Antiquity and Middle Ages
According to the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, maritime trade connected Somalis in the Mogadishu area with other communities along the Indian Ocean coast as early as the 1st century CE, and the ancient trading power of Sarapion has been postulated to be the predecessor of Mogadishu. With Muslim traders from the Arabian Peninsula arriving c. 900 CE, Mogadishu was well-suited to become a regional center for commerce.
The name "Mogadishu" is held to be derived from the Arabic مقعد شاه Maq'ad Shah ("The seat of the Shah"), a reflection of the city's early Persian influence.
For many years, Mogadishu stood as the pre-eminent city in the بلد البربر Bilad al Barbar ("Land of the Berbers"), which was the medieval Arabic term for the Horn of Africa. Following his visit to the city, the 12th century Syrian historian Yaqut al-Hamawi wrote that it was inhabited by dark-skinned Berbers, the ancestors of the modern Somalis.
The Sultanate of Mogadishu developed with the immigration of Emozeidi Arabs, a community whose earliest presence dates back to the 9th or 10th century. This evolved into the Muzaffar dynasty, a joint Somali-Arab federation of rulers, and Mogadishu became closely linked with the powerful Somali Ajuuraan State.
By the time of the Moroccan traveller Ibn Batuta's appearance on the Somali coast in 1331, the city was at the zenith of its prosperity. Batuta described Mogadishu as "an exceedingly large city" with many rich merchants, which was famous for its high quality fabric that it exported to Egypt, among other places. He added that the city was ruled by a Somali Sultan originally from the northern Barbara region, who spoke both Somali (referred to by Battuta as Mogadishan, the Benadir dialect of Somali) and Arabic with equal fluency. The Sultan also had a retinue of wazirs (ministers), legal experts, commanders, royal eunuchs, and other officials at his beck and call.
Archaeological excavations have recovered many coins from China, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. The majority of the Chinese coins date to the Song Dynasty, although Ming and Qing Dynasty pieces have also been found, according to Richard Pankhurst.
In 1416, Mogadishu sent ambassadors to pay tribute to the Ming dynasty. The Yongle Emperor dispatched Admiral Zheng He to return ambassadors to the Somali city, with Zheng He revisiting the city in 1430.
Read more about this topic: History Of Mogadishu
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