A Comprehensive Critical Reappraisal of “The Kilwa Chronicle”: Manuscript Traditions, Historiographical Layers, and Scholarly Debate

Abstract

This article presents a thorough critical reassessment of the Kilwa Chronicle (Kitāb al-sulwa fī akhbār Kulwa), the foremost indigenous Arabic account of the Kilwa Sultanate on the East African Swahili coast. It contends that the chronicle functions as a historical palimpsest, comprising two clear layers: a likely 16th-century core crafted in the wake of the devastating Portuguese conquest of 1505, and a 19th-century Omani redaction completed in 1877 under Sultan Barghash of Zanzibar. The analysis employs a tripartite methodology: 1) meticulous line-by-line comparison between the sole surviving Arabic manuscript (British Library Or. 2666) and João de Barros’s 16th-century Portuguese version; 2) detailed manuscriptological scrutiny of its transmission history, spotlighting the pivotal editorial interventions by the 1877 copyist Shaykh ‘Abdullāh ibn Muṣbaḥ al-Ṣuwāfī; and 3) fresh evaluation of the text’s assertions amid the longstanding “Shirazi problem” debate, set against cutting-edge archaeological findings and ancient DNA research that point to selective Persian–African elite admixture rather than wholesale migration. Ultimately, the chronicle’s chief significance resides not in a straightforward recounting of 10th-century happenings, but in illuminating the historical sensibilities of 16th-century Kilwan society and the Omani political repurposing in the 19th century. A layered, source-critical method thus proves indispensable for its sound integration into Swahili historiography.