History 13: Tropical Africa and Asia

Ibn Battuta

Moroccan Muslim scholar, the most widely traveled individual of his time. He wrote a detailed account of his visits to Islamic lands from China to Spain and the western Sudan.

tropics

Equatorial region between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. It is characterized by generally warm or hot temperatures year-round, though much variation exists due to altitude and other factors.

Monsoon

a seasonal wind pattern in southern Asia that blows warm, moist air from the southwest during the summer, bringing heavy rains, and cold, dry air from the northeast during the winter

Delhi Sultanate

created by the Sultan Mahmud; lasted from 1206 AD to 1526 AD; the first Muslim empire in India

Mali

Empire created by indigenous Muslims in western Sudan of West Africa from the thirteenth to fifteenth century. It was famous for its role in the trans-Saharan gold trade. (See also Timbuktu.)

Mansa Kankan Musa

Ruler of Mali (r. 1312-1337). His pilgrimage through Egypt to Mecca in 1324-1325 established the empire's reputation for wealth in the Mediterranean world.

Gujarat

Region of western India famous for trade and manufacturing; the inhabitants are called Gujarati.

dhows

Characteristic cargo and passenger ships of the Arabian Sea.

Swahili Coast

East African shores of the Indian Ocean between the Horn of Africa and the Zambezi River; from the Arabic sawahil, meaning 'shores.'

Great Zimbabwe

City, now in ruins (in the modern African country of Zimbabwe), whose many stone structures were built between about 1250 and 1450, when it was a trading center and the capital of a large state.

Aden

Port city in the modern south Arabian country of Yemen. It has been a major trading center in the Indian Ocean since ancient times.

Malacca

Port city in the modern Southeast Asian country of Malaysia, founded about 1400 as a trading center on the Strait of Malacca. Also spelled Melaka.

Urdu

A Persian-influenced literary form of Hindi written in Arabic characters and used as a literary language since the 1300s.

Timbuktu

City on the Niger River in the modern country of Mali. It was founded by the Tuareg as a seasonal camp sometime after 1000. As part of the Mali empire, Timbuktu became a major major terminus of the trans-Saharan trade and a center of Islamic learning