18 August- Source: Al Jazeera English- 2840 Words In 1331, famed Moroccan explorer Ibn Battuta arrived in Mogadishu, on the Banaadiri coast, in what is today Somalia. Battuta came across the richest, most powerful port in East Africa, at the fore of the Indian Ocean trade system, then the centrepiece of the global economy. Anchored off the coast, he was greeted by "boatloads of young men … each carrying a covered platter of food to present to one of the merchants on board," writes Ross Dunn in The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the Fourteenth Century. Such renowned hospitality welcomed seafarers and merchants from across the Arabian peninsula, Persia, India, Southeast Asia, and even China. Mogadishu derives from "Maq'ad-i-Shah", Farsi - one of the lingua francas of Indian Ocean merchants and traders - for "Seat of the King". Its local name, Xamar, was given by Arab traders, after the Arabic word "ahmar" for the red soil al...
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