So why didn't an arabian civilisation colonize sub-saharan africa before the europeans? They seemed to have easy access via the red sea.
>why didn't a bunch of tribals living under the heels of Turks and Persians try to conquer a sweltering, disease infested, unknown land a world away for no reason?
They traded and raided for slaves right down the east coast. They had forts and trading posts at places like Zanzibar.
As for why they did not "colonize" like the Europeans.
As they did not have an industrialized society they could not justify the vast investment required to create European style colonial states as they did not require the resources they produced. What they wanted; gold. ivory, slaves etc could be gained by trading.
>>1419367
Zanzibar wasn't Arab, originally Kilwa was founded by a Black Persian prince.
>>1419318
How? Colonizng Africa is nearly impossible without industrial technology. The Europeans didn't colonize Africa's interior until the late 1800s. If you mean why didn't the Arabs colonize Africa's coast, I believe they did to some degree.
>>1419371
>a Black Persian Prince
Explain
>>1419376
>Black Persian Prince
You should read up on history in the Indian Ocean. Abdul Sheriff's book is a good overview. It wasn't ethnically homogenous by any means due to how trade worked. You'd spend six months in Africa and six months in India/Persia and effectively had two families.
>>1419318
There's a big fucking desert between west Africa and the Arab world, they did a little bit of conquest along east Africa I believe. But they weren't advanced enough to establish colonies in west Africa.
>>1419318
They technically did, if you count merchant trader colonies on the coast followed later by actual dynasties ruling territory.
>>1419318
Africa is a pretty shit-tier continent.
All those jungles, deserts, mountains, relatively few navigable rivers, relatively few natural harbors, etc etc.
Not to mention the diseases!
>>1420882
>Africa is a pretty shit-tier continent.
>>1420882
don't forget the indigenous people
probably the biggest calamity
>>1420882
There are good parts of Africa but few very accessible from the Arab world. The Sahara in the north is an obvious barrier, but the tsetse-fly infested lowlands separating the East African coast from the fertile highlands of the interior also discouraged colonization and cultural influence.
Arabs and other North Africans/Asians influenced and in some cases conquered or colonized the accessible parts of Africa like the Swahili Coast, Sudan and Ethiopia, and once the trans-Saharan trade opened up they influenced West Africa too. The Yemenis colonised northern Ethiopia and Arabs/Persians settled on the Swahili Coast, though in both cases it was just a small population whose culture was adopted by the natives pretty quickly. Sudan has always been influenced by Egypt. The Moroccans also invaded the Niger bend but couldn't control it across the Sahara.
