“I met in this Masjid a jurist, pious from Mogadishu called Sa‘īd, of fine figure and character.
He had travelled [throughout] India and China.”[1] Sa'id left Mogadishu as a teenager to study in Mecca and Medina, where he remained for 28 years gathering knowledge and gaining many disciples.
[3] From this it is apparent that Sa‘īd was not only a well travelled scholar known in the ways of the world, but he must have recruited many students due to his close link with the Amirs.
Faqih Sa’id is an epitome of many more East African scholars who arrived in the Malabar Coast and partook in its religious spectrums, and their contributions await further research.”[4] Sa'id is said to have afterwards travelled across the Muslim world and visited Bengal and Yuan China.
During his stay at a mosque on the west coast of India, he encountered fellow Muslim traveller Ibn Battuta.