Today i came across alot of info on Mombasa,i think it is misleading to credit Arabs or Islam as the original creators of Mombasa.
To cut long story short,Mombasa is on the African continent,there must have been African settlements along that coast,Arabism or Islam is not traditionally African but adopted.rfully
But the big point is,it is not disputed Mombasa was attacked several times and even burned to the ground by invaders seeking to control it,do you still expect anything African to be left standing?But of course the various Swahili dialects have survived and even borrowed afew words,no swahili dialect in the arab world except swahili speakers who trace their origins to the east coast of africa.That alone is the biggest evidence.
So Shujaa ni Mwana Mkisi (ancestor of the lineages under Thenashara Taifa),the original establishment was called Kongowea,an urban settlement around 900 AD
“Kongowea belongs to mwana mkisi,mvita is the ancient city
do not exceed its bounds,but tread carefully therein
cast down your head,and do not look straight,with your eyes
wide open-it is an abyss of deep gloom;even those who are well informed
comprehend it not”
that is an ancient swahili poem translated to english,to this day i think it sounds as a warning to those trying to erase Mwana Mkisi
How the mighty have fallen. It’s now just a dusty old town with a mass of humanity stuck between the sea and a bone dry plateau. Now I see things clearly.
The origins will be a moot subject, because very sooner than you might think, Mombasa will be no longer there. @Meria Mata and several kalumanziras predicted that the island will sink into the deepest of the depths of the ocean in exactly 50 years time. Today is the 4th year kwa hivyo bado 46 years… and so we are counting.
Si ni mijikenda ndo wenye kiwanja? Mwanamkisi and the 12 tribes occupied present day kongowea.The bantu speakers, Bajunis settled on the kenyan coast after being persecuted by the worias ,they influenced the other tribes in farming,ship building,housing,they spoke a dialect of swahili and with the infusion of the “kikongo” from kisi ‘the holy one’.,a new language was born and so was the mombasa people. Fewer than 10k bajunis reside in somalia islands in fear of being kicked out
:DNyamazisha mkundu firimbi. Peleka usenge mbali na mimi. Tabia za mwanaume kufuata mwanaume mwenzake nyuma si fiti aiseh sina boot yakufunguliwa:D:D:D:D
Maybe youre right.
Besides the religious displaced arabs of 700AD the iranians and jordainans visited coast in 6,9&10th century,the wave of arab traders came in 1100"s, Islam was introduced in 1800’s . Africa coast was inhabitable by foreigners,diseases and wars detered them from staying.Bantus were there,predominantly from somalia down to sataafrika
most african historical successess are credited to arabs and europeans…for all i know , the pyramids and the kenyan coast existed before arabs landed …
The coast region was inhabited by the bantu speaking mijikenda people,the Arabs were the second inhabitants.they intermarried with the local mijikenda to give rise to the now Swahili people.
No.
Mijikenda settled in the range lands behind the coastal strip.
Not on the coastal strip itself until very recently.
That is why not a single Mijikenda Kaya is in the coastal plains but in places like Kaloleni.
However the strip is very narrow at Mombasa, that is why Ribe and Rabai are very close to rhe city but both are at the point where the Strip ends
Secondly the Mijikenda arrived long after the establishment of Mombasa, Lamu and Pate.
Just because it was on the African continent does not mean
1.The place was settled
Much of the continent was actually quite empty and unclaimed well into the colonial era, especially East and Southern Africa.
2.That the people were necessarily African.
Coastal regions of many parts of the world have often not had the same people as the interior.
Mombasa as a town came forth at around 900-1300 AD which means long after the Arabs had established themselves as the city has had Arab traders visiting since the fleeing of refugees from Arabia as a result of religious wars in the 700s.
Given that Lamu, which is far older than Mombasa having been around as early as 325 to 100 B. C. when Kenyan Bantus had yet to cross into present day Tanzania, had people, those ones were definitely not Africans(There were Southern Cushites Nearby but none of the communities was and still are not advanced that is the Boni) . The arrival of the Bantus in Lamu is actually well documented by the Arabs an Shirazi (Sunni Iranians) and so is the back migration from Shungwaya
Now that is not to say Mwana Mkisi did not exist. Perhaps She did, but by the time she established herself, Mombasa was already forming on the other side of the Old Harbor. There is no trace of any Pre - Islamic settlements in Mombasa attributed to Africans. The very first were Arab ones.
Shehe Mvita is considered to be a true Swahili because literally the 12 nations actually descend from him, but it is also important to note that he was part Arab, so basically the Swahili nation emerged after Arab settlement in Mombasa.