Ancient and medieval The founding of Mombasa is associated with two rulers: Mwana Mkisi and Shehe Mvita. According to legend, Mwana Mkisi is the original ancestor of Mombasa's oldest lineages within
Thenashara Taifa (or Twelve Nations). Families associated with the Twelve Nations are still considered the original inhabitants of the city. Mwana Mkisi was a queen from the pre-Islamic era, who founded Kongowea, the original urban settlement on Mombasa Island. Significantly, the names of both the queen and the city have linguistic and spiritual connections with
Central Africa. "Mkisi" is considered the personification of
"ukisi", which means "the holy" in
kiKongo. "Kongowea" can similarly be interpreted as the Swahili locative of
"kongo", which denotes the essence of civilizational order in central Africa. These legends can be read as an acknowledgement of the
Bantu-speaking origins of the
Swahili people. Shehe Mvitaff superseded the dynasty of Mwana Mkisi and established the first permanent stone mosque on Mombasa Island. Mombasa's oldest extant stone mosque, Mnara, was built c. 1300. Shehe Mvita is remembered as a Muslim of great learning and so is connected more directly with the present ideals of Swahili culture that people identify with Mombasa. The ancient history associated with Mwana Mkisi and Shehe Mvita and the founding of an urban settlement on Mombasa Island is still linked to present-day peoples living in Mombasa. The Thenashara Taifa (or Twelve Nations) Swahili lineages recount this ancient history today and are the keepers of local Swahili traditions. Most of the early information on Mombasa comes from the writings of
Portuguese chroniclers in the 16th century. The famous Moroccan scholar and traveller
Ibn Battuta (13041368/1369) visited the area during his travels to the
Swahili Coast. He noted the city, although he stayed only one night. He wrote that the people of Mombasa were
Shafi'i Muslims, religious people, trustworthy and righteous. Their mosques were made of wood, expertly built. The exact founding date of the city is unknown, but it has a long history. Kenyan school history books place the founding of Mombasa as 900. It must have been already a prosperous trading town in the 12th century, as the Arab geographer
al-Idrisi mentions it in 1151. The oldest stone mosque in Mombasa, Mnara, was built 1300. The Mandhry Mosque, built in 1570, has a minaret that contains a regionally specific ogee arch. This suggests that Swahili architecture was an indigenous African product rather than being adopted from non-African Muslims who brought stone architecture to the Swahili Coast. During the pre-modern period, Mombasa was an important centre for the trade in spices, gold, and
ivory. Its trade links reached as far as India and China. Oral historians today can still recount this period of local history. Indian history shows that there were trade links between Mombasa and
Cholas of
South India. Throughout the early modern period, Mombasa was a key node in the complex and far-reaching Indian Ocean trading networks. Its key exports were ivory,
millet,
sesamum and
coconuts. Ivory caravans remained a major source of economic prosperity. Mombasa became the major port city of pre-colonial Kenya in the Middle Ages and was used to trade with other African port cities, the
Persian Empire, the Arabian Peninsula, India and China. Sixteenth-century Portuguese voyager
Duarte Barbosa wrote, "[Mombasa] is a place of great traffic and has a good harbour in which there are always moored small craft of many kinds and also great ships, both of which are bound from
Sofala and others which come from
Cambay and
Melinde and others which sail to the island of
Zanzibar."
Portuguese domination from 1593 to 1698 and again from 1728 to 1729. Portuguese presence in Kenya lasted from 1498 until 1730.
Vasco da Gama was the first known European to visit Mombasa, receiving a chilly reception in 1498. Two years later, the town was sacked by the Portuguese. In 1502, the
sultanate became independent from
Kilwa Kisiwani and was renamed as Mvita (in
Swahili) or Manbasa (
Arabic). The
Portuguese had since had encounters with the city several times; first under
Francisco de Almeida in 1505, later under
Afonso de Albuquerque in 1522 to quell an attempted mutiny by the sultan's nephew in Pemba and Zanzibar, and finally the destruction of the city under
Nuno da Cunha again in 1528 after the Malindi sultan failed to pay
tribute. In 1585, a military expedition of the
Ottoman Empire, led by Emir 'Ali Bey, successfully captured Mombasa, and other coastal cities in Southeast Africa from the Portuguese. However,
Malindi remained loyal to Portugal. The
Zimba overcame the towns of Sena and Tete on the Zambezi, and in 1587 they took
Kilwa, killing 3,000 people. At Mombasa, the Zimba slaughtered the Muslim inhabitants, but they were halted at Malindi by the Bantu-speaking
Segeju and went home. This stimulated the Portuguese to take over Mombasa a third time in 1589, and four years later they built Fort Jesus to administer the region. Between
Lake Malawi and the
Zambezi mouth, Kalonga Mzura made an alliance with the Portuguese in 1608 and fielded 4,000 warriors to help defeat their rival Zimba, who were led by chief Lundi. After the building of
Fort Jesus, Mombasa was put by the Portuguese under the rule of members of the ruling family of Malindi. In 1631
Dom Jeronimo, the ruler of Mombasa, slaughtered the Portuguese garrison in the city and defeated the relief force sent by the Portuguese. In 1632 Dom Jeronimo left Mombasa and became a pirate. That year the Portuguese returned and established direct rule over Mombasa.
Omani rule With the
capture of Fort Jesus in 1698, the town came under the influence of the
Imamate of Oman, subordinate to the Omani rulers on the island of
Unguja, prompting regular local rebellions. Oman appointed three consecutive Governors (Wali in Arabic,
Liwali in
Swahili): • 12 December 1698 – December 1698: Imam Sa'if ibn Sultan • December 1698 – 1728: Nasr ibn Abdallah al-Mazru'i • 1728–12 March 1728: Shaykh Rumba Mombasa was briefly returned to Portuguese rule by captain-major Álvaro Caetano de Melo Castro (12 March 1728 – 21 September 1729), then four new Omani Liwali until 1746, when the last of them made it independent again (disputed by Oman), as the first of its recorded Sultans: • 1746–1755: 'Ali ibn Uthman al-Mazru'i • 1755–1773: Masud ibn Nasr al-Mazru'i • 1773–1782: Abdallah ibn Muhammad al-Mazru'i • 1782–1811: Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Mazru'i (born 17–died 1814) • 1812–1823: 'Abdallah ibn Ahmad al-Mazru'i (died 1823) • 1823–1826: Sulayman ibn 'Ali al-Mazru'i From 9 February 1824 to 25 July 1826, there was a
British protectorate over Mombasa, represented by governors. Omani rule was restored in 1826; seven where appointed. On 24 June 1837, it was nominally
annexed by
Said bin Sultan of
Muscat and Oman.
British rule and independence On 25 May 1887 Mombasa was relinquished to the British East Africa Association, later the
Imperial British East Africa Company. It came under British administration in 1895. It soon became the capital of the
British East Africa Protectorate and the sea terminal of the
Uganda Railway, construction of which was started in 1896. Many workers were brought in from
British India to build the railway, and the city's fortunes revived. The
Sultan of Zanzibar formally presented the town to the British in 1898. Mombasa became the capital of the
Kenya Colony Protectorate of Kenya, sometime between 1887 and around 1906. The capital was later moved because medical officers warned that the ground was swampy, and urged Sir
James Hayes Sadler, then Commissioner of the East Africa Protectorate, to plead with London to move the town elsewhere to mitigate potential disease.
Nairobi has since been Kenya's capital to date. The
Mombasa tusks, one of the city's best-known monuments, were originally constructed in 1952 by the British administration of the
Kenya Colony, commemorating the visit of
Queen Elizabeth II to the city. In 2018, as part of an effort to increase tourism, Mombasa County Governor Hassan Joho issued a directive requiring that all buildings in the Old Town and the Central Business District be painted white with
Egyptian blue trim and banned all signs from their walls or canopies. Transport, Infrastructure and Public Works County Executive Tawfiq Balala stated that the city wanted to be "the most photographed in Africa". == Geography ==