Kilwa emerges as Swahili trading port

1005

On an island off the Tanzanian coast, the trading town of Kilwa was growing from a Bantu fishing village into one of the ports of the Indian Ocean monsoon circuit. Arab and Persian merchants settled alongside locals; stone mosques would soon replace thatch. Swahili civilization was taking shape, and Kilwa's great mosque would eventually stand as the largest in sub-Saharan Africa.