Somalis used to be Habeshas, too - here's the facts

[Clown]

ommentators in Arabic in the medieval period used the general term bilâd as-sûdân ("Land of the Blacks") for the vast Sudan region.

Its equivalent in the southeast was Zanj ("Country of the Blacks").

In modern-day Ethiopia was Al-Habash or Abyssinia, which was inhabited by the Habash or Abyssinians, who were the forebears of the Habesha.

In northern Somalia was Barbara or the Bilad al-Barbar ("Land of the Berbers"), which was inhabited by the Eastern Baribah or Barbaroi, as the ancestors of the Somalis were referred to by medieval Arab and ancient Greek geographers, respectively.

I was taught this in cairo 1990s not hard

[LiquidHYDROGEN]

Somalis are the original Berbers (not Tamazight). Don't insult us, we are not xabashi Arab slaves.

[InaSamaale]

^ Insult us ? If that means Bilaal (r.a) could have been Somali then I'm as Habesh as they come.

[qoraxeey]

^ Insult us ? If that means Bilaal (r.a) could have been Somali then I'm as Habesh as they come.

[Chinaman]

Somalis are just one of a single ethnic group out of hundreds native to the horn of africa!

I think we tend to forget that when we speak about or compare and contrast ourselves with say a country like Ethiopia which is a bit ignorant. We would constantly talk about "Ethiopians" and our history with them yet in reality when we say "Ethiopians" we are 9 times out of 10 only talking about the core region and people of Abyssinia (Northern Amhara and Tigray region) who today make up only a small fraction of the country.

We have to also remember that we never had a written language/script so we can only look at our ancient history through the eyes of others, that's very important to remember.

Now putting that all aside there is no mention of early Islamic settlers and immigrants to the horn making a great distinction between somali inhabited areas (Saylac etc) and the Habesha region in general.

Now you could say it's ignorance on their part or maybe the Somalis where too insignificant at the time (Just less than a century ago Somalis were said to number less than 2 million). Whatever it was they more than a lot of times referred to the whole horn African region as bilad-al-Habesh. A lot of people even say that Bilal رضي الله عنه was (and as commonly used to happen) from deep inside modern day Ethiopia and was likely from today's southern Ethiopia (Sidama etc) where slaves were common and so wasn't technically even a real Habeshi yet we all know him as Bilal al habeshi.

[Khalid Ali]

Somalis are just one of a single ethnic group out of hundreds native to the horn of africa!

I think we tend to forget that when we speak about or compare and contrast ourselves with say a country like Ethiopia which is a bit ignorant. We would constantly talk about "Ethiopians" and our history with them yet in reality when we say "Ethiopians" we are 9 times out of 10 only talking about the core region and people of Abyssinia (Northern Amhara and Tigray region) who today make up only a small fraction of the country.

We have to also remember that we never had a written language/script so we can only look at our ancient history through the eyes of others, that's very important to remember.

Now putting that all aside there is no mention of early Islamic settlers and immigrants to the horn making a great distinction between somali inhabited areas (Saylac etc) and the Habesha region in general.

Now you could say it's ignorance on their part or maybe the Somalis where too insignificant at the time (Just less than a century ago Somalis were said to number less than 2 million). Whatever it was they more than a lot of times referred to the whole horn African region as bilad-al-Habesh. A lot of people even say that Bilal رضي الله عنه was (and as commonly used to happen) from deep inside modern day Ethiopia and was likely from today's southern Ethiopia (Sidama etc) where slaves were common and so wasn't technically even a real Habeshi yet we all know him as Bilal al habeshi.

Ethiopia became Ethiopia when Emperor Menelik conquered much of the oromo sidamo Gurage Somali and Aderi territories , there is allot of Somali history written in Arabic but we dont have the sources thats the sad part no one ever did allot of research. Somali were a small ethnic group back in the days they became more and more the past 50 years. When one says Ethiopia u are right we dont talk about the gembele or sidamo or oromo. But most of the time we talk about the high landers. Bilal origin could be any where in the Horn Ard al Xabash was big description.

[InoCabdi]

By the way it is not sure if the Arabs called Zeila biladul Xabash , but why would it be right , just because Arabs say it doesn't make it correct. The Hairy bastards had no clue about the Somali peninsula. Somalis have nothing to do with Xabash we do not speak Tigrinya Amharicna nor do we adhere a christian faith

Rasuulki SAW was an arab, and had a thick beard.
and it was the arabs that brought islam to you.

[gurey25]

khalid zeylac was the only pasrt of somalia that was part of axum.
it had a mulinational population and came to be dominated by arans early on even before islam.
so yes it is highly likely that zeylac would be known as bilad al xabash, because most of the population would be either xabash or arabs.

[saacJabshee]

Were not dirty Habeshis sorry. Somalis originated from Zeila or modern day Somaliland and emigrated further south over thousands of years of camel grazing. Our heroe ahmed Gurey devasted Habeshi empires and dominated Abbysinia

[Madman23]

False info..