The complete history of Brava (Barawa) ca. 1000-1900: a Swahili enclave in southern Somalia

Journal of African cities: chapter 11

Tucked along the southern coast of Somalia, the old city of Brava preserves the remains of a once bustling cosmopolitan enclave whose influence features prominently in the history of the East African coast.

Located more than 500 km north of the Swahili heartland, Brava retained a unique urban society whose language, architecture and culture distinguished it from its immediate hinterland. Its inhabitants spoke a dialect of Swahili called Chimiini, and organised themselves in an oligarchic republic typical of other Swahili cities. They cultivated commercial and political ties with societies across the Indian ocean world and the African mainland, mediating exchanges between disparate communities along the Swahili coast.

This article explores the history of Brava and examines its place in the Swahili world between the 11th and 19th century.

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The early history of Brava until the 15th century.

Archeological and Linguistic evidence for the early history of Brava indicates that it was part of the broader cultural developments occurring in the iron-age communities of the East African coast during the 1st millennium. These coastal settlements developed a distinct culture marked by mixed farming, commercial ties with the Indian Ocean and African interior, a gradual conversion to Islam, and a common material culture epitomized by local ceramics.

Discoveries of 'kwale'-type wares in the ruins of a rubble and lime house just outside Brava, indicate links with settlements further south in East Africa that are dated to the 3rd-5th century. More archeological surveys in Brava uncovered imported glazed pottery from the 9th century as well as a funerary inscription dated to 1104 and a mosque inscription dated to 1398, making Brava contemporaneous with the early settlements at Pate, Kilwa, Shanga, and Unguja Ukuu.¹

Such material culture characterizes the oldest settlements of the Sabaki-speakers of the Bantu-language family such as the Swahili, kiBajuni, and Comorian languages, thus indicating their presence in Brava and southern Somalia at the turn of the 2nd millennium. But as a consequence of its relative isolation from other Swahili centers, the Chimiini language also contains “archaic” Swahili vocabulary that was lost in other dialects, and it also includes some loan words from the Tunni-Somali language. ²

Documentary evidence of Brava begins in the 12th century, with Al-Idrisi's description of the east African coast that includes a brief mention of the town of ‘Barua’ or ‘Maruwa’ which is usually identified as Barawa.³ He describes it as “the last in the land of the infidels, who have no religious creed but take standing stones, anoint them with fish oil and bow down before them.” Considering the discovery of Islamic inscriptions from a mosque at Brava that are dated to 1105, and the fact that Al-Idrisi never visited the city, this description likely refers to the mixed society characteristic of Swahili cities in which traditional religions and practices continued to exist alongside Islam⁴.

Mosque with well outside the walls in Brava, ca. 1889, archivio fotografico -Italy.

Mosque in the interior of Brava, ca. 1889, archivio fotografico

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A more detailed description of Brava is provided in Yemeni sources of the Rasulid era in the 14th century, where one Qadi describes Barāwa (Brava) as a "small locality" near Mogadishu, adding that “There is an anchorage sought by boats from India and from each small city of Sawāḥil,” making Brava an important stop-point for the Swahili's transshipment trade directed towards Yemeni city of Aden.⁵ The importance of Brava in the Swahili world is corroborated by its mention in the 16th century Chronicle of Kilwa as one of the first cities to emerge along the coast, as well as its later ‘conquest’ by the city of Pate in the 14th century, which is mentioned in the Pate chronicle.⁶

While Brava wasn’t one of the Swahili cities and other East African kingdoms that sent envoys to Song-dynasty China, the city was visited during three of the voyages of Zheng He, a 15th century Ming-dynasty official. The two exchanged envoys during the time between his third and seventh voyages (1409-1433), with Zheng He being offered camels and ostriches as ‘tribute’. The latter’s companion, Fei Xin, described the people of Brava as honest.⁷

A later Portuguese account from the mid-16th century describes Brava as "well walled, and built of good houses of stone and whitewash". Adding that Brava didn't have a king but was instead ruled as an Oligarchic republic, "governed by its elders, they being honoured and respectable persons." This is a similar structure to other Swahili cities like Lamu, Mombasa, Tumbatu, and the island of Ngazidja that were governed by a council of patricians (waungwana). Brava had been sacked by the Portuguese in 1506, and those who escaped "fled into the country" only returning after the Portuguese had left.⁸

Terraces in Brava, ca. 1891, archivio fotografico

end of Brava’s city wall at the beach, ca. 1891, archivio fotografico

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Brava from the 16th to the 18th century

From their base in Malindi, and later at Mombasa, the Portuguese gradually brought parts of the Swahili coast under their control, but Brava remained mostly independent, despite briefly pledging allegiance in 1529.⁹ Near the end of the century, Oromo-speakers arrived in parts of Southern Somalia and northern Kenya, compelling some of Brava's hinterland partners such as the Majikenda, to move southwards. This disruption didn’t alter pre-existing patterns of trade, but reinvigorated the ivory trade between the mainland and the coast.¹⁰

At the turn of the 17th century, the city of Pate in the Lamu archipelago emerged as a most powerful Swahili city, rivaling the Portuguese at Mombasa and bringing Brava into its political orbit. This was partly enabled by Pate's development of trade routes into Yemen and the Hejaz, as well as the arrival and acculturation of individual families of Hadrami-Sharifs, and Hatimi, these were merchant-scholars who counterbalanced Portuguese influence.¹¹

Portuguese accounts of the 17th and 18th centuries often differentiated between the "Mouros da terra" (the native Muslims, ie; Swahili) and the "Mouros de Arabia" (Arab Muslims), often identifying them by the differences in language but attimes by skin color.¹² Dutch and French accounts of the 18th century used the word ‘Moor’ to refer to speakers of the language of the coast (Swahili) as well as the recently arrived immigrants from southern Arabia and the Hejaz, in contrast to the 'Arabs' who were from Oman.¹³

However, local constructions of identities in Brava were likely far more complex, as in the urban settlements on the Swahili coast. All immigrant groups —whether they were from the sea, the coast, or the mainland— were often acculturated into the more dominant Swahili-speaking society through matrimonial alliances, knowledge of the Chimiini dialect, and identifying themselves with individual localities, lineages, and cities, even as they retained prestigious claims of foreign ancestry.¹⁴

For example, the chronicle of Pate chronicle mentions a section of Brava's residents called waBarawa (people from Barawa) some of whom traced their origins to the Hatimi, who apparently originated from Andalusia (Spain), before they settled in Pate during the reign of its king Bwana Mkuu (1586-1601) and are said to have “brought many goods” with them.¹⁵

In Brava, These Hatimi married into established local families and began to speak Chimiini as their first language, and some sections of this mixed Bravanese population (attimes called Haramani/Aramani) then migrated further south to the city of Kunduchi, to Mafia Island and to the Mrima coast opposite Zanzibar where they left inscriptions with the nisba (a name indicating a place of origin) of al-Barawi. Some also adopted the al-Shirazi nisba common among the elite families of the region at Kilwa and Zanzibar in a pattern of population movements and intermarriage characteristic of the Swahili world.¹⁶

Inscribed grave and pillar tomb in the ruined city of Kunduchi, Tanzania

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A report by the Pate sultan to the Portuguese viceroy in 1729 mentions that merchants from Pate sold most of the white and black dhoti (a type of Indian and Local cloth) in Brava in exchange for ivory brought over from the interior by the Oromo. Adding that ships sailed directly from Surat (India) to Brava to avoid Omani-Arab interference further south.¹⁷ During the same period, envoys from Barawa arrived in Pate to offer the vassalage of their town, hoping for protection from the Oromo.¹⁸

Pate had developed a substantial trade with the Indian cities under Portuguese control such as Surat, and the "shipowners of Barawe" reportedly financed each army with a local ship loaded with ivory for Surat.¹⁹ In 1744 Brava and other Swahili cities refused to recognize the sultan of Oman, Ahmed bin Said, who claimed to be suzerain of the Swahili cities after his predecessors had expelled the Portuguese. His brother, Saif, later traveled to the Swahili coast to collect the support of Brava, among other cities, which "appear to have submitted to him" although this was temporary.²⁰In 1770, Brava hosted a deposed Pate sultan named Umar who led a rebellion against the reigning Queen Mwana Khadija.²¹

In 1776, a Dutch visitor accompanied by his Comorian interpreter and other Swahili pilots stayed two months in Brava. The Comorian described Brava as "the last safe anchorage" before Mecca and that all the ships that went from Zanzibar and Pate to Mecca and Surat anchored at Brava.

Brava was "ruled" by a 'duke' named Tjehamadi who exchanged gifts with the Dutch, and said that he was on "friendly footing with the King of Pate”. Tjehamadi also warned the Dutch that Pate’s king had received information from Mogadishu about a European shipwreck off the coast of Mogadishu, whose entire crew was killed and its goods were taken. The Swahili pilots had also warned the Dutch to avoid Mogadishu, which they said was inhabited by "Arabs and a gathering of evil natives" and that no Moorish or European ships went there.²²

In the later years, Barawa is mentioned in the account of a French trader Morice, along with other Swahili cities, as an independent kingdom governed by Moors (native Muslims) who had expelled the Arabs (Omanis).

During his stay on the Swahili coast from 1776-1784, he observed that there were four small anchorages for small ships along the coastline between Pate and Brava, which were controlled by a group who "do not allow even the Moors or the Arabs to go to them, although they themselves come to Zanzibar." He describes this group as different from the Swahili, Arabs, and the people of the East African mainland, indicating that they were Somali.²³

Old structure near the beach at Brava, ca. 1899, archivio fotografico. This could be a mosque, studies at Kilwa and Songo Mnara indicate that such Mosques near the coast would have aided navigation.²⁴

an isolated tower near Brava, ca. 1899, archivio fotografico. This tower was built about 3km from the shore, possibly by the Portuguese, most European visitors complained about Brava’s surf-battered beaches which prevented large ships from approaching it directly

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Brava in the 19th century

The above descriptions of Brava's hinterland by the Dutch and French traders likely refer to the ascendancy of the Tunni clan of the Somali-speaking groups who became important in the Brava’s social landscape and politics during the 19th century, further accentuating Brava's cosmopolitan character.

The different communities in Brava, which appear in the city's internal records between 1893-1900, included not just the Baravanese-Swahili (known as the Bida/Barawi) and the Hatimi, (these first two groups called themselves ‘waungwana’ and “Waantu wa Miini” ie: people of Brava), but also the Tunni-Somali (about 2,000 of the total city population of 4-5,000). Added to this were a few families of Sharifs and later immigrants such as Hadramis and Baluchis, as well as itinerant European and Indian merchants. All groups gradually achieved a remarkable balance of power and a community of interests that led to a sustained peaceful coexistence.²⁵

While the city is of considerable antiquity, many of its surviving buildings in the old town appear to have been constructed during the early 19th century ontop of older ruins. The older town, often comprising two-story houses built with coral stone and rag, with lime-plastered walls, decorated niches, and carved doors, is bounded by the Jaama mosque on the sea, the Sarmaadi mosque to the southeast, and the Abu Bah Sissiq mosque to the northeast.²⁶

An early 19th-century account by a visiting British naval officer indicates that Brava remained in the political orbit of Pate despite the latter’s decline.²⁷ However, the city itself was still governed by a council of elders who in the late 19th century numbered 7 councilors, of whom five were now Tunni, while the other two were Barawi and Hatimi, reflecting the city's military dependence on the Tunni-Somali for defense against neighboring groups.²⁸

Brava was one of the major outlets for ivory, aromatic woods, gum, and myrrh and was a destination for captives that were brought overland from Luqq/Lugh and across the sea from the Mrima coast.²⁹ The city exported hides to American and German traders at sea, and had a lively real-estate market with the waungwana selling and buying land and houses in the city. The city's business was mostly handled by the Barawi, Hatimi, and the Sharifs, while the sailors who carried Brava’s goods to Zanzibar and elsewhere were mostly Bajuni (another Bantu-speaking group related to the Swahili) and Omani-Arabs. ³⁰

Exterior and interior of two houses belonging to wealthy figures in Brava. photos from 1891, and 1985.

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Brava, like many of the East African coastal cities, later came to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Oman sultan at Muscat and Zanzibar, and the sultan sent a governor to the city in 1837. However, his authority was mostly nominal, especially in southern Somalia, where the Geledi sultan Yusuf was said to be in control over much of the hinterland just ten years later. In practice, effective authority within the city remained with the elders of Brava who switched their vassalage depending on the region’s political landscape.³¹

In 1846, a French visitor found that the Zanzibar-appointed governor of Brava was a Tunni named Haji Awisa, who was wearing “le costume des Souahhéli de distinction” (the costume of a Swahili of distinction). His son Sheikh Faqi was chosen by the council to be the spokesperson of Brava in Zanzibar, while the leader of the Tunni confederation; Haji Abdio bin Shego Hassan played an important role in the city's politics, and his sons purchased houses in the city, although some of Brava’s Tunni elites sold these properties during the local economic depression of the late 19th-century caused by the rinderpest epidemic that was introduced by the Italians.³²

Brava became a major center of Sufi scholarship in southern Somalia, closely linked with the scholarly community of Zanzibar, the Hejaz and Yemen. It produced prominent scholars like Muhyi ad-Din (1794-1869), Uways al-Barawi (1806-1909), Qassim al-Barawi (1878–1922) , Abdu’l-Aziz al-Amawy (1834-96), Nur Haji Abdulkadir (1881–1959), and the renowned woman-scholar Dada Masiti (c.1820–1919). Many of Brava’s scholars traveled widely and were influential across East Africa, some became prominent qadis in Lamu, Mombasa and Zanzibar, where they continued to write works in Chimiini, and the local Swahili dialects as well as Arabic.³³

Many of Brava's manuscripts (mostly poems) were written in both Arabic and the Bantu-language of Chimiini, not just by the Bravanese-Swahili who spoke it as their first language, but also by resident Tunni scholars who used it as their second language. Such include; Uways al-Barawi —who besides composing poems in Chimiini and Arabic, also devised a system of writing the Somali language in Arabic script— and Nur Haji Abdulkadir —who was one of the most prolific writers of religious poetry in Chimiini.³⁴

In the late 19th century, Barava's scholars who followed the Qadiriyya tariqa produced didactic and didascalic poetry in Chimiini, in response to the intrusion of more fundamentalist schools from Arabia and European colonialists. The poetry was part of an intellectual movement and served as an anti-colonial strategy in Brava, contrasting with the inhabitants of Merca who chose to fight the Italians, and those of Mogadishu, who chose to leave the city. It also reaffirmed Qadiriyya religious practices, encouraged the rapid spread of Islam among the non-waungwana and linked Brava's scholarly community closer with Zanzibar's scholars.³⁵

While external visitors often remarked that Swahili scholars preferred to write in Swahili rather than Arabic, which they read but didn't often write, Brava’s scholars were noted for their proficiency in writing both languages. The Brava-born scholar (and later Mombasa qadi) Muhyi al-Din was in the 1840s commissioned by the German visitor Johann Ludwig Krapf to translate the first book of Moses from Arabic to Swahili. He also served at the courts of the Omani sultan of Zanzibar as a mediator between the established elites and the Omanis.³⁶

folios from two 19th century manuscripts written in Chimiini by Qassim b. Muhyi al-Din al-Barawi (1878–1922). First is Nakaanza khṯuunga marjaani (I start stringing coral beads). second is Hamziyyah, Jisi gani khpaandra mitume anbiya (Hamziyyah or How could the other prophets rise)³⁷

In response to an attempted invasion by a Majerteen force from Kismayo in 1868, the people of Brava allied with the sultan of Geledi Ahmed Yusuf and pushed back the invaders. In 1875, Brava briefly submitted to the Khedive of Egypt when the latter's troops landed in the region but reverted to local control the following year after the Egyptians left. The Zanzibar sultan regained control and constructed a fort in the city, but would ultimately cede his suzerainty to an Italian company in 1893, which maintained a small presence in the city until 1908 when Brava formally became part of the colony of Somalia Italiana.³⁸

Over the first decades of the twentieth century, political changes in Somalia resulted in the increased importance of Mogadishu and Merka while Brava consequently declined. By 1950 most of Barawa's older houses, close to the shore, had fallen into disrepair and many of them had been vacated by the families that owned them. With just 10-20,000 speakers of Chimiini left in the 1990s, the language is in serious decline, so too is the knowledge of Brava's contribution to African history.

Brava from beach, ca. 1899, Luigi Robecchi

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The secluded harbors of Madagascar’s northeastern coast were a refuge for European pirates whose interactions with their Malagasy hosts influenced the emergence of the kingdom of Betsimisaraka.

read more about this fascinating chapter of African states and European pirates here:

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1. An Archaeological Reconnaissance in the Horn by N Chittick pg 120-122, Settlement Patterns of the Coast of Southern Somalia and Kenya by T.H. Wilson pg 103, The Swahili world edited by Stephanie Wynne-Jones pg 366

2. The Swahili: Reconstructing the History and Language of an African Society By Derek Nurse, Thomas Spear pg 54, 58, Swahili and Sabaki: A Linguistic History By Derek Nurse, Thomas J. Hinnebusch, Gérard Philipson pg 725, Kenya's Past: An Introduction to Historical Method in Africa by Thomas T. Spear pg 56)

3. Swahili Origins: Swahili Culture & the Shungwaya Phenomenon By James De Vere Allen pg 71)

4. Primitive Islam and Architecture in East Africa by Mark Horton pg 103, n.7, Historic Mosques in Sub-Saharan Africa: From Timbuktu to Zanzibar By Stéphane Pradines pg 152

5. L’Arabie marchande: État et commerce sous les sultans rasūlides du Yémen, chapter9, prg 31.

6. Swahili Origins: Swahili Culture & the Shungwaya Phenomenon By James De Vere Allen pg 117, Horn and Crescent: Cultural Change and Traditional Islam on the East African coast By Randall L. Pouwels pg 36, The Pate Chronicle edited by Marina Tolmacheva pg 48

7. A History of Overseas Chinese in Africa to 1911 By Anshan Li pg 39-48, Zheng He: China’s Greatest Explorer, Mariner, and Navigator By Corona Brezina pg 71

8. A Description of the Coasts of East Africa and Malabar, Hakluyt Society, 1866, pg 15, The Swahili: Reconstructing the History and Language of an African Society By Derek Nurse, Thomas Spear pg 85

9. Les cités-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamu, 1585-1810: dynamiques endogènes, dynamiques exogènes by Thomas Vernet pg 84)

10. Swahili and Sabaki: A Linguistic History By Derek Nurse, Thomas J. Hinnebusch, Gérard Philipson pg 492, 496, Les cités-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamu, 1585-1810: dynamiques endogènes, dynamiques exogènes by Thomas Vernet pg 140, n. 184)

11. Les cités-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamu, 1585-1810: dynamiques endogènes, dynamiques exogènes by Thomas Vernet pg 159-160)

12. Les cités-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamu, 1585-1810: dynamiques endogènes, dynamiques exogènes by Thomas Vernet pg 196, 168, n.44, 177, n.80)

13. The Dutch on the Swahili Coast, 1776-1778 by R. Ross, pg 322-323, 333, The French at Kilwa Island: An Episode in Eighteenth-century East African History by Parker Freeman-Grenville pg 11-12

14. Translocal Connections across the Indian Ocean: Swahili Speaking Networks on the Move by Francesca Declich pg 54-65

15. The Pate Chronicle edited by Marina Tolmacheva pg 64-65, 259)

16. Translocal Connections across the Indian Ocean: Swahili Speaking Networks on the Move by Francesca Declich pg 18, 55 n.24, The Swahili Coast, 2nd to 19th Centuries: Islam, Christianity and Commerce in Eastern Africa by Greville Stewart Parker Freeman-Grenville pg 147, East Africa and the Orient: Cultural Syntheses in Pre-colonial Times pg 41.Swahili Origins: Swahili Culture & the Shungwaya Phenomenon By James De Vere Allen pg 216, 218, 233. Writing in Swahili on Stone and on Paper by Ann Biersteker

17. Arabian Seas By Rene J. Barendse 1700-1763, pg 187, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa By Edward A. Alpers pg 91, Les cités-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamu, 1585-1810: dynamiques endogènes, dynamiques exogènes by Thomas Vernet pg 146)

18. Barawa, the coastal town in southern Somalia by Hilary Costa Sanseverino pg 18)

19. Les cités-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamu, 1585-1810: dynamiques endogènes, dynamiques exogènes by Thomas Vernet pg 153)

20. Tanganyika Notes and Records, Issues 1-5, pg 77, The French at Kilwa Island: An Episode in Eighteenth-century East African History by Parker Freeman-Grenville pg 216)

21. The Pate Chronicle edited by Marina Tolmacheva pg 76-77)

22. The Dutch on the Swahili Coast, 1776-1778 by R. Ross pg 343-346)

23. The French at Kilwa Island: An Episode in Eighteenth-century East African History by Parker Freeman-Grenville pg 11-12, 122, 141, )

24. Inter-Tidal Causeways and Platforms of the 13th- to 16th-Century City-State of Kilwa Kisiwani, Tanzania Edward Pollard pg 109, Beyond the Stone Town: Maritime Architecture at Fourteenth–Fifteenth Century Songo Mnara, Tanzania by Edward Pollard pg 52,

25. Translocal Connections Across the Indian Ocean: Swahili Speaking Networks on the Move by Francesca Declich pg 53-57)

26. Barawa, the coastal town in southern Somalia by Hilary Costa Sanseverino pg 18-22.

27. Lamu in the Nineteenth Century: Land, Trade, and Politics by Marguerite Ylvisaker pg 38-39)

28. Translocal Connections Across the Indian Ocean: Swahili Speaking Networks on the Move by Francesca Declich pg 58)

29. Translocal Connections Across the Indian Ocean: Swahili Speaking Networks on the Move by Francesca Declich pg 94-105)

30. Barawa, the coastal town in southern Somalia by Hilary Costa Sanseverino pg 18, The Swahili Coast: Politics, Diplomacy and Trade on the East African Littoral, 1798-1856 by Christine Stephanie Nicholls pg 366, Translocal Connections Across the Indian Ocean: Swahili Speaking Networks on the Move by Francesca Declich pg 66, )

31. The Swahili Coast: Politics, Diplomacy and Trade on the East African Littoral, 1798-1856 by Christine Stephanie Nicholls pg 188, 297-230,

32. Translocal Connections Across the Indian Ocean: Swahili Speaking Networks on the Move by Francesca Declich pg 59-60, 66-67)

33. Translocal Connections Across the Indian Ocean: Swahili Speaking Networks on the Move by Francesca Declich pg pg 78-79, 83-89, Horn and Crescent: Cultural Change and Traditional Islam on the East African coast By Randall L. Pouwels pg 141-143, Islamic scholarship in Africa: new directions and global contexts Edited by Ousmane Oumar Kane 326-334

34. Translocal Connections Across the Indian Ocean: Swahili Speaking Networks on the Move by Francesca Declich 64, 'Stringing Coral Beads': The Religious Poetry of Brava by Alessandra Vianello

35. Translocal Connections Across the Indian Ocean: Swahili Speaking Networks on the Move by Francesca Declich pg 72-78, 81-83)

36. The Swahili Coast: Politics, Diplomacy and Trade on the East African Littoral, 1798-1856 by Christine Stephanie Nicholls pg 71, Horn and Crescent: Cultural Change and Traditional Islam on the East African coast By Randall L. Pouwels pg 142

37. photos by Alessandra Vianello

38. Lamu in the Nineteenth Century: Land, Trade, and Politics by Marguerite Ylvisaker pg 97-101, Barawa, the coastal town in southern Somalia by Hilary Costa Sanseverino pg 18, 'Stringing Coral Beads': The Religious Poetry of Brava by Alessandra Vianello pg 9