ports of the Abyssinian hinterland in the trade with Arabia and the Orient. Through Zeila local Somali produce, consisting chiefly of hides and skins, precious gums, ghee, and ostrich feathers, and slaves and ivory from the Abyssinian highlands, were exported: and cloth, dates, iron, weapons, and chinaware and pottery imported. Politically, Zeila was originally the centre of the Muslim emirate of Adal, part of the state of Ifat, which lay in the plateau region of eastern Shoa. From the time at which the port enters Islamic history, it had apparently a mixed Arab, Somali, and Danakil (‘Afar) population. In the course of time, no one knows exactly when, these three separate elements to some extent fused to form a distinctive Zeila culture and Zeila dialect which was a blend of Arabic, Somali, and ‘Afar. No doubt other minor ethnic elements were also represented; Persians and Indians seem to have settled in the port at an early period, but the main elements in the Zeila culture were Arab, Somali, and ‘Afar.
While these northern coastal centres were developing, Arab settlers were opening, or consolidating, a similar series of ports in the south. Of these the most important were Mogadishu, the present capital of the Republic, Brava, and Merca – all commercial towns largely dependent for their prosperity upon the entrepôt trade between Abyssinia, Arabia, and the markets of the East. The evidence of the Arab geographers and local inscriptions and documents indicate that by the first half of the tenth century Arab and Persian colonizers had established themselves at Mogadishu in considerable numbers, some years prior to the foundation of Kilwa on the East African Coast. Similar sources suggest that Merca and Brava are of comparable antiquity. Thus, in both the north and south, by the tenth century a ring of coastal emporia had been created, largely as a result of Arab enterprise, and through these ports Islam and Arab trade had gained a foothold which, consolidated and strengthened in succeeding centuries, was to become the foundation for Muslim expansion in North East Africa.
The first wave of Somali expansion
About the tenth century while these developments were proceeding on the coast, some areas of southern Somaliland were still occupied by the Zanj, while the land in the centre and north was occupied first by various Oromo tribes and then by the Somali. From Somali oral tradition and other local evidence it seems that Galla communities occupied part of northern Somaliland prior to the Somali, and that about the tenth century, the Dir Somali, universally regarded as the oldest Somali stock, were already in possession of much of the northern coastal strip and exerting pressure on the Oromo to their south.
But the first major impetus to Somali migration which tradition records is the arrival from Arabia of Sheikh Isma ‘il Jabarti about the tenth or eleventh century and the expansion of his descendants, the Darod clans, from their early seat in the north-east corner of Somaliland. This cannot be dated with certainty, but the period suggested here accords well with the sequence of subsequent events. It was followed perhaps some two centuries later by the arrival from Arabia of Sheikh Isaq, founder of the Isaq Somali, who settled to the west of the Darod at Mait where his domed tomb stands today, and who like his predecessor Darod, married with the local Dir Somali. While present evidence, or to be more precise, its lack, suggests that much of the very detailed tradition which surrounds these two patriarchs is legend, it appears likely that it should be interpreted as reflecting the growth and expansion of the Darod and Isaq clans about this time. For while Darod and Isaq themselves may be legendary figures, there is no doubt about the authenticity of the movements of their descendants.
On this interpretation, by the twelfth century the Dir and Darod, and later the Isaq, were pressing upon their Oromo neighbours and the great series of movements which finally disestablished the latter may be said to have begun. Folk tradition today offers little information as to the causes of this movement. It would not be unreasonable to conjecture, however, that mounting population pressure, augmented by continued Arab immigration, and perhaps exacerbated by a series of severe droughts, prompted a general Somali movement in search of new pastures. And this was no doubt furthered by the messianic and militant fervour of early Islam.
If the motives which inspired this great movement of population are still a matter of conjecture, its general direction is fortunately well-established. The traditions of migration indicate that in their gradual and by no means co-ordinated movement towards the south the Somali followed two main routes: they descended from the north down the valley of the Shebelle and its tributaries, or along the line of coastal wells on the Indian Ocean littoral. These vital water-lines were traversed by group after group as the Somali as a whole moved forward.
As the Darod and Isaq grew in numbers and territory, the Dir vacated the north-eastern region of Somaliland, striking off westwards and to the south. In the west, the powerful ‘Ise and Gadabursi clans pushed gradually, and not without many set-backs, into what is today Harar Province of Ethiopia and the Jibuti Republic, leaving the graves of their ancestors several hundred miles behind them in the Erigavo District. To anticipate for a moment; it seems that by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries these movements by the Dir, Darod, and Isaq, had proceeded to the point where the two last groups of clans had taken over much of northern Somaliland and the Ogaden region of Ethiopia. Thus, probably by the close of the seventeenth century, the clans of northern Somaliland had assumed approximately their present distribution, although the gradual drift of population from the north still continued.
In step with these Somali movements in the north, the Oromo were increasingly thrust westwards and southwards and ultimately into Ethiopia, where, however, their main invasion did not take place until the sixteenth century.2 As the Galla withdrew, not without fierce resistance, the Bantu Zanj were in turn driven farther south. At the same time, the Somali were maintaining their pressure and, in the early stages of their expansion, some groups managed to infiltrate through the main mass of the Galla. In this way, by as early as the thirteenth century, some sections of the Hawiye had established themselves close to the Arab settlement of Merca. The occupation of this region by the Hawiye at this time is recorded by the geographer Ibn Sa‘id, and this is the earliest known mention of any Somali group.3 Local tradition throws further light on the position and suggests that these Hawiye intruders had already been preceded by other Somali groups including several sections of the Digil. These earlier pioneers had apparently settled for a time on the Shebelle River, and had then crossed the river to move towards the coast. Thus, in the thirteenth century, the position apparently was that the coastal region between Itala and Merca was occupied by the Hawiye Somali: farther south and towards the interior lay the Digil; and finally to the west the Oromo were still dominant.
In this general area local tradition has most to say of the Ajuran, a clan tracing descent from a noble Arabian patriarch on the same pattern as the Darod and Isaq, but related maternally to the Hawiye. Under a hereditary dynasty, the Ajuran consolidated their position as the masters of the fertile reaches of the lower Shebelle basin and established a commercial connexion with the port of Mogadishu where some of their own clansmen were also settled. The fortunes of this Ajuran Sultanate thus appear to have been closely linked with those of Mogadishu, and the Ajuran reached the summit of their power in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century when Mogadishu was ruled by the Muzaffar dynasty,4 an aristocracy related to the Ajuran if not actually of Ajuran stock. Later, the two centres declined about the same time; but this is again to anticipate.
The holy wars against Abyssinia
Before pursuing these Somali migrations, we must refer briefly to the prolonged struggle further inland between the expanding Abyssinian Kingdom and the loose congeries of Islamic states including Ifat, Dawaro, Bale and Hadiya, lying to the south-east of the Christian Amhara Highlands. Here our reconstruction of events from oral tradition is supplemented by written records from both Christian and Muslim sources. These show that by the thirteenth century the Muslim state of Ifat which included Adal and the port of Zeila was ruled by the Walashma’, a dynasty then claiming Arab origins. Early in the fourteenth century, Haq ad-Din, Sultan of Ifat, turned the sporadic and disjointed forays of his predecessors into a full-scale war of aggression, and apparently for the first time, couched his call to arms in the form of a religious war against the Abyssinian ‘infidels’.
