Sa'id of Mogadishu (, ) was a 14th-century Somali

scholar A scholar is a person who is a researcher or has expertise in an academic discipline. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researcher at a university. An academic usually holds an advanced degree or a termina ...

and

travel Travel is the movement of people between distant geographical Location (geography), locations. Travel can be done by Pedestrian, foot, bicycle, automobile, train, boat, bus, airplane, ship or other means, with or without Baggage, luggage, a ...

er.

Biography

Sa'id was born in

Mogadishu Mogadishu, 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 connecting traders across the Indian Ocean for millennia and has ...

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, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...

and

Medina Medina, officially al-Madinah al-Munawwarah (, ), also known as Taybah () and known in pre-Islamic times as Yathrib (), is the capital of Medina Province (Saudi Arabia), Medina Province in the Hejaz region of western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ...

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

Amir Emir (; ' (), also transliterated as amir, 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 ceremonial authority. The title has ...

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 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 Islamic world and Muslim 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, politics, and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is ...

and visited

Bengal Bengal ( ) is a Historical geography, historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the Eastern South Asia, eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Benga ...

and

Yuan China The Yuan dynasty ( ; zh, c=元朝, p=Yuáncháo), officially the Great Yuan (; Mongolian: , , 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 ...

. During his stay at a

mosque A mosque ( ), also called a masjid ( ), is a place of worship for Muslims. The term usually refers to a covered building, but can be any place where Salah, Islamic prayers are performed; such as an outdoor courtyard. Originally, mosques were si ...

on the west coast of

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, he encountered fellow

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

traveller

Ibn Battuta Ibn Battuta (; 24 February 13041368/1369), was a Maghrebi traveller, explorer and scholar. Over a period of 30 years from 1325 to 1354, he visited much of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Iberian Peninsula. Near the end of his life, Ibn ...

. 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, information which Battuta would eventually add in his own chronicles.Travels of Ibn Battuta – Review by Peter Jackson, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society pg 264 Sa'id may have died on 1361 or 1365.

References

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