Sa'id of Mogadishu

Muslim scholar Sa'id of Mogadishu
Title	Imam
Ethnicity	Somali
Era	Medieval
Region	Horn of Africa/Arabian peninsula
Religion	Islam
Main interest(s)	Islamic philosophy, polemics

Sa'id of Mogadishu (Somali: Saciid min Muqdisho, Arabic: سعيد من مقديشو Sa'iid min maqadīshū‎) was a 14th-century Somali scholar and traveler.

Biography

Sa'id left Mogadishu as a teenager to study in Mecca and Medina, where he remained for 28 years gathering knowledge and gaining many disciples.^[1] His reputation as a scholar earned him audiences with the Amirs of Mecca and Medina.^[2]

Sa'id is said to have afterwards travelled across the Muslim world and visited Bengal and China. During his stay at a mosque on the westcoast of India, he encountered fellow Muslim traveller Ibn Battuta. According to scholar Peter Jackson, Sa'id might have during this occasion shared with Battuta accounts of his travels in China and detailed the political landscape and succession of the Yuan Dynasty, information which Battuta would eventually add in his own chronicles.^[3]

References

1. History of Medieval Deccan, 1295-1724: Mainly cultural aspects edited by P. M. Joshi pg 7
2. Between the Middle Ages and modernity: individual and community in the early By Charles H. Parker, Jerry H. Bentley pg 160
3. Travels of Ibn Battuta - Review by Peter Jackson, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society pg 264