Kilwa Chronicle Explained

Kilwa Chronicle
Language(S):	Arabic

The Kilwa Chronicle is a text, believed to be based on oral tradition, that describes the origins of the Swahili city-state of Kilwa, located on an Indian Ocean island near the East African coast. It recounts the genealogy of the rulers of the Kilwa Sultanate, following the foundation of the city by Persians from Shiraz and Hormuz in the tenth century until the arrival of the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. Subsequent ancient DNA^[1] studies have confirmed much of the basis of these stories to be true.^[2] However, even with the DNA studies, some have said that these works were modified for political gain. ^[3]

Two sources of the Chronicle exist: the in Arabic and a Portuguese version that is a section of the book Portuguese: Décadas da Ásia by the historian João de Barros.^[4] The genealogical account is similar in both versions, but other details vary substantially.^[4]

Sources

• João de Barros (1552) Portuguese: Décadas da Ásia: Dos feitos, que os Portuguezes fizeram no descubrimento, e conquista, dos mares, e terras do Oriente., Dec. I, Lib. 8, Cap. 6 (p. 223ff)
• Strong, S. Arthur (1895) "The History of Kilwa, edited from an Arabic MS", Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, January (No volume number), pp. 385–431. online

Notes and References

1. Brielle . Esther S. . Fleisher . Jeffrey . Wynne-Jones . Stephanie . Sirak . Kendra . Broomandkhoshbacht . Nasreen . Callan . Kim . Curtis . Elizabeth . Iliev . Lora . Lawson . Ann Marie . Oppenheimer . Jonas . Qiu . Lijun . Stewardson . Kristin . Workman . J. Noah . Zalzala . Fatma . Ayodo . George . March 2023 . Entwined African and Asian genetic roots of medieval peoples of the Swahili coast . Nature . en . 615 . 7954 . 866–873 . 10.1038/s41586-023-05754-w . 1476-4687 . 10060156 . 36991187. 2023Natur.615..866B .
2. Web site: Kusimba . Chapurukha . Reich . David . Ancient DNA is restoring the origin story of the Swahili people of the East African coast . 2023-03-31 . The Conversation . en.
3. Web site: Who Were the Sultans of the Swahili Culture? . 2024-10-22 . ThoughtCo . en.
4. Book: Delmas , Adrien . Brigaglia. Andrea. Nobili. Mauro. 2017. The Arts and Crafts of Literacy: Islamic Manuscript Cultures in Sub-Saharan Africa. Writing in Africa: The Kilwa Chronicle and other Sixteenth-Century Portuguese Testimonies. De Gruyter. Berlin, Boston. 189. 9783110541441. 1075040220.