Faza Ali (Faza )
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The town of Faza today. The 19th century Quran from Faza.
Ibn Majid (1470) is the only author mentioning this place in the Lamu area. There is also an unsure mention on the Chinese Maokun map as Man-ba-sa (Mfaza). The modern town fills the complete little island, stones from old buildings is reused for new ones. Excavations did not take place. The oldest ruins seems to be the Kunjanja Mosque right on the creek front next to the district headquarters where the ferries anchor. There is a beautifully carved mihrab and some fine Arabic inscriptions above the doorway. It is not known when it was built.
Ruins in the town.
Taken from: Swahili Monumental Architecture and Archaeology North of the Tana River. By Thomas H. Wilson.
Our surface collection from Faza included a few pieces of sgrafiato, some celadon, numerous Islamic monochromes, Persian blue and white, Islamic polychromes, Chinese blue and white from the fifteenth to nineteenth century, Japanese blue and white, Indian black on red earthenware, imitation celadon, and nineteenth century European wares. The sgrafiato suggests that Faza might date from the late thirteenth century.
The Kitab al Zanj (a late 19th history of the Swahili compiled in S Somalia) mentions Faza: In the year 149 (765-766) the emissary of the Abbasid government came to the sultans in Maqdishu, Marka, Barawa, Faza, Siwi, Bata, Manda, Taqa, Amu, Uzi, Maludi, Uyumbu, Kilifi, Basasa, Zinjibar, Kilwa and Waybu.
Note: this date for the existence of all these places is impossible.
The Pate chronicle (edited by Marina Tolmacheva) mentions Faza:
In the year 690 (1291) Sultan Ahmad (of Pate) died …. Muhammad ibn Ahmad reigned, the third of the Nabahans …..
After Sultan Muhammad had conquered the country of Shanga, trouble arose between him and the people of the country originally called Rasini, but which is now called Faza.
So he made war against them and they fought together for many days. And it came to pass that the people of Pate were unable to go outside the town to draw water after the sun had risen for fear of those people of Rasini. For it was the custom of those people to arrive daily as the sun commenced to mount in the heavens. Till the women in their houses used to tell their slaves: Go quickly and draw water before the sun mounts and those of the mounting sun have come. So the people of Faza (or Paza) were called: those of the mounting sun. This is the origin of the word Wapaza, for after a while the word sun was dropped out, and they were called: those of the mounting (=Wapatha in Pate Swahili). After many days had passed the name of Wapaza stuck to them. Later on when the country of Rasini had been taken by the Sultan of Pate, it remained uninhabited till the Watikuu came asking for a place in which to settle. The Sultan of that date told them that they could have the place of the Wapatha. That is why they are now called Paza (or Faza).
Main happenings in Faza in Portuguese times.
-1587-89 Portuguese destruction of Manda and Faza: Santos, , Etiopia Orientale.
-c.1593 Stambuli dynasty, Faza.
-c. 1596 Augustianians and Misericordia Brethren in Mombasa, Faza, Lamu, Zanzibar.
-1636 Punitive expeditions and treaties imposed on Pate, Siyu, Manda, Luziwa, Faza and Lamu.
-1643 Sultan of Faza complains of Portuguese conduct. Captain Afonso Manoel sent to Goa for trial. Tension between Faza and Pate.
-1644 War between Pemba and Faza.
-1660 Umani raiders at Faza and supported by Pate, Siyu, Manda, Lamu, Simio, Mwera, Jasa & Oja.
Taken from: Travels in the coastlands of British East Africa and the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba: their agricultural resources and general characteristics; by WILLIAM WALTER AUGUSTINE FITZGERALD (1898)
The island is of coral formation, and the soil, so far as I observed it, consisted of a white to grey clayey loam as subsoil, with an upper stratum of grey loam. The walls of the houses of Faza were of the same grey colour. In the coco-nut shamba (field) where I was camped the upper loam was sandy and the outcrop of coral frequent.
Faza is situated on a tidal creek, navigable for dhows, and thickly fringed with mangroves. The town is so girdled by mangrove swamps as to be practically an island when the tide is high. There are several good coral-stone houses in Faza, which is a fairly large place, but the majority of the houses are built of wattle and mud, with makouti (coco-nut thatch) roofs.