Swahili cities prosper along East Africa

1255

Mogadishu, Kilwa, and Mombasa continued their rise as cosmopolitan stone towns where Arab dhows met Bantu caravans. Gold, ivory, ambergris, and slaves flowed out; cotton, ceramics, and Islam flowed in. Swahili, a Bantu language infused with Arabic, crystallized as the trade tongue. The coral-stone mosques and multi-story merchant houses of these ports rivaled anything built along the Arabian coast.