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Page 1 of 4 Taariikhda Soomaaliya ayadoo af Soomaali ku qoran Ancient History
Greek merchants and explorers in the Erythraean (Red) Sea referred to Somalia as two regions, the Berber Coast (the Red Sea Coast of Somalia) and Azania, which actually included the coasts of modern Kenya and Tanzania as well as the Somali East Coast. Traders made the journey to Somalia in order to purchase Myrrh and Frankincense, both highly valuable commodities as they were required for many religious ceremonies and in perfumes, in great demand throughout the Roman Empire, Asia, India and China.
Zheng He & Ibn Battuta
Between the 13th and 14th centuries, Somalia was visited by two famous explorers, Ibn Battuta and Zheng He. During his visit to Mogadishu in 1331, Ibn Battuta had this to say about the city and its people:
It is a town endless in its size. Its people have many camels, of which they slaughter hundreds every day, and they have many sheep. Its people are powerful merchants. In it are manufactured the clothes named after the city, which have no rival, and which are transported as far as Egypt and elsewhere.
On his fourth (1413-15) and fifth voyage (1416-19), Zheng He visited several city states on the Somali coast including Mogadishu.
The rise of Marehan Sultanates and Dynasty of Adal & the Ethiopian Empire war
Muslim Somalia enjoyed friendly relations with neighboring Christian Ethiopia for centuries. Despite jihad raging everywhere else in the Muslim world, Muhammad had issued a hadith proscribing Muslims from attacking Ethiopia (so long as Ethiopia was not the aggressor), as it had sheltered some of Islam's first converts from persecution in modern-day Saudi Arabia. Parts of northwestern Somalia came under the rule of the Solomonic Ethiopian Kingdom in medieval times, especially during the reign of Amda Seyon I (r. 1314-1344). In 1403 or 1415 (under Emperor Dawit I or Emperor Yeshaq I, respectively) measures were taken against the Muslim Sultanate of Adal (located in present-day northwestern Somalia, southern Djibouti, and the Somali, Oromia, and Afar regions of Ethiopia, centered around first Zeila then Harar, and populated by both Somalis and Afars), a tributary kingdom that revolted and whose raids were disrupting rule in adjacent areas. His campaign was eventually successful, but took much longer than other campaigns at the time due to the tendency of Adal warriors to disappear into the countryside after fighting. In 1403 (or 1415), the Emperor eventually captured King Sa'ad ad-Din II in Zeila and had him executed, with the Walashma ruling family exiled to Yemen. The Walashma Chronicle, however, records the date as 1415, which would make the Ethiopian victor Emperor Yeshaq I. After the war, the reigning king had his minstrels compose a song praising his victory, which contains the first written record of the word "Somali".
The area remained under Ethiopian control for another century or so. However, starting around 1527 under the charismatic leadership of Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi (Gurey in Somali, Gragn in Amharic, both meaning "left-handed), Adal revolted and invaded Ethiopia. Regrouped Muslim armies with Ottoman support and arms marched into Ethiopia employing scorched earth tactics and slaughtered any Ethiopian who refused to convert from Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity to Islam.
Moreover, hundreds of churches were destroyed during the invasion, and an estimated 80% of the manuscripts in the country were destroyed in the process. Adal's use of firearms, still only rarely used in Ethiopia, allowed the conquest of well over half of Ethiopia, reaching as far north as Tigray. The complete conquest of Ethiopia was averted by the timely arrival of a Portuguese expedition led by Cristovão da Gama, son of the famed navigator Vasco da Gama. The Portuguese had been in the area earlier in early 16th centuries (in search of the legendary priest-king Prester John), and although a diplomatic mission from Portugal, led by Rodrigo de Lima, had failed to improve relations between the countries, they responded to the Ethiopian pleas for help and sent a military expedition to their fellow Christians. A Portuguese fleet under the command of Estêvão da Gama was sent from India and arrived at Massawa in February 1541. Here he received an ambassador from the Emperor beseeching him to send help against the Muslims, and in July following a force of 400 musketeers, under the command of Christovão da Gama, younger brother of the admiral, marched into the interior, and being joined by Ethiopian troops they were at first successful against the Muslims but they were subsequently defeated at the Battle of Wofla (28 August 1542), and their commander captured and executed. On February 21, 1543, however, a joint Portuguese-Ethiopian force defeated the Muslim army at the Battle of Wayna Daga, in which Ahmed Gurey was killed and the war won.
Ahmed Gurey's widow married his nephew Nur ibn Mujahid, who belonged to the Marehan clan, in return for his promise to avenge Ahmed's death, who succeeded Ahmed Gurey, and continued hostilities against his northern adversaries until he killed the Ethiopian Emperor in his second invasion of Ethiopia, Emir Nur died in 1567; the Ethiopians sacked Zeila in 1660.[citation needed] The Portuguese, meanwhile, tried to conquer Mogadishu but according to Duarta Barbosa never succeeded in taking it. The sultanate of Adal disintegrated into small independent states, many of which were ruled by Somali chiefs.[citation needed] Zeila became a dependency of Yemen, and was then incorporated into the Ottoman Empire.
Ajuuraan Dynasty
On the other side of East Africa in the 14th century, the Ajuuran dynasty formed a centralized state in the lower Shabeelle valley, ruling over a territory that stretched as far inland as modern Qalafo and towards the coast almost to Mogadishu. Said S. Samatar, writing with David Laitin, notes that the Ajuuran sultanate "represents one of the rare occasions in Somali history when a pastoral state achieved large-scale centralization", and notes that it grew larger and more powerful than coastal city-states of Mogadishu, Merka and Baraawe combined.
Hobyo, the ancient port of Somalia was the commercial centre of the Ajuuraan Sultanate, all the commercial goods grown or harvested along the Shabelle river were brought to Hobyo to trade, as Hobyo remained the active mercantile pitstop of ancient times. The Ajuuraan rulers collected their tribute from the town in the form of sorghum (durra), making the port of Hobyo incredibly profitable for the Ajuuraan sultans.
Trade between Hobyo and the Banaadir coast flourished for some time. So vital was Hobyo to the prosperity of the Ajuuraan Sultanate, that when local sheikhs successfully revolted against the Ajuuraan Sultan and established an independent Imamate of the Hiraab, the power of the Ajuuraan sultans crumbled within a century.
Due to Portuguese predations, internal discord, and encroaching nomads from the north, the Ajuuran sultanate disintegrated at the end of the 17th century. According to Said Samatar, almost a full century passed before a successor state emerged: the Geledi Sultanate, which was based in the town of Afgooye and ruled over the lower Shabeelle region. Meanwhile, the Sultanate of Oman of south Arabia ousted the Portuguese from the Benaadir coast, and ruled the Benaadir coast with what Samatar describes as a "light hand" until the European Scramble for Africa in the 1880s. "As long as the Somali cities paid their yearly tribute (which was by no means extortionate), flew the Omani flag, and accepted Omani overlordship, the Omanis allowed the Somalis to run their internal affairs. The role of the Omani governors in Mogadishu, Merca, and Baraawe was largely a ceremonial one. However, when Omani authority was challenged, the Omanis could be severe."
In the 17th century, Somalia fell under the sway of the rapidly expanding Ottoman Empire, who exercised control through hand picked local Somali governors. In 1728 the Ottomans evicted the last Portuguese occupation and claimed sovereignty over the whole Horn of Africa. However, their actual exercise of control was fairly modest, as they demanded only a token annual tribute and appointed an Ottoman judge to act as a kind of Supreme Court for interpretations of Islamic law. By the 1850s Ottoman power was in decline.
Kingdom of Majeerteenia
Farther east on the Bari coast, two kingdoms emerged that would play a significant political role on the Somali Peninsula prior to colonization. These were the Majeerteen Sultanate of Boqor(king) Osman Mahamuud, and that of his kinsman Sultan Yuusuf Ali Keenadiid of Hobyo (Obbia). The Majeerteen Sultanate originated in the mid eighteenth century, but only came into its own in the nineteenth century with the reign of the resourceful Boqor Osman. Boqor Osman Mahamuud's kingdom benefited from British subsidies (for protecting the British naval crews that were shipwrecked periodically on the Somali coast) and from a liberal trade policy that facilitated a flourishing commerce in livestock, ostrich feathers, and gum arabic. While acknowledging a vague vassalage to the British, the Sultan kept his kingdom free until well after the 1900s.
Boqor Ismaan Mahamuud's sultanate was nearly destroyed in the middle of the nineteenth century by a power struggle between him and his young, ambitious cousin, Keenadiid. Nearly five years of destructive civil war passed before Boqor Ismaan Mahamuud managed to stave off the challenge of the young upstart, who was finally driven into exile in Arabia. A decade later, in the 1870s, Keenadiid returned from Arabia with a score of Hadhrami musketeers and a band of devoted lieutenants. With their help, he carved out the small kingdom of Hobyo after conquering the local clans.
The Boqors descendants live on in the Washington DC metropolitan area. They have altered their surnames to "Samantar" instead of "Samatar".
Warsangeli Sultanate or Sultanate of Northern Somalia
The Warsangeli Sultanate was an imperial power centered around the borders of the North East of British Somaliland and some parts of South East of Italian Somaliland. It was one of the largest Sultanates of all times in Somalia, and, at the height of its power, it included the Sanaag region, parts of North East of Bari region. It was established by a tribe of Warsangeli in North of Somalia and ruled by the descendants of the Gerad Dhidhin.
The Sultan (also known as the Gerad in some parts of Somalia) was the sole regent and government of the Sultanate, at least officially. The dynasty is most often called the Gerad or the House of North East Somaliland Sultan. The sultan enjoyed many titles such as Sovereign of the House of North East of Somaliland Sultanate, Sultan of Sultans of Somaliland. Note that the first rulers never called themselves sultans. The sultan title was established by Sultan Mohamud Ali Shire in 1897.
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Taariikhda/History
