The African Dispersal in the Deccan

(1)

(2)

(3)

The African Dispersal

in the Deccan

(4)

Orient Blackswan Private Limited

Registered Office

3-6-752 Himayatnagar, Hyderabad 500 029 (A.P.), INDIA

Other Offices

Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Chennai,

Ernakulam, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, New Delhi, Noida, Patna

e-edition:First Published 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests write to the publisher.

(5)

To my father, R.C. Srivastava

my sisters Ramala and Leela who helped bring me up in such a way as not to feel the loss of my mother

(6)

List of Maps

1. The Rise of the Bahmani Kingdom

2. The Rise and Fall the Nizam Shahi Dominions 3. The Kingdom of Bijapur

4. The Imad Shahi Kingdom of Berar 5. Konkan

(8)

Preface

I was first inspired to write this book when I met Professor Joseph E. Harris from Washington's Howard University. He had come to see me at the Indian Council for Africa and was himself on a research fellowship, hoping to locate data in India on the African presence in Asia. The result was a fine exploratory study on the conditions of the Africans in the nineteenth century. He enthused me with his project, especially when he emphasised the need for Indian professionals to contribute in reconstructing African activities in India.

I was disturbed that we in India, who talked so glibly about Indo-African relations, had done little to unearth the material lying untouched or poorly catalogued in the various libraries and archives of India. We were obsessed by the role of Indian communities in Africa, and generally on the Indian diaspora, vital though it was, in transforming plantation economies and monetising the African economy. But little work has been done on a sustained basis on the African heritage in India. However, the Council's responsibilities left me little time for research of this magnitude.

Again, in 1974, when in Ethiopia, I met Professor Richard Pankhurst of the Haile Selassie University and he presented me with a copy of his manuscript on Indo-Ethiopian relations-it is an exceedingly well-documented study, and I do hope it has been published since then-I felt a twinge of conscience. Now I was free from the Council's work but I needed support. In the meanwhile, I had done a small book India and Afrìca Through the Ages on my own but had not touched on the African migration. I chose the Deccan as the subject of my study as, after Gujarat, Africans were concentrated in large numbers and for a longer period in the area. I drew up a working paper on the 'African Dispersal in the Deccan Region from Medieval to Modern Times' and shared it with the late Dr P.M. Joshi, co-editor of The History of Medieval Deccan, and an eminent historian well into his eighties. Dr. Joshi evinced a childlike enthusiasm for the project and encouraged me to apply for a grant. He gave me some of his published and unpublished papers which were of great use to me. It is a pity he passed away before my project was completed, although he did read and approve a few chapters. However, he put me in touch with Professor A.R. Kulkarni, well-known historian in Pune, who would become my principal consultant. He helped me contact a number of scholars, authorities on the Deccan region, advised me on the places and institutions I should visit and persons I should meet. Whenever I turned to him he was ever willing to help me with patient support and understanding. He translated from the Modi script, helped me with my bibliography and went through my manuscript. To both these two outstanding historians I am deeply indebted. Without their help this work would not have been possible.

In the meanwhile, a two-year modest grant was made available through the kindness of Dr Iqbal Narain, Member-Secretary, Indian Council of Social Science Research. I am deeply grateful for this generous gesture as it enabled me to tour Bombay, Punc, Ahmednagar, Aurangabad, Janjira (Murad) in Maharashtra, Bangalore, Gulbarga, Bidar, Bijapur in Karnataka and Goa, Hyderabad and Madras. But for a project of this magnitude, the grant was insufficient. I was able to complete the study only because of the timely help given to me by Shri S. Nijalingappa, former Chief Minister, Karnataka and one-time President of the Indian National Congress who spoke to Shri Shamanur Shivashavarrappa, his admirer. He generously donated a sum of Rs 20,000 from the Shamanur Savitramma Kallappa

(9)

Trust, Davangere, Karnataka. Shri Sharad Pawar, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, was equally generous by his immediate response in sanctioning another Rs 20,000 from his discretionary fund. But for this assistance, I would not have been able to complete my project. I express my deep gratitude to all who came to my help.

I would also like to express my appreciation to several others who contributed to this book: Shri Mohd. Assadullah, retired Archivist, the Andhra Pradesh State Archives for translating from Persian and Arabic; Fr Tetonia R. De Souza, Director, Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Alto Porvorim, Goa for his hospitality and for permitting me to utilise the very fine library at the Centre. He was good enough to go through my manuscript on Goa; Dr P.P. Shirodkar, Director, Historical Archives of Goa made available valuable material and translated from Portuguese into English, Mr Suresh Joshi, Director, Historical Museum, Ahmednagar, who took me to meet the descendants of Malik Ambar, and Janab A.A. Shaikh, Jakhali Darmaya, for translating from Urdu and Persian; Prof. K.S. Mathew, Department of History, University of Baroda and later Central University of Hyderabad; Shaikh Ramzan, Marathwada University, Aurangabad; Dr S.U. Kamath Editor, Gazetteer of Karnataka State, Bangalore; Shri R. Munswamy, Director. R.Q.S., Bangalore, Dr. S.V. Desika Char retired from the National Archives, New Delhi; and Mr M.A. Jaffar, Secretary, Public Library and Reading Room, Bidar; Shri N. Harinarayan, Director, Madras Museum; Mr Amir Ali, Prince of Arcot, Royapettah, Madras; Mr Krishnamachari, Madras Archives; Mrs Sudha Ravi, of the Hindu; Connemara Library, Madras University; Museum, Fort St. George, Mr M.K. Kulkarni, Librarian, Deccan College, Pune; Mr A.C. Tikckar, University of Bombay; and Mrs Asha Singh, Librarian to ICSSR, Hyderabad; who helped me locate books and guided me to more relevant reading. I would also like to thank Mr and Mrs A.R. Kulkarni for preparing the bibliography; Prof Rama S. Mclkote, Osmania University; Prof. A. Gupta, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; Prof. R.R. Ramchandani, Bombay University; Mr K.C. Nainan, Joint Secretary, Education and Public Relations, Raj Bhavan, Bombay. Many others must remain unmcntioned but I owe them many thanks.

For photographs and maps I am deeply grateful to Prof. A.R. Kulkarni, Pune; Mr Kamat, Bangalore; Fr Tctonia R. De Souza, Goa; Dr P.P. Shirodkar, Director, HAG, Goa, the Andhra Pradesh Government, Late Dr P.V. Rama Rao, Hyderabad; Mr Raza Ali Khan, Hyderabad; Mr Shaikh Ramzan, Marathawada University, Aurangabad; the Archaeological Survey of India, and Banaras Institute, Marg Publications, and Mr K.C. Nainan, Bombay, Joseph E. Harris, Susanne Everett's 'The Slaves' and Museu da Marinha Lison, Department of Archaeology and Museums, Bombay.

For typing of the manuscript I had to turn to several people. I wish to place on record my thanks, particularly for the fine work done by Shri P.V. Baburajan, Hyderabad, and for the final typing of the manuscript by Chandra Hiranandani, Pune. To Dr Jal Mehta, Scrum Institute of India Ltd. Pune, and Mr Naresh Sharma who so generously keycd-in the manuscript on a word processor, I am particularly indebted.

I wish to thank the personnel and the staff of the National Archives of India, New Delhi; the Archives and National Records Office, Elphinstone College, Bombay; University of Bombay Library; Deccan College Library, Pune; Osmania University Library and Salar Jang Library, Hyderabad; Andhra Pradesh State Archives; Historical Archives Goa.

(10)

therefore deeply beholden for the warn hospitality offered to me by the following: Mrs. Mukta and S. Prahlad, Hyderabad; Mr and Mrs A.C. Muthanna, Madras, Mr and Mrs Barun Chanda, Madras; Mr and Mrs S. Moolgaonkar, Lake House, Telco, Pune; Drs Jal and Mehru Mehta, Pune; Begum M. Nusrullah, Bombay, Raj Bhavan, Bombay; Mr Ramakrishna Hegde, former chief Minister of Karnataka who arranged for my stay in Bangalore and enabled me to travel to Bijapur. Last but not least, my dear young friends, Commander Rajeev and Anne Kaushal, Naval Base, Cochin in the quiet and beautiful surroundings of whose house I finalized this manuscript. Their hospitality and deep understanding stood me in very good stead in this difficult task.

I also cannot forget the enduring support I received from my husband for long periods of absence from the house, which my work entailed, and the deep understanding he evinced in my work. I cannot thank him sufficiently.

(11)

List of Abbreviations

AN : Akbar Nama by Abul Fazl, translated by H. Beveridge, Bibliothica

Indica, Asiatic Society, Calcutta, 1897

BM : Burhane-Ma asir by Alib Azizu 1-lah Tabataba translated by Sir

Wolesley Haig.

B.S. : Basatin-us-Salatinby Mirza Ibrahim Zubairi.

Barbosa : The Book of Durate Barbosa ed. by M.L. Dames.

Battuta : Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and Africa (ed.) by H.A.R. Gibbs.

Elliot and Dowson : History of India as Told by Its OwnHistorians by H.M. Elliot and J. Dowson.

FAS : Futuhat-i-Adil Shahi by Fuzuni Astrabadi

Ferishta : History of the Rise of Mohammedan Power in India, translated by John Briggs from the original Persian of Mohammed Kazim Ferishta.

GBP : Gazetteer of Bombay Presidency (ed.) J.M. Campbell, Bombay.

HMD : History of Medieval Deccan Vols. I & II (cds.) by H.K. Sherwani and P.M. Joshi.

House : House ofShivaji by J.N. Sarkar.

KA : The Kingdom of Ahmednagar by Radhey Shyam.

LTMA : Life and Times of Malik Ambar by Radhey Shyam.

MN : Muhammadnamah by Muhammad Zahur.

Orme : Historícal Fragments of Indostan of the Mughal Empire,

Marathasand the English Concerns, by Robert Orme London, 1782.

Pankhurst : An Introduction to the EconomicHistory of Ethiopia, from Early

Times to 1800 by R. Pankhurst.

Pieter Van Dan Broecke : Journal of India History Vol. XI

(12)

Shivaji : Shivaji and His Times by J.N. Sarkar.

Varthema Travels : The Travels of Ludovico di Varthema in Syria, Arabia, Persia,

(13)

Introduction

This study of the African dispersal in the Deccan region covers modern Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, the Coromandel coast and western coastal India.

This choice has been deliberate for a variety of reasons. India, the East African littoral states and the Red Sea region of the continent, and the Arabian Coast, have because of their accessibility to the Indian Ocean, all been subjected to a long history of commercial contact, cultural influences and population movements. The push and pull theory has been very much in evidence, each trading its wares at entrepots and emporia along the Coast. This proved to be an alluring force drawing merchants and adventurers—some voluntary, others by force. Periplus also reports the existence of the slave trade, along the Somali Coast, the northern stretch which the Arabs called Ras-Assir (the Cape of Slaves). The Deccan of Periplus, 'Dachinabades', was known to foreigners from early times for its fabulous wealth.

The selection of the Deccan is of particular interest because of its considerable social relevance. From the very inception of the Bahmani Kingdom(1347), the Africans (Habshis/Abyssinians) have played an active role in the turbulent historical developments. For instance, in the rout of the Delhi army of Tughluq which led to the accession of Hasan Bahmani Shah (1347), it is mentioned that "The whole army now laid down its arms, camels of Bactria, horses of Tartary, female slaves and Abyssinian males by the thousands". 1 These were all captured by the Bahmanis and co-opted into the army.

Later, in the perennial struggle between the 'Dakhnis' and 'Afaqis'—the 'old-comers' and 'new-comers'2— there are references to the 'Habshis' making common cause with the former who were Sunnis domiciled in the Deccan from about the eighth century, against the latter who are Shias mostly from Iran and Iraq. One of the plausible explanations advanced for this alignment, and why Africans were not regarded as foreigners is that they had established themselves in the Deccan long before the Afaqis. Another reason given is that the Africans like the Dakhnis were Sunnis. This gave them considerable leverage in party politics often paralleled with religious affiliations—Shia/Sunni. Further, they had been integrated into Dakhni society and were not looked down upon, and there was no obtrusive racialism on the part of the local people. It was the Afaqis who treated them with contempt,3 thereby strengthening the alignment between the Habshis and the Dakhnis.

The extent of the integrative process in the Deccan is further borne out by the varied roles the 'Habshis' were able to play. Though brought in as slaves (gulams) and also as mercenary warriors

(jangjii), they could, nonetheless, rise to the rank of nobility and hold high office in the Bahmani

kingdom and its successor states: the Nizam Shahis (1498-1634), the Adil Shahis (1500-1650), the Qutb Shahis of Golkonda (1512-1687) followed by the Asif Jahis (1724-1948). This was in recognition of their faithfulness, courage and energy. They were also a factor to reckon with in the politics of these states. Unlike most immigrant minorities, they rarely adopted a defensive posture but participated in developments freely and aggressively, often with a great sense of patriotism. The prolonged period during which the presence of the Habshis was felt in the Deccan region was much

(14)

more significant than that of the Habshis in Gujarat, the Delhi Sultanate, Jaunpur (in Uttar Pradesh) or Bengal.

There is evidence of their acceptance into Hindu society also, the outstanding case being Malik Ambar, who rose from the position of a slave to Regent, the de facto ruler of the Nizamshahi kingdom. As the Gazetteer of Aurangabad (1884) records, it was under his banner that Shahji, father of Shivaji, "laid the foundations of Mahratha greatness". Ambar's achievements were many and it was only after his death that the Mughals could conquer the Deccan.

The 'Siddis' of Janjira, an island near Bombay, managed to remain in effective control for almost two hundred years. They were sought as allies not only by local Indian groups; by the Nizamshahi and the Adil Shahi kingdoms, by the Maharattas, the Mughals, but also by the European merchants and governments: the Dutch, the Portuguese and the English. From 1616 to 1769 they emerged as prominent and successful naval guardians of the north western coast of India and were sailing throughout the Indian waters.

In more recent times, the Africans who arrived in Hyderabad, Deccan, apart from playing their traditional role as bonded guards and servants, were recruited to the Nizam's private bodyguard. The Siddi Risala (African Regiment) was retained until 1948. Other Siddis were elevated to the status of

khanazahs (proteges) and became trusted advisers of the Nizams. The Siddis in Hyderabad continued

to retain certain aspects of their culture—musical instruments, folk songs, dances, until the police action in Hyderabad in 1948 when the Nizam was removed from power. The few remaining Siddis have since than declined precipitously in their social and economic status and now live in utter poverty.

In Karnataka there are African Christians, Hindus and Muslims as well. These people have adopted the local language and customs but have retained a distinctive identity. They play only a marginal role in economics and politics and continue to live in relative poverty.

The other aspect of the African dispersal in India which merits attention is the migratory patterns of immigration. This is relevant in the context of contemporary scholarship that avoids sweeping generalizations of slaves under the derogatory nomenclature 'Habshi'/'Abyssinians'. The emphasis on the term 'Abyssinian' may partly be due to the fact that the institution of slavery was long recognised by the Fetha Nagast, the Ethiopian code, which was partly based on Mosaic law, and which sanctioned the taking of slaves from among unbelievers. That slaves were being transported to Asia from other regions of Africa is now fairly well established. Gregory points to the ninth century listing in Al Jabari to differentiate between the East Africans (Zanj), who provided the vast majority of Mesopotamian slaves, the Nuba or Nilotic slaves, and the Furatiyya and Qarmatiyya of Negroid stock during the spectacular slave revolt. 4 Gervase Mathew indicates that the slave trade from the southern region was probably a constant factor on the East African coast between AD 1000 and 1498. In medieval Gujarat and Deccan, he believes, most of the slaves came from the area of present day Tanzania. In Goa before the arrival of the Portuguese, European travellers describe the presence of the 'Abyssinians'. Under the Portuguese who already administered Mozambique, Diu and Goa were developed as slave ports and while the British seized and liberated African slaves on Arab dhows, they did not take such direct action against the Portuguese. These, slaves or coffrees were mainly from Mozambique, although the Portuguese also seized African

(15)

4 The African Dispersal in the Deccan

slaves when they defeated the Muscat Arabs in Diu in 1670. Finally a distinction needs to be drawn between the terms 'Habshi' and 'Siddi', commonly used to refer to Africans in Asian history. 'Habshi' came to be used to refer to slaves from the Red Sea region, while 'Siddi' applied to those slaves from the southern region of Arabia. The Portuguese and French also utilised slaves from East Africa and the French bought Africans from Goan agents in India.

The English were also not lagging behind as the struggle for the Coromandel Coast shows. Much of the European demand for slaves in the nineteenth century was met in East Africa for their plantation economies till 1873. The British were then faced with the problem of manumitted slaves. In Arabia and the East Africa coast the majority of them opted to stay on with their erstwhile masters. The remaining ones, it was suggested, could be provided possible homes in India. This was however rejected outright by the Bombay authorities who argued that India had itself become an exporter of labour and could not absorb Africans. Still some were rehabilitated and others later returned to Africa.

In India, a relatively liberal society which absorbed foreigners into its midst, provided the means of facilitating inter-marriage between the Africans and the local people. Commenting on the apparently increasing numbers of Habshis in the Deccan, Robert Orme notes: "Their first marriages were with natives of India, and afterwards among their own families, which preserving the nationality, in time formed a numerous community, distinct in figure, colour and character from all other races of Mohammedans; which nevertheless could not have subsisted, if the body of the people amongst whom they had intruded had been, as themselves, Mohammedans".5 Inter-marriage, no doubt, accounts for the fact of their racial and cultural identity being blurred over the centuries. This is dramatically opposed to American society, where inspite of being converted to Christianity, the Afro-Americans were kept segregated and had to launch a civil war movement, in Indian society the stigma of racial inferiority is less striking. With the growing recruitment of Rajputs, Jats and Maratha (Bargirs) into the Indian armies the demand for new African slaves, with the notable exception of Hyderabad, seems to have progressively declined. The Portuguese cartaz system also put a brake though Indian merchants defied this pass system for a while. Similarly, during the nineteenth century, when early efforts to abolish the slave trade had little immediate effect, the trade continued in various degrees in Cutch, Kathiawar, Diu, Bombay, Goa, the Malabar and throughout the then province of Hyderabad. In the latter case, it was reported that because of the possibility of African co-operation in an Arab attempt to seize political control, the Government of India in 1882, began to restrict the movement of Africans into Hyderabad. 6

When finally the slave trade was abolished and the Indian Ocean became a 'British lake', Indian indentured labour—an euphemism for slavery—replaced the African slaves in the plantation economies in the colonies. The positive role of the Indian immigrant in transforming the plantation economies of Africa, as elsewhere, and in monetising their subsistence economies, is well documented. By contrast the role of African immigrant communities in India and their contribution to historical developments remains relatively neglected. By compiling the facts related to their role, this study hopes to contribute to the restoration of that balance.

(16)

1_{Isami, Futuhut-us-Salatin, Agra, 1938, p. 521. quoted in Sherwani, Deccan Ke Bahmani Sultan (Bahmanis of the Deccan), p. 36.} 2_{H.K. Sherwani has aptly described them thus, Mahmud Gawan, Allahabad, 1942.}

3_{R.C Majumdar, The History and Culture of the Indian Peoples : The Delhi Sultanate. Bombay, 1960, p. 265.}

4_{Robert Gregory "India and East Africa" A History of Race Relations within the British Empire - 1890-1939, Clarendon Press,} OUP, 1971. See also R. Oliver and G. Mathew (eds.), History of East Africa, Oxford, 1963, p. 101.

5_{Robert Orme, Historical Fragments of Indostan of the Mughal Empire, of the Marathas and the English Concerns London} 1782.

(17)

1 Perceptions of the Deccan

The Deccan has had its own distinct identity since most ancient times. The word literally meaning "the southern and Peninsular part of the great land mass",1 derived from the Sanskrit 'Dakshina', has featured in classical Indian literature and in inscriptions to which modern scholars have drawn ample attention.

H. C. Raychaudhuri refers to the term Deccan being applied in its broadest sense to "the whole of India between the southern sea and the Vindhyas" in the Puranas. Among the countries enumerated in the Markandeya, Vayu and Matsya Puranas, included in Dakshinapatha are those of the Cholas, the Pandyas and the Keralas, situated in the extreme south of the Peninsula and corresponds to modern Tanjore, Madura and Malabar. While there have been such references which appear to include in the term Dakshinapatha, the 'Damila Vishya' or Tamil country far south, this seems to have been excluded by both the great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. By that time, Raychaudhuri points out, the northern borders of the Deccan stretched as far as the borders of the Vidharba country of Berar. In the Mahabharata, he observes, for instance, "Sahadeva, the youngest of the Pandus, is represented in his career of conquest to have gone to Dakshinapath after having conquered the king of the Pandyas". From this it would appear that the country of the Pandyas is not included in Dakshinapatha.2

Central to our purpose is the knowledge of the Deccan among foreigners from early times. This is suggested in innumerable allusions to this part of India. The geographer Ptolemy (second century A.D.) divides his Ariake, or the Maratha country, into three parts, Ariake proper or the Bombay-Deccan, Sadinon's Ariake or North Konkan, and Pirate Ariake or South Konkan. Besides Sopara on the coast, Nasik near the Sahyadris, and the great inland marts of Paithan and Tagar, Ptolemy mentions three places in Kolaba, which can be identified, the Cape and Mart of Symulla — the Cape apparently the south point of Bombay harbour and the Mart, modern Chaul — and Balepatna3, that is the modern Mahad called Palpattan from the Buddhist settlement of Pal.

Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, a Greek guide book for navigators of A.D. 60 and almost

contemporaneous with the work of Pliny, has left behind for posterity a substantially accurate account of 'Dachinabades' (Dakshinapatha), as the author calls the Deccan region, then under the sway of the Andhras.4 "Beyond Barygaza", the modern Broach, the document explains, "the adjoining coast extends in a straight line from north to south; and so the region is called Dachinabades for Dachanos in the language of the native means 'south'. The inland country rolls back from the coast towards the east; it continues to "comprise many desert regions and great mountains, and all kinds of wild beasts...and many populous nations, as far as the Ganges". Among the inland market towns of 'Dachinabades', two of special importance are identified in the context of the Indian Ocean trade. 'Paethana' on the Godavari river in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra, "distant about twenty days journey south from Barygaza beyond which about ten days journey east, there is", it points out,

(18)

"another very great city, Tagara (modern Thair, in Osmanabad district of Maharashtra) about 95 miles south east of Paethana". Explaining the trade route in 'Dachinabades', the author of the Periplus points out: "There are brought down to Barygaza from these places by wagons and through great tracts without roads, from Paethana carnelian in great quantity; and from Tagara much common cloth; all kinds of muslins and mallow cloth, and other merchandise brought there locally from the regions along the sea coast". The reference here, it is pointed out, is to the two great highways of Andhra from the Bay of Bengal; the first, starting from the 'Masalia' of the Periplus, or Masulipatam (on the Coromandel coast), where immense quantities of muslin were made, and the second from Vinukonda, joining about 25 miles south east of Hyderabad, and proceeding through Thair, Paithan and Daulatabad to Markinda (in the Ajanta Hills). Its natural terminus was at Kalyan in the Bombay harbour, "but the obstruction of that port by the Saka power in Gujarat forced the tedious, overland extension of the route through the mountains to Barygaza". From this description the hazy contours of the Deccan identity begin to emerge, stretching from Kalyan on the western coast to Masulipatam on the Bay of Bengal. From coast to coast a process, it appears, had already got into stride by the first year of our millennium, which helped to bring these distant areas into a closer partnership with the whole Indian Ocean trade.

Obviously, the great demand for Indian commodities by the ruling elite in the Roman empire was sufficient to offset the difficulties of terrain and distance experienced in the transport of goods and merchandise for export. For Pliny complained: "By the lowest reckoning India, China and the (Arabian) Peninsula take from our empire 100 million sesterces every year — that is the sum which our luxuries and our women cost us".5

Megasthenes further gives an interesting insight into the military powers of the rulers of 'Farther India', the King of the Kalingas having in his service 60,000 foot soldiers, 1,000 horsemen, and 700 elephants in "panoply of war; while the Andhras possessed numerous villages, 30 fortified towns, and an army of 100,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry and 1,000 elephants".6 Pliny, who died in A.D. 79, also speaks of several tribes, that scholars trace to the Deccan region. "Among those", he stressed, "must be included the Asmagi (Asmakas on the Godavari), the Calingae 'nearest the sea' (doubtless identical with the Kalingas of the eastern coast), and Andarae of the Andhras occupying the deltas of the Godavari and the Krishna".7 Claudius Ptolemy, though he lacked first-hand knowledge, and is very likely to have secured information from Greek traders already well acquainted with the west coast, especially Chaul, considered this region important enough for a notice in his Geographike Huphegesis (Outline of Geography), written about the middle of the second century A.D. He makes allusions to areas identified as parts of the Western Ghats and some connected ranges, to the rivers Godavari and the Bhima as well as the Tapti represented as rising from the Vindhya range along with the Narmada. Of interest also is the distinction he makes between the Deccan and the Tamil country. The coastal region of the west, best known to the Greeks, is divided into Saurastrene or Saurashtra, corresponding to present day Kutch, Kathiawar and North Gujarat; Larika or Latadesh in Sanskrit, identified as South Gujarat and part of North Konkan; and Ariake, which includes the rest of the Konkan. The latter is again defined as Ariake Sadinon, extending from Soupara or Sopara, six miles north of Vasai (Bassein), on the Bombay coast to Belepatna, probably Palpattan, according to scholars, in South Konkan. On the authority of Ptolemy we can see that the rulers of western India were used to naval practice, and the Andhrabhritya employed the navy to levy tribute from the

(19)

merchants who plied between the coasts of India and Egypt. The remaining part of Ariake, referred to as Ariake Andron Peiraton (Ariake of the Pirates) covered the coast from Mandagara, identified as Mandangarh, south of the Bankot creek, to Nitra in the extreme south of Maharashtra or the Netravati in South Kanara. His knowledge of the hinterland stretched from Nasik, near the Sahyadris, to the great inland mart 'Baithan' or Paithan. The Maisolos of Ptolemy, apparently modern Masulipatam, was so important that the river Godavari was known to him as the Maisolos river. It included the district of Maisolos, or the Krishna, and extended possibly to some part of Kalinga, the whole area being considered virtually identical with the country of Andhra or Telingana.8

The term 'Deccan' was used in a somewhat restricted sense later on to mean Bahmani Deccan or the Deccan of the Succession States. The kingdom of Narsing, as the empire of Vijaynagar was styled by the Portuguese chroniclers, was the neighbour of the kingdom of Daquens. Only in one place does Ferishta use the term in this comprehensive geographical sense when, in the Muqaddimah to his history, he personifies India as Hind and says, "Dakhan the son of Hind had three sons and the country of Dakhan was divided among them. Their names are Merath, Kauher (Kantrada) and Tilang. At present these races reside in the Dakhan". Elsewhere, Ferishta like other Persian writers, uses the term Deccan to indicate Bahmani territories.

The establishment of the Bahmani Kingdom with its capital at Gulbarga (1347) coincided with the rise of the Hindu Kingdom of Vijaynagar and this soon after led to the geographical line being drawn between the Deccan and Karnataka. The former represented that portion of Central India, which lies between the river Godavari as a northern boundary and the Tungabhadra, and extended before long from one coast to another. The latter comprised the rich valleys of the tributaries of the Pennar with their mountain passes and from thence extended to modern Kanchipuram, Arcot and subsequently Madura.

A Precise Connotation

Raychaudhuri gives the Deccan a more precise connotation by designating it "the historic land in Peninsular India that stretches from the Sahyadriparvat (Western Ghat)...and the expanse of hill and plateau that connects it with the Mahendragiri and the Godavari in the north, to the Krishna and Tungabhadra in the south and from the Arabian Sea in the west to the Bay of Bengal in the east".9 This, he further specifies, lies roughly between 13.59' N and 84.26' E, including within its embrace the Marathi and Kannada speaking districts of the former Bombay Presidency, the former state of Hyderabad with the southern part of Berar (Vidarbha), some adjoining tract of the former Central Provinces (Madhya Pradesh) and portions of Orissa and Madras (Tamil Nadu) lying between Mahendragiri and the Krishna rivers with a total area of 200,000 sq. miles. This definition is not fundamentally different from the limits set by the Deccan History Conference, which succinctly stated, "The Deccan shall be -deemed to mean the region from the Tapti in the north to the edge of the plateau in the South and from sea to sea."10

P. M. Joshi, tracing the geo-historical evolution of the Deccan, marshals a wealth of supporting evidence from which it can be deduced that strategic factors compounded by the complementarity of the economies of the plateau (or Desh) and the coastal plains contributed greatly to the two regions becoming closely interlinked and to a commonality of interests developing. Through their historical experience, moreover, the predominantly Maratha people within large areas of this region were to

(20)

acquire a common ethos, finding expression through customs and traditions, and a living language enriched by mystic poets and bards. In spite of being rent by war and internecine strife the Deccan, as defined above, was already being transformed into a viable concept by the medieval period.

The Passes

The geographical characteristics of the Deccan were undoubtedly the prime factor in shaping the history of the region. The great walls of the Ghats dominating the plateau region as massive battlements formed a natural cordon sanitaire. These were reinforced by a chain of forts built to guard the vital passes leading from the Konkan to Desh. As Jadunath Sarkar points out, "The Deccan hill ranges, particularly the Sahyadri, are often crowned by lofty forts, towering above the lowlands on some cliff with steep scarped sides and artesian water supply on the flat top or sides. These forts are nature's gifts to which the people can retire for safety when defeated in a pitched battle in the plain below. From these shelters nothing could expel them before modern artillery, if only they had laid in provisions or could smuggle in food at night by the backdoor".11

Thus, all along the western boundary of the Ghats from the Konkan, there appeared, in course of time, a series of forts, like sentinels, from Harishchandragarh, Shivneri, Rajmachi, Lohagarh, Kuvarigarh, Raigarh, Pratapgarh and Vishalgarh to Panhala and Bahadurgarh near Kolhapur. In addition to these, and astride the eastern marches, passing to the west of the old capitals of modern Maharashtra (Junnar, Pune, Satara, Karad and Kolhapur) there was another series of historical forts like Chakan, Tung, Tikona and Sinhagarh. In the same manner the Mysore plateau, "the loftiest and most well defined part of the whole Deccan plateau", as Joshi describes it, has hardly a hill or mountain top which has not been fortified, some like the ancient Nidugal, at one time considered impregnable. Important among other forts which protected the plateau and ensured its security were Hoskote, Huligurg, Ramagiri, Savandurga, Uttardurg, Madhugiri, Chennagiri and Kavaledurga. In modern Andhra Pradesh, the strong fortress of Kondavidu in the Tilangana region secured access to the eastern coast, while in Rayalseema district the forts of Mosallimadugu, Sakanikota, Adoni and Etgir protected the diamond fields around Kurnool and Adoni.

In the interest of security the contending powers vied to control the passages. Security considerations apart, control of these fortresses, particularly those atop the great stretch of walls of the Western Ghats that enclosed the Peninsula, opened up vital lines of communication through the innumerable passes leading to the coastal lands and its commercial seaports. These were being enriched by the great development of Egypt around 30-25 B.C., when Strabo remarked that the Indian fleet in the Red Sea increased in a few years from a few ships to 120,12 and to which the hinterland, rich in natural resources, cotton, gold, diamonds and other minerals, made a substantial contribution. Without these outlets the hinterland would have remained insular, untouched by external influences which gave it its distinct social, ethnic and cultural traits. That the interest of the vast tableland and the string of sea marts and emporia scattered along the western coast were coterminous has been well summed up in the Gazetteer of Bombay Presidency where it is pointed out that "The openings through the Sahyadris by the Bor, Devasthali, Kumbha and Shevtya passes, from earliest historical times (225 B.C.) probably made the Kolaba ports centres of trade. As in Thana, the trade of these ports rose to foreign commerce when the Kolaba coast was under a power which ruled both the Konkan and the Deccan, and it shrank to local traffic when Kolaba became a part of Gujarat or was under a local

(21)

chief".13 The extent of the dependence on trade and commerce was highlighted in the great highway extending from Masulipatam on the Bay of Bengal across the vast tableland which naturally terminated at Kalyan, when it was not obstructed by the Saka powers of Gujarat in the first century of our era. This interdependence of the hinterland and coastal regions thus reinforces the conception of the Deccan as defined by Joshi and Sherwani.

The Rivers

The rivers flowing through the Deccan east and west posed less of a constraint except perhaps the Raichur Doab tract. True, the Narmada, along with the Vindhya range, has been described as forming "a double barrier between the North and the Deccan". But here perhaps it was more the impenetrable forests that guarded the approaches to the valley of the Narmada that obstructed easy passage, which, in any case, was overcome near the modern town of Hoshangabad and in the Mandaleswar plains. On the other hand, the course of the Narmada, through the alluvial plains of Gujarat, helped forge links between its northern region and the Deccan. Similarly, the importance of the Tapti traversing the rich cotton plains of western Berar and the two districts of Khandesh-Jalgaon and Dhulia and flowing through Gujarat into the Arabian Sea, a little west of the internationally renowned city of Surat, was self-evident.

The Godavari, the Krishna and the Kaveri are the three principal rivers of the Deccan plateau, each with its system of subsidiary streams which flow into the Bay of Bengal. The Godavari rises near Trimbak, in a sacred hill of the Sahyadri range known as Brahmagiri and follows a generally south-easterly course through Maharashtra and Andhra, reaching the Bay of Bengal. The Godavari valley in Maharashtra, along with the Berar area, is the region where Maharashtra culture originated and prospered. The Krishna river rises near Mahabaleshwar and flows through Satara and Sangli districts of Maharashtra, Bijapur and Raichur districts of Karnataka and enters the Telengana plateau. The Bhima and the Tungabhadra 'are the most important tributaries of the Krishna. After entering Karnataka, the Bhima flows through Gulbarga district and joins the Krishna, a little north of Raichur on the border of that district.

The Tungabhadra is the southernmost tributary of the Krishna. It is formed by the confluence of the Tunga and the Bhadra, both rising in the hilly region of Gangamula near Sringeri. Flowing through Shimoga, Dharwar, Bellary and Raichur districts of Karnataka, it enters the Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh and joins the Krishna, near Alampur, in that district. From time immemorial, the Krishna-Tungabhadra Doab has been the cockpit of the Deccan.

NOTES

1_{H.K. Sherwani and P.M. Joshi (eds), History of Medieval Deccan, 1295-1724 Government of Andhra Pradesh, 1973, p. 3.}

2_{H.C. Raychaudhuri, "Geography of the Deccan" in G. Yazdani (ed.), The Early History of the Deccan, Oxford University Press,} 1964, p. 3.

3_{The Gazetteer of Bombay Presidency, vol. XI, p. 138.}

4_{W.H. Schoff (ed)., The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea (Travels and Trade in the Indian Ocean by a Merchant of the First}

Century), London, (1912), pp. 6,14,36,49, 56,62.

(22)

6_{J.W. McCrindle, Ancient India (Megasthenes and Arian), (London, 1901),pp. 347-49.} 7_{GBP, I, p. 138.}

8_Ibid.

9_{Raychaudhuri, op. cit., p. 19.}

10_{Proceedings of the Deccan History Conference, First Session, Hyderabad, 1945, p. 19.} 11_{Jadunath Sarkar, Military History of India, (Calcutta 1960), p. 3.}

12_{Quoted in Vincent A. Smith, Commerce of Ancients, II, (London, 1807), p. 86.} 13_{GBP, I, p. 316.}

(23)

2 Patterns of African Immigration

Before the arrival of the Portuguese, the Indian Ocean trade was brisk and untrammelled, all the regions being interconnected through the exchange of commodities and visits of merchants. It was a self-contained system and we come across no treaties between the kings or merchants regarding trading as far as this region was concerned. None of these communities possessed armed shipping. The seas were common and open to all until the advent of the Portuguese when the system of cartazes (passes) was established in order to control trade in the Indian Ocean area. After the Napoleonic wars the Indian Ocean became a 'British lake'. British command of the Indian Ocean remained unassailable because "she needed only a few fortified bases to control a monopoly of the world's busiest commercial thoroughfare",1 and whatever ties these communities of the Indian Ocean had were severed.

This area may be divided into four regions: (1) the area extending from the Somali Horn along the African coast of the Red Sea route, particularly Ethiopia2 to Egypt and beyond; (2) southern Arabia, including Aden, Mecca, Jeddah, Mocha and Ormus; and (3) to the East African coast down to Sofala, and then to Mozambique, Pemba, Mafia, Zanzibar, Mombasa, Kilwa, Melindi, Gardafui and Mogadishu; (4) the ports in the kingdom of Gujarat, known to the Portuguese historians as Cambay, especially Diu, Broach and Surat; the ports of the Konkan, Dhabol, Danda-Rajapuri, Chaul and Goa. These were some of the important centres of trade, and they comprised the chief regions of Indian trade without any restraint from the earliest times.

All these regions had become a part of the Indian Ocean 'circuit of trade' assisted, as it was, by favourable trade winds—the monsoons—and the development of a suitable marine technology. All writers are agreed mat the traffic from the west coast of India to the Red Sea was mainly in the hands of Arabs. The most ancient intercontinental sea voyages in the Indian Ocean were made coast-wise. Indians, Sinhalese and southern Arabs were the first to use the monsoon course for establishing shorter sea routes between the coasts of India and Hadrarnaut and, later on, of East Africa. This long history of commercial contact provided both a channel for material and cultural influences as well as a powerful magnet for population movements to and fro. And, before Britain started its naval operations against the slave trade, the communities in the Indian Ocean were involved in a prosperous and legitimate commerce in which trafficking in slaves for gain was less than significant. The Red Sea Route

As for the Red Sea route, Indian contact, as the Periplus3 says, was of great antiquity. The author

of the Periplus was interested in the product of the country and not in politics. India at that time was "the most cultivated, the most active industrially and commercially, the richest in natural resources and production, the most highly organised socially".4 All the ports along the coast were of international fame in the Periplus' time; Strabo and Pliny have also underlined the importance of

(24)

these commercial relations. Maritime trade increased in the Red Sea in the course of the first two centuries. Trading ships came both from Egypt and from the ports between Ariaca (identified as the region around the Gulf of Cambay) and Barygaza (Broach) on the west of the Indian sub-continent to Adulis, the port of the ancient kingdom of Aksumite (modern Ethiopia). The imports from India, according to the Periplus, were "From the interior of Ariaka: they bring Indian iron and steel, and cotton fabrics, belts, cloaks, a few molokhinese Sindoni garments and material coloured with a kind of varnish."5

Objects of Indian origin have also been found; a seal in Adulis, terracotta figurines in Aksum, 104 gold coins dating from the Kushana kings before the year A.D. 200 in Debra-Damo. This indicates that Indian merchants lived in Adulis and Aksum. Also the small images of Buddha found at Aksum were probably brought there by Buddhist merchants from India.6

The Aksumite kingdom developed a written language Ge'ez, providing nearly 2000 years of documentation, which led A. Grohman in 1915 to point out "the principal similarities between the idea of the vocalised Ethiopic alphabet and that of the Brahmi and Kharoshthi". Indian influence on the reformers of the old consonant Ethiopic alphabet is quite probable, asserts the Soviet Africanist, Y.M. Kobishanov.7

It has also been stated, but without citing any authority that the Abyssinians had planted colonies, of which Rajpuri is one of the last remains, along the whole western coast of India and from Cape Comorin upwards in the very early period of the Christian era . They were traders and not slaves, and some had entered the service of Dakhni rulers inland. More reliable evidence of Ethiopians going to India by sea belongs to the fifth and sixth centuries. When Bishop Moses of Adulis sailed to India at the beginning of the fifth century, he was most likely on a visit to his spiritual flock, who had by that time formed trading colonies at ports in India and Ceylon.

The commercial voyages of Adulis townsmen in particular, and Ethiopians in general, to Ceylon and south and north India are recorded by Pseudo-Callisthenes and Cosmos Indicopleustes. Between the fifth and sixth centuries Adulis became the leading port between Clysme and the ports of India, and the names of other African ports vanished from written sources.8 And, by the sixth century, despite frequent voyages of the Byzantines to India, the Ethiopians were considered to have had more stable trade relations with that country.9

In the book Kebra Nagast, dating from the fourteenth century A.D., it is contended that, according to Menyelek, the Queen of Sheba's son, she "had gold and silver and splendid apparel and camels and slaves and had servants and merchants; they traded for her at sea and on land, in the Indies and in Aswan".10 Adulis was destroyed in 710 when Islam spread along the trade routes to the Ethiopian interior. But one kind of merchandise for which the demand never slackened was that of slaves. The narrow passage lined with rocky cliffs called the straits of Bab el Mandeb was for centuries the ferrying point for the slave trade. Zeila opposite to Aden also carried on a brisk traffic in slaves. Varthema writes: "Here also are sold a very great number of slaves, which are most of Prester John, whom the Moors take in battle and from this place are carried into Persia, Arabia Fellix and to Mecca, Cairo and into India".11

(25)

legal code, partly based on Mosaic Law.12 Slavery was also as much a religion as a civil institution among Arabs. The Abyssinian (Habshi) females were especially prized for their beauty and symmetry of figure, and as concubines among the Arabs their value was often treble or quadruple that of their darker sisters from further south. The Abyssinian male fetched a less considerable figure, but belonged, nevertheless, to the luxury trade; indeed Nubian and Abyssinian eunuchs were so expensive as to be found only in the service of kings, nobles and very rich merchants.13

The Ethiopian empire suffered from freqent warfare and there are references in the Ezana inscriptions and sources connected with Aksumite Hamayarite wars to prisoners taken in warfare who were regarded as desirable merchandise by foreign slave-traders.14 The Aksumites were, at the same time, in close commerce with south Arabia by the sixth century. Ethiopia and Arabia were knit during the rise of Islam both by trade and migration. The port near Mecca had long been the abode of a considerable number of Ethiopians, some of whom had probably come for the purpose of trade while others had been imported as slaves. Many of the latter were employed as soldiers,—they were a force to reckon with—by the rich traders, and according to the Medina poet, Kais ibn al Khatun, who died a few years before Hijra, were known as askir (singular askar). More frequently, however, they were termed as Ababish (singular ahbush), a derivation of Habash or Abyssinia. It was likely that from these soldier-slaves the Arabs learned the use of "the lance or javelin (Arabic harbah) which they adopted a little after this period, 15 and the Abyssinians were welcomed in India for this very skill.

In 1298, the Venetian traveller Marco Polo wrote: "You must know that in the province of Abash, there are excellent soldiers and many horsemen. They have a great number of horses soldiers of all the provinces of India."16 By the early fourteenth century Ibn Battuta was also making several references to the presence of Habshis in India during his visit (1333-1342). He mentions the governor of Alapur, south-east of Gwalior, being an Abyssinian named Badr, a slave of the Raja of Dholpur. The courage of Badr, he writes, had become proverbial. Sailing down the western coast, he related that the ship on which he travelled, "had a complement of fifty rowers and fifty Abyssinian men-at-arms". These latter, he added, "were the guarantors of safety on the Indian Ocean; let there be but one of them on a ship, and it will be avoided by the Indian pirates and idolaters".17

The Periplus gives a break-up of the import-export trade saying that ships from Cambay and Broach brought "wheat, rice, clarified butter, sesame oil, cotton cloth, girdles and sugar and the greater quantity of cinnamon. Somalia exported myrrh, frankincense, gold, ivory and ebony, which have also been pictorially depicted, while the Arabs had named the northern Somali coast, Ras Assir ('the cape of the slaves'). According to Cosmas, most of the slaves in the hands of the merchants were taken to Arabia from Somaliland. The coast of South Arabia also was visited by parties of Somalis, who pay the Arabs for the privilege of collecting frankincense."18

In western India, the word Habshi includes not only Abyssinians, but also Africans from the Somali coast. Ibn Battuta mentions people of Mogadishu, which shared in the commerce of the East, and that they ate rice. The betel leaf had also entered the social life of the people. He said the Sultan had sent him "a plate on which were some rice, leaves of betel and áreca nuts."19 Etiquette demanded in southern India, particularly, that a host should present his guest with a pan before the latter departs. Varthema writes that the annual fair was one of the most interesting sights on the coast, an annual

(26)

rendezvous for so many nations to be present. "It is estimated that as many as 20,000 natives assemble annually at the fair to barter their (products)... with merchants from the Red Sea, Muscat, Bahrain, Basra, Porebunder, Mandavie,.Bombay and other ports".20 Burton gives a detailed description of Berbera, which was "the emporium of India" and in its harbours he found the same trade as described in Periplus. He mentions that export to Arabia includes "slaves, but rarely".22 Cape Gardafui, on the northern Indian Ocean, also enjoyed considerable eastern trade, for as Barbosa explains, "as many ships as come from India and from the Kingdom of Cambaya (Cambay) and from Chaul, Dabul (Dabhol), Batical (Bhatkal), from Malabar and all the coast of Bengala, all make use of it, and enter it from this Cape with much merchandise. Some of them go towards the city of Adem (Aden) and Zeilam (Zeila) and Barbora".22

The Arabs

From the sixth century A.D. to the sixteenth, the Arabs were masters of the Indian Ocean. In these international transactions the ports of Jeddah, Aden, Mocha and Ormuz played an important role. Arab geographers and navigators, like Masudi of Beghdad (tenth century), Abu Rachan Beruni (died in 440 A.H.), Abul Fida (died in 725 A.H.) and Iban Khaldum (died in 808 A.H.), were all aware of the Indian Ocean, Red Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, and may be compared favourably with the Greeks in their contribution to this subject.23

The Periplus mentions Rhapta, some distance south of Zanzibar Islands, as the last Arab settlement on the coast, and Ptolemy described Cape Delgado. The Periplus, moreover, says that the whole coast was "subject under some ancient rights to the sovereignty of the power which held the primacy in Arabia, frequented by Arab ships in command of Arab captains who knew the harbour, spoke the language of the natives and intermarried with them".

Aden or Eudoemon Arabia (Arabia Felix), as the author of the Periplus calls it, was from the very early times an important trading centre, where goods from the east, were transhipped to the Mediterranean markets. By the third century, Yaqubi found "ships coming from Abyssinia, Mandab, Jeddah, Sylhet (Assam) and Cina".24 Ibn Battuta declared, around 1330, when he visited Aden that it was the port of merchants of India, to Qualequt (Calicut), Mangerru (Mangalore), Sindabur (Goa) and other places. The merchants of India live there, he added.

The importance of Aden for eastern trade was also recognised by the late fourteenth century by the Arab historian Ibn Khaldum, Varthema and the Portuguese. Of interest, the latter lists exports to India of gold, horses, slaves and ivory, and emphasises the importance of both Cambay and Goa, apart from Malabar and Bengal.25 Varthema was imprisoned in Aden, when the Sultan marched to Sana "with his army, in which there were three thousand horsemen, sons of Christians, as black, as Moors. They were of those of Prester John whom they purchased at the age of eight or nine years and had them trained to arms. These constituted his own guard, because they were worth more than the rest of the eighty thousand"26

In Mecca, the most outstanding Ethiopian was probably Bilas, the son of an Ethiopian slave girl, whose stentorian voice secured for him the unique distinction of becoming Muhammad's muezzin. The Prophet called him "the first fruit of Abyssinia". Ships came to Jeddah, the port of Mecca, from Hejaz and Abyssinia and anchored there; "this harbour has been in use since the days of Ignorance, but with

(27)

the rise and progress of Islamic power in Africa, Abyssinia, Sind and Persia", it grew very important.27 Mecca and Jeddah continued to be visited for both trade and pilgrimage even after the nineteenth century by Europeans.

Ormuz city was one of the richest entreports in the world, although the island on which it is situated produced nothing save salt and sulphur. But nearly all the trade between India and Persia was channelled through it in the twelfth century. The author of the Periplus mentions that large vessels were regularly sent from Barygaza to two market towns in Persia. In exchange, it records, from each of these market towns are exported among other things, "a great quantity of dates, gold and slaves". Marco Polo (1272) and (1293) refers to Ormuz as "a great and noble city". He particularly notes the export of horses to India. Abdur Razzak noted in the fifteenth century, Ormuz was visited, among others, by the countries of Malabar, Abyssinia, Zanzibar, the ports of Gujarat and the Arabian Coast, from Aden to .Jeddah. Barbosa also emphasized the international commercial significance of Ormuz, which he wrote, handled goods "from many lands". Exports, we are told, included horses from Arabia which were sent to India, "whither every year they used to take one and at times two thousand".28

Oman, situated in the south-east corner of Arabia, played its part in the growth of Arab trade in the Indian Ocean.29 It was the centre of an active and intensive shipping trade with India conveniently located with reference to the trans-Arabian caravan routes. The ports of Oman were always active in the slave markets. Al Masudi wrote in his Muruj al Dhahab: "Tusks from the country of the Zanj go generally to Oman, and from there are sent to China and India. That is the route they follow, and were it otherwise ivory would be abundant in Muslim countries". The sailors of Oman, Masudi says, were Arabs of the Azd tribe. They went as far south as Qanbala (Madagascar) inhabited even in his days by Muslims, and the merchants of Siraf were also in the habit of sailing there. In the eleventh century they were known for their excellence in ship building. In course of time, however, the pirates of Oman became the terror of the Persian Gulf and its approaches.

The Omanis began the process of permanent Arab settlement and organised a dominion in East Africa. In the late seventh century, they fled overseas to the land of Zanj (Zanzibar).30 The El Harth tribe, flying from persecution, founded Mogadishu and Barava. To the same century belongs the similar tradition of Hussain-bin Ali and his six sons. The story tells of a son begotten by the Sultan of Shiraf of an Abyssinian slave woman, who was out rivalled by his better born brothers and so departed with his six sons for Africa. One son founded a settlement at each of the six separate places; three of these were named Mombasa, Pemba and Johanna in the Comoro Islands. Hussain also founded Kilwa. The Persians also shared in the trade of the Indian Ocean. Already at the date of the

Periplus, they were making at least temporary homes in East Africa and inter-marrying with the local

women. It is more than probable that the Arab and Persian colonization of the coast was a long and gradual process, which began in remote antiquity and continued. Settlements running from north to south were Mogadishu, Barawa, Pate, Lamu, Melindi, Mombaza, Pemba, Zanzibar, Mafia, Kilwa, Mozambique and Sofala.31 By the beginning of the twelfth century they had brought the entire coast and islands, including the Comoros, under their control.

The East African Coast

(28)

there are always moored small craft of many kinds and also great ships, both of which are bound from Sofala and others which come from Cambay and Melinde and others which sail to the island of Zanzibar".32 Mombasa was also a centre of immense slave trade. "Here flourished a very profitable speciality of converting young African boy slaves into eunuchs, and also, by surgery, making four-year-old girls into 'sealed virgins'. Both were trained and educated for harem service, and were exported at very high prices when they reached their teens."33 Similarly, "many ships come hither to Mogadishu from the great Kingdom of Cambay bringing plenty of cloths of many sorts and divers other wares, also spices". In Mafia, Pemba and Zanzibar "they live in great luxury, clad in very good fine silk and cotton garments which they purchase at Mombasa from the merchants of Cambay who reside there."34

About Melindi Barbosa says, "they are great barterers; and deal in cloth, ^gold and ivory and divers other wares with the Moors and the Heathens of the great Kingdom of Cambay.... In this traffic the Cambay merchants make great profits, and this, on the one side and the other, they earn much money".35

Pate Island occupied much the same position of pre-eminence along the northern reach of the Swahili coast as Kilwa, the 'queen of the South'. The surviving versions of the Swahili manuscript,

Chronicle of Pate, which begins its story in 1204, tells us of contacts with India. The Sultan made the

country prosperous, developing plantations and building vessels called gharabs, which are now called jahazia, (the equivalent is jahaz in Hindustani taken from the Arabic). "Now in those days," we are told, "Arab and Indian vessels used to come to Pate harbour". Sultan Omar, the chronicle continues, had a nephew who was fond of travelling. On the third attempt he finally made it to India, "where he traded and made much profit". On the return journey, however, though full of hazards, he discovered silver-bearing sand, which was loaded instead of the Indian cargo.36

Ibn Battuta, who reached the town of Kilwa in 1331, found bananas, oranges and lemons growing there and that the people also gather a fruit which they call jammun (the Hindustani word for the common Eugenia Jambu), which he goes on to describe faithfully looks like an olive, "It has a nut like an olive, but its taste is very sweet."

With Bombay no more than 20 degrees north and Karachi no more than 30, Zanzibar owes its history mainly to its geographical position of the east coast of Africa and its proximity to Asia, as well as to the trade winds or monsoons. These account to a large extent for its close political and commercial connections from the earliest times with India, and with countries bordering on the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. The "Zinj' took an important part in the wars of South Arabia. The first emigration from Oman to Zanzibar was about the year 695 A.D..37 That the Zinj increased in number and became a power in the land is shown by the fact that in 850 they revolted under the leadership of a negro styled 'Lord of the Blacks' in Mesopotamia. The revolt had repercussions throughout Arabia. In 871 A.D. they captured and sacked Basra, annihilating its inhabitants.38

Idris, writing about 1154, describing the dealings of the Arabs with Zinj, says that rulers of Kush, opposite Muscat, had 505 ships, which were used to raid the Zanzibar coast for slaves, and that the Zinj, having great respect for the Arabs, used to let them take these people without any trouble.39 The great mass of slaves from East Africa were consigned to Turkey, Arabia and Persia, where they

(29)

became a permanent element. In 835 the slaves in Oman constituted no less than a third of the population.40 The negro slave is a familiar figure in Arabic literature. Their lot was not unbearable since kindness to slaves is one of the duties inculcated by the Koran. East Africa thus had its place in the network of trade that chequered the India Ocean—ivory, gold and slaves.

India

Nor was the sea trade confined to Arabs and Persians. Ingrains thinks that "the Hindus not only made trade settlements on the coast, dating from the seventh century B.C., but apparently... penetrated inlands towards the region of the Great lakes".41 Much later, J.H. Speke, the explorer of the source of the Nile, was also impressed by the knowledge of the great many Indians he had met deep in the interior of Africa, who had their own names for the most important landmarks.42 Reginald Coupland claims: "It is almost probable that the Hindus were trading with East Africa and settling in the coast as early as the sixth century B.C. Almost certainly it was they who introduced the coconut palm".43 The mention of the word nauplios or narglios for coconut, which in India is known as naryal, in the

Periplus is a confirmation of the trade of Indians and the Zanzibar coast around Rhapta.

The swastika also occurs in Zanzibar, though no meaning is attached to it, being used more for decorations. Again, on the wedding day the bridegroom reaching the bride's house finds in the ante-chamber women guarding the wedding room to whom he must pay money, called Kifunga mlango, before they allow him to cross the doors.44 This ceremony is common in India. Kariba means to draw near and starehe stay where you are. Both words have similar meanings in Hindustani. Muhindi is the word for maize which, as the name suggests, was introduced by India,45 and, the people who appear as 'Debuli' and 'Diba' in the oral tradition at Zanzibar and Pemba and other coastal cities, could well be Muslim Indians, who emigrated from Diu and Dabhol, on the west coast of India, in the seventh century. Even till the recent past, the port of Mandovi, on the southern coast of Kutch, carried on a direct trade with Zanzibar, "in small vessels averaging 50 tons or less than 10 feet draught".46

Coupland, referring to the twelfth century, when the Arabs enjoyed an aristocracy of race, says; "Closely associated with them, but not of the ruling class, were Indian residents whose connections with the coast were as old as theirs. Much of the ocean shipping was Indian owned and Indian manned and since Arabs in general seem never to have shown much aptitude for the techniques of business, it is probable that the Indians were from the earliest what they still are in East Africa—the masters of finance, the bankers and the money changers and money lenders".47

The coast stretching from Gardafui to the extreme south was named by the Indian sea traders as

Anjana bar, which was later romanized to Anzania. There also existed small Indian trading

communities operating in Sofala and at the mouth of the river Save. Gold, ivory and iron were what the Africans supplied in exchange for Indian goods. Indian gold seekers had named Sofala, Sonabar, i.e. a land of gold, which was subsequently changed to Sofala in the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries by the sea-faring Arabs.48

The famous Moor (Muslim) sailor of Gujarat, Ahmad bin Magid (Kanaky),49 who had the greatest knowledge of the art and instruments of navigation, was at Melindi when Vasco da Gama reached the coast of East Africa and conducted him across the Indian Ocean to Calicut.50 In East Africa, the Portuguese left nothing behind but ruined fortresses, palaces and ecclesiastical buildings.

(30)

In India, it is generally considered that the earliest Muslims to settle in the Deccan were the Arabs of the Navayat clan, who had made the Konkan their permanent home about the year A.D. 701 when they fled from the Kufah (in the Euphrates valley) to escape the cruelties of the governor, Hajjaj bin Yusuf.51 Even prior to the Muslim conquest of the Deccan, the Rashtrakutas had Arabs and Abyssinians in their armies.52 Similarly, the Arabs were said not only to have monopolized the early carrying trade between Arabia and Malabar but also to have made many settlements on the Malabar and Konkan coast.53

Kalyan, Dabhol and Chaul were the principal ports of entry into the Deccan and they emerged from obscurity only when the Muslims took possession of the sea ports. Goa island was then a dependency of the Deccan. In 1490 the new king of Ahmednagar took Danda-Rajpuri and thus secured peaceable possession of that part of northern Konkan, which did not belong to Gujarat. The date of the establishment of the Abyssinians in Janjira cannot be clearly made out. There is one legend which shows them to have got possession by about 1489; another account puts this a great deal later. By now a large number of Abyssinians and other foreigners were employed in the armies of the Dakhan kings, not only as private soldiers but also in high command.

Modern Kalyan was the principal port of the Andhra kingdom (later the Deccan) during the periods when it ruled the west coast. Cosmas Indicopleustes in the sixth century A.D. found it one of the five marts of western India.54Both Chaul and Dabhol were great commercial marts, with a large trade with Persia and the Red Sea, by which route all the Indian goods for Europe passed then. From the time of Marco Polo till the sixteenth century, Dabhol, in the district of Ratnagiri, was the principal port of south Konkan. It imported horses from Mecca, Aden and Ormuz, which is spoken of as of the highest importance. When the first Bahmani king established his independence in Dakhan (1347) he divided his kingdom into four governments, the first of which included Gulbarga, extended to the sea port at Dabhol; and the second from Daulatabad to Chaul. Ibn Battuta visited Daulatabad late in 1342 or early 1343 and described it as a great magnificent city equal to Delhi. It may be mentioned that Yusuf Adil Khan, the first king of Bijapur, believed to be the son of the emperor of Constantinople, first landed at Ormuz and then went to Dabhol in 1458, and from there he was taken as a slave to Bidar. Mahmud Khwaja Gawan, the able prime minister of the Bahmani kingdom, had also followed the same route from Persia to Bidar.

When the kingdom of Bidar came to an end in 1619, the Konkan was divided between the kings of Bijapur and Ahmednagar, Dabhol becoming the principal port of the former and Chaul of the latter. Chaul, in Thana district 23 miles south of Bombay, is spoken of in the same terms as Dabhol, its weavers of silk and traffic in horses being particularly and frequently mentioned. In every treaty with the Portuguese, stipulations were made as to the importation of horses for the cavalry. The list of imports from Mecca included many European commodities. Ahmad Shah of the Bahmani dynasty had sent two different deputations by way of Chaul to a celebrated saint in Persia, some of whose family came to India afterwards. Feroze Shah Bahmani is also said to have despatched vessels every year from Goa and Chaul to procure manufactures and productions from all parts of the world, and bring to his court persons celebrated for their talents.55 In 1636 the Konkan dominions of the Ahmednagar kingdom were added to Bijapur. By the middle of the seventeenth century the Muslims had little influence in the Konkan.

The African Dispersal in the Deccan