to commemorate the dead. Some communities practised traditional religion and observed Pagan customs and culture.

Intermarriages between local Bantu natives and Asiatic immigrants led the emergence of Swahili people and culture.

With time, Swahili replaced Arabic as the most important written and spoken language.

The rich people wore robes velvet; silk and gold thread and they eat from bowls and plates of porcelain.

They also wore fascinating luxuries of glassware and beads for both arms and legs. The poor people dwelt in simple huts and earned their living by farming.

Most buildings and mosques were built in Arabian and Persian styles that is houses were usually of stone and mortar and with large windows and flat tops. The rich people believed in slavery-slaves were for domestic work and as a symbol of prestige.