Kilwa Chronicle
Language(s)Arabic

The Kilwa Chronicle is a text, believed to be based on oral tradition, which describes the origins of the Swahili city-state of Kilwa, 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.[1] Subsequent ancient DNA[2] studies have confirmed much of the basis of these stories to be true.[3]

Two sources of the Chronicle exist: the Kitāb al-Sulwa in Arabic and a Portuguese version that is a section of the book Décadas da Ásia by the historian João de Barros. [1] The genealogical account is similar in both versions but other details vary substantially.[1]

Sources

References

  1. ^ a b c Delmas, Adrien (2017). "Writing in Africa: The Kilwa Chronicle and other Sixteenth-Century Portuguese Testimonies". In Brigaglia, Andrea; Nobili, Mauro (eds.). The Arts and Crafts of Literacy: Islamic Manuscript Cultures in Sub-Saharan Africa. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. p. 189. ISBN 9783110541441. OCLC 1075040220.
  2. ^ 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. 615 (7954): 866–873. Bibcode:2023Natur.615..866B. doi:10.1038/s41586-023-05754-w. ISSN 1476-4687. PMC 10060156. PMID 36991187.
  3. ^ Kusimba, Chapurukha; Reich, David. "Ancient DNA is restoring the origin story of the Swahili people of the East African coast". The Conversation. Retrieved March 31, 2023.


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