السود means black people and black people are negros
وسافرت من مدينة عدن في البحر أربعة أيام ووصلت إلى مدينة زيلع وهي مدينة البرابرة وهم طائفة من السودان شافعية المذهب
I traveled from the city of Aden by sea for four days and arrived in the city of Zeila, which is the city of the Berbers, a Shafi’i sect from Sudaan.
In his narrative, Ibn Battuta refers to the
Berbers " the Somalis "
as “
Sudaan السودان ” employing the medieval Arabic term al‑
Sudaan ,
a designation used to mean “
Black people ” .
He thereby distinguishes them from the
lighter-skinned Berbers of
North Africa .
From Arabic , the
Sudaan السودان
= the
Black .
ثم ركبت من مدينة مقدشو متوجها
إلى بلاد السواحل
قاصدا مدينة كُلْوَ١ من بلاد الزنوج
Then I left Mogadishu, heading for the swahili lands,
towards the town of Kilwa in the land of the Zanj.
Ibn Battūṭa uses the term
al‑zunūj (زنج,
Zanj),
a medieval Arabic ethnonym denoting the
Bantu-speaking black African populations of the
Swahili coast ,
to
distinguish them from the phenotypically similar but linguistically and culturally distinct
Black-skinned Berbers of the Horn of Africa, who are
not labeled as such in his narrative .
al‑zunūj الزنوج ( singular Zanj زنج )
= Negros .
From Persian زنگی (zangi, “dark-skinned”), from Middle Persian zngyk' (zangīg, “Negro”).
كتاب معجم البلدان لياقوت الحموي
ولهم هناك مدن أجلّها مقدشو، و
سكانها عرباء و
استوطنوا تلك البلاد، وهم مسلمون، طوائف لا سلطان لهم لكل طائفة شيخ يأتمرون له، وهي على برّ
البربر، وهم طائفة من
العربان غير الذين هم في المغرب،
بلادهم بين
الحبشة و
الزنج، وسنذكرهم بعد إن شاء الله تعالى، ثم يمتد بر
البربر على ساحل
بحر الزنج إلى قرابة عدن، وأقصى هذا البحر يتصل بالبحر المحيط.
Yaqut al-Hamawi :
Kitāb Mu'jam al-Buldān ( معجم البلدان)
They have cities there, the most important of which is Mogadishu, and its
inhabitants are
Bedouins who
settled in this country, and they are Muslims,
groups without a Sultan , each group has a sheikh whom they obey,
and it is on the land of the
Berbers, who are a group of
Bedouins and they are not like those of the Maghreb " North Africa ",
their land is between
Abyssinia and
Zanj, and we will mention them later, God willing,
then the land of the
Berbers extends on the coast of the
Sea of
Zanj until near Aden, and the farthest part of this sea connects with the Ocean Sea.
Side note :
عرباء = العربان = بدو / أهل البادية
ʕurbāʔ عرباء = ʕurbān عربان = Bedouins .