Anjouan Island Anjouan Island Comoros

Little is known of the first inhabitants of the Comoros archipelago, although a sixth-century settlement has been uncovered on Nzwani by archaeologists.

Historians speculate that Indonesian immigrants used the islands as stepping stones on the way to Madagascar prior to CE 1000.

Because Comoros lies at the juncture of African, Malayo-Indonesian, and Arab spheres of influence, the present population reflects a blend of these elements in its physical characteristics, language, culture, social structure, and religion.

Local legend cites the first settlement of the archipelago by two families from Arabia after the death of Solomon.

Legend also tells of a Persian king, Husain ibn Ali, who established a settlement on Comoros around the beginning of the eleventh century.

Bantu peoples apparently moved to Comoros before the fourteenth century, principally from  the coast of what is now southern Mozambique; on the island of Nzwani they apparently encounter an earlier group of inhabitants, a Malayo-Indonesian people.

A number of chieftains bearing African titles establish settlements on Njazidja and Nzwani, and by the fifteenth century they probably have contact with Arab merchants and traders who bring the Islamic faith to the islands.

A watershed in the history of the Comoros islands is the arrival of the Shirazi Arabs in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The Shirazi, who originate from the city of Shiraz in what is now Iran, are Sunni Muslims adhering to the legal school of Muhammad ibn Idris ash Shafii, an eighth-century Meccan scholar who followed a middle path in combining tradition and independent judgment in legal matters.

The Shirazi Arabs travel and trade up and down the East African coast and as far east as India and Maldives.

A legend is recounted on Comoros and on the East African coast of seven Shirazi brothers who set sail in seven ships, landed on the coast of northwest Madagascar and on Njazidja and Nzwani, and established colonies in the fifteenth century.

The Shirazi, who divide Njazidja into eleven sultanates and Nzwani into two, extends their rule to Mahore and Mwali, although the latter in the nineteenth century will come under the control of Malagasy rulers.

The Shirazi build mosques and establish Islam as the religion of the islands.

They also introduce stone architecture, carpentry, cotton weaving, the cultivation of a number of fruits, and the Persian solar calendar.

By the sixteenth century, the Comoros has become a center of regional trade, exporting rice, ambergris, spices, and slaves to ports in East Africa and the Middle East in exchange for opium, cotton cloth, and other items.