Note 87 — Chapter XI · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN AFRICA.

We must now turn to the history of the spread of Islam on the other side of the continent of Africa, the inhabitants of which were in closer proximity to the land where this faith had its birth. The facts recorded respecting the early settlements of the Arabs on the East Coast are very meagre; according to an Arabic chronicle which the Portuguese found in Kiloa87 when that town was sacked by Don Francisco d’Almeïda in 1505, the first settlers were a body of Arabs who were driven into exile because they followed the heretical teachings of a certain Zayd,88 a descendant of the Prophet, after whom they were called Emozaydij (probably أمّة زيديّة‎ or people of Zayd). The Zayd here referred to is probably Zayd b. ʻAlī, a grandson of Ḥusayn and so great-grandson of ʻAlī, the nephew of Muḥammad: in the reign of the caliph Hishām he claimed to be the Imām Mahdī and stirred up a revolt among the Shīʻah faction, but was defeated and put to death in A.H. 122 (A.D. 740).89