Sa'id of Mogadishu ( so, Saciid min Muqdisho, ar, سعيد من مقديشو , rtl=yes ) was a 14th-century Somali

scholar A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researche ...

and

travel Travel is the movement of people between distant geographical locations. Travel can be done by foot, bicycle, automobile, train, boat, bus, airplane, ship or other means, with or without luggage, and can be one way or round trip. Travel c ...

er.

Biography

Sa'id was born in

Mogadishu Mogadishu (, also ; so, Muqdisho or ; ar, مقديشو ; it, Mogadiscio ), locally known as Xamar or Hamar, is the capital and List of cities in Somalia by population, most populous city of Somalia. The city has served as an important port ...

in the year 1301.

“I met in this Masjid a jurist, pious from Mogadishu called Sa‘īd, of fine figure and character. He used to fast continually, and I was told that he had studied in Makkah for fourteen years and for the same length of time nother fourteen yearsin Madinah. He had met Abu Numayy, the Amir of Makkah . 1254-1301, and al-Mansūr Ibn Jammāz, the Amir of Madinah . 1300-1325 He had travelled hroughoutIndia and China.”

Sa'id left

as a teenager to study in

Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red ...

and

Medina Medina,, ', "the radiant city"; or , ', (), "the city" officially Al Madinah Al Munawwarah (, , Turkish: Medine-i Münevvere) and also commonly simplified as Madīnah or Madinah (, ), is the Holiest sites in Islam, second-holiest city in Islam, ...

, where he remained for 28 years gathering knowledge and gaining many disciples. His reputation as a scholar earned him audiences with the

Amir Emir (; ar, أمير ' ), sometimes transliterated amir, amier, or ameer, is a word of Arabic origin that can refer to a male monarch, aristocrat, holder of high-ranking military or political office, or other person possessing actual or cerem ...

s of Mecca and Medina. From this it is apparent that Sa‘īd was not only a well travelled scholar known in the ways of the world, but he obviously must have recruited many students due to his close link with the Amirs.

“Faqih Sa’id from Mogadishu ..finally settled down in the small port-town of Ezhimala and collaborated there with Faqih Husayn, possibly the author of Qayd al- jami’, the first known Shafi’ite text from Malabar. Faqih Sa’id is an epitome of many more East African scholars who arrived in the Malabar Coast and partook in its religious spectrums, and their contributions await further research.”

Sa'id is said to have afterwards travelled across the

Muslim world The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. I ...

and visited

Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. During his stay at a

mosque A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, ...

on the west coast of

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, he encountered fellow

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

traveller

Ibn Battuta Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battutah (, ; 24 February 13041368/1369),; fully: ; Arabic: commonly known as Ibn Battuta, was a Berbers, Berber Maghrebi people, Maghrebi scholar and explorer who travelled extensively in the lands of Afro-Eurasia, ...

. According to scholar Peter Jackson, Sa'id might have during this occasion shared with Battuta accounts of his travels in China and detailed the political landscape and succession of the

Yuan Dynasty The Yuan dynasty (), officially the Great Yuan (; xng, , , literally "Great Yuan State"), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai, the fifth ...

, information which Battuta would eventually add in his own chronicles. Sa'id may have died on 1361 or 1365.

Achievements

Sa'id of Mogadishu was a famous Somali scholar and traveller. He is said to be the first African to study the

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

language and first African to translate the Mandarin language with a native African language like Somali.

References

Ethnic Somali people Somalian religious leaders Somalian Sunni Muslim scholars of Islam 14th-century scholars People from Mogadishu {{Somalia-bio-stub