Zafiraminia

The Zafiraminia, whose name means descendants of Ramini, were Muslim seafarers who settled on the southeastern coast of Madagascar from about the thirteenth century. Their leaders claimed ancestry from Mecca by way of Mangalore in India, though later scholars more often trace them to Sumatra, Ramini being a medieval name for that island, or to the Bugis of Borneo.

They won high standing among the local Malagasy through the knowledge and crafts they brought from overseas and kept the right to perform the sombili, the ritual sacrifice of cattle to the ancestors.

When new Muslim migrants reached the Matitana coast around 1490 and formed the Antemoro clans, the Zafiraminia refused them marriage alliances. The rivalry ended in the 1500s with the rise of the Antemoro kingdom and the loss of their former supremacy.