Nabahani

The Nabahani ruled the Swahili sultanate of Pate in the Lamu Archipelago. According to the Pate Chronicle, the family arrived in 1203 and 1204, when the Arab chief Sulaymān ibn Sulaymān al-Nabahānī married the daughter of the last native Batawiyyūn king and took the throne; the family claimed descent from the Nabhani kings of Oman.

Under their rule Pate grew into a leading trading city of the East African coast, prominent from the 1300s and long rivalling Lamu and Mombasa. By the eighteenth century Pate declined and its sultans took up residence in Lamu.

Around 1812 a succession dispute after the death of Sultan Fumo Madi drew in the Mazrui of Mombasa, and the allied Pate and Mombasa army was crushed by Lamu at the Battle of Shela, after which the coast fell under the domination of Oman.