Mogadisho, a town founded by Abgal Yacqub, Ajuran, andHamari

[Somali2003]

MUQDISHO IN THE NINETEENTH C E N T U R Y :
A REGIONAL PERSPECTIVE1
BY EDWARD A. ALPERS

1843

"That Muqdisho in the nineteenth century was a shadow of its former
splendid self is a generally accepted fact. One has only to compare the famous
description of Ibn BattCqa of the town in 1331 to those of its visitors five
centuries later to realize that its heyday was long since past.6 When the
Portuguese entered the Indian Ocean, Muqdisho was apparently still a
wealthy community which drove an important overseas trade based on its
complementary relationship with the Ajuraan imamate of the interior.' How
its prosperity might have been affected by the Portuguese intrusion simply
is not known, as the entire Benaadir coast lay outside Portuguese influence."
Certainly, there was no commercial collapse, for in the middle of the
seventeenth century its principal towns - Muqdisho, Marka, and Baraawe -
traded independently with small vessels from S ~ r a tD. ~ur ing this period,
however, the gradual infiltration of Muqdisho by Hawiyya Soomaali groups
of the hinterland brought about a major transformation of the town, including
the abandonment of certain quarters which had existed in medieval times and
an apparent reduction in its total population. By about 1700 the entire
political structure of the town was altered with the ascendancy of a new line
of Abgaal Yaaquub imams who resided in Shingaani (the northern moiety
of the town), but whose power base remained among the people of the
interior.1°
The Abgaal domination of Shingaani left the older elite of Xamarweyn (the
other town moiety) without significant allies in the interior. One important
consequence of this predicament, as well as an important indication of the
internal dynamics of town history, was that direct commercial contact
between the coast and Luuq, the most important trading emporium for
southern Ethiopia, was established in the late eighteenth century by a man
of the reer Faaqi, one of the principal family groups of Xamarweyn.ll This
initiative may also reflect the general growth of trade at Zanzibar, which dates
to the domination of the Bu Sa'idi dynasty of Oman from 1785.
By the early years of the nineteenth century Muqdisho and the two other
principal towns of the Benaadir coast, Marka and Baraawe, seem to have
settled into a pattern of regular if modest trade with boats plying the maritime
routes between India, Arabia, Larnu and Zanzibar. Exports included cattle,"

[The_Emperior5]

how come hawiye wherent xayawaan in back in the days


maxaa qaadtay

[DawladSade]

Somali, the problem is not everything we read is true. Ajuuraan is a myth made up which become the euro's only attemtp at establishing a "state" for somali before since none existed to the nomads, hamari is a term for remnants of zawahili and arab mix...the real founders of mogadishu are the persians, everyone knows

[The_Emperior5]

whats the diffrence sxb xaatta jiin muu findgerayoo

maxay tarraysa suuta saa uu eeg


Boqorkii ugu hooreyee eeh xabashi Menelik ayaa ka talliye hargesa maxay sheegaysa



its what it i s today

[James Dahl]

[quote="DawladSade"]Somali, the problem is not everything we read is true. Ajuuraan is a myth made up which become the euro's only attemtp at establishing a "state" for somali before since none existed to the nomads, hamari is a term for remnants of zawahili and arab mix...the real founders of mogadishu are the persians, everyone knows[/quote]


You think everything is a myth.

The order of settlement, confirmed by early 20th century archeology under Cerulli, is:

* Sabaeans build trade post in Shingani
* Arab traders build town of Hamar Weyne
* Zenj Empire build city of Mogadishu, encompassing Shingani and Hamar Weyne (previously two distinct towns) as the first capital of the Shirazi Dynasty
* Shirazi move to Kilwa Kisiwani
* Mogadishu independent, Fakr ad-Din becomes sultan of Mogadishu
* Ajuran depose Fakr ad-Din dynasty and replace it with their relatives the Muzaffars
* Muzaffar Dynasty deposed by Imamate of Oman, who put their allies the Abgaal in charge of Mogadishu to rule in their stead.
* Italians buy Mogadishu and the rest of the Benadir from Oman
* British take Mogadishu during WW2, put under UN mandate
* Somalia independent, Mogadishu made capital

You know the rest.

[Somali2003]

Even if they did not find it, they had impact on its growth.

Arabs came there by migraton in search of better life, but Somalis were there long before them, and finally they took over it.

[James Dahl]

Using ethnic labels in the distant past is not wise really, as for one thing before the Hejira there was no Arab nation, but rather many different tribes, many of which had different religions, languages and even ethnic origins. The Persians were and even are still like that, lots of different tribes with different origins and religions and languages.

For instance the "Shirazi" have a lot of theories as to who they really are. The actual tribe seems to be a tribe of Kurds originally, who carved an empire out of southern Persia, then moved en-masse to east Africa to avoid the Arabs. These tribes had no problem interbreeding with anyone they wanted to form an alliance with, so the ethnic lines get blurry to the point of disappearing.

The modern Swahili for instance are a mixture of Bantus, Shirazis and Arabs and probably a whole host of other ethnicities who have visited East Africa. I wouldn't be surprized if there's some Malay there.