Rationalizing modern Somali origin theories with oral histor

[neocon_2007]

Axumite never passed the fringes of Djbooty city, let alone Somalilands. Adal was a Somali/Afar civilization and not an offshot of Axumite.

[James Dahl]

There is no written evidence to oppose it, and it does seem likely given the other details about his life that we do know about.

The oral histories have not been given enough respect in my opinion. Somali oral history has proven to be just as reliable as written accounts, and much more comprehensive (as written accounts leave out far too many important details).

In my opinion, what is critical today for Somalis is to write down all their oral histories, before it's too late. The tradition of oral history is dying out as the older generation dies.

[James Dahl]

[quote="neocon_2007"]Axumite never passed the fringes of Djbooty city, let alone Somalilands. Adal was a Somali/Afar civilization and not an offshot of Axumite.[/quote]

You'd be surprized actually, the coastal cities all the way down to Zanzibar were vassals of Axum.
We forget today that Axum was a world power from the 1st to 6th centuries, and also ruled Sudan and Yemen.

Mogadishu for instance had to request permission from the Prince of Zeila to resettle several Yemeni tribes there in the late 6th century.

[PragmaticGal]

Fascinating indeed. What are your references (aside from the oral histories) for your theories James?

[James Dahl]

Two good books on the subject are:
"Horn and Crescent: Cultural Change and Traditional Islam on the East African Coast, 800-1900" by I.M. Lewis
"The Archaeology of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa" By Timothy Insoll
The Federal Research Division's "Somalia a Country Study" has lots of nice info as well

In terms of Somali history though, history other than Oral history is fleeting, in minor refereces. Even the most important clans like the Ajuran rate only passing references. The only non-Oral evidence is largely anthropological and archaeological, but they do definitely point to a south-to-north Somali migration from the 11th to the 13th centuries.

[PragmaticGal]

Thank you James. I have the Lewis book gathering dust somewhere, I'll put it on my summer reading list.

[CK-RED]

Masha'allah,you guys are so into history of somali clans.keep your mind bussy dear kids and dont end up like my brothers.

[gurey25]

James here are some disagreements i have.

1. You seem to have swallowed some Ethiopian propaganda
Adal,Ifat,Moore,Haddiya and Shoa and the other muslim emirates were not an offshoot of AXUM.
AXUM began its collapse in the 7th century, and all these muslim emirates were founded in the 800's.
You can however argue that they were founded my muslim refugees from a collapsing axum.

2.You assume that axum extended to somalia, infact no trace of axum civilization can be found south of the Awash river.
Axum was a world power but not a naval power, its well known that yemeni kingdoms although smaller , dominated Idnian ocean and Red sea trade with their naval power. Axum did rule the somali coast a brief 30-40 years when they defeated the persians and conquered yemen, but the was the only example of axum power projection in history, and unlike somali oral history there is allot of historical evidence. The persian resurrgence followed by the Rise of Islam put to end Axum naval power.



3.again you ignore hundreds of years of somali muslim history in the region,
when Darood arrived , people tend to claim he married THE daughter of The DIR himslef, when this is impossible as
several DIR clans existed in the 700s 300 years before Shiekh Darood was supposed to arrive, it is more logical that he married a daughter of the one of the chiefs of one of the dir clans in the Sanaag coast area.

4. Islam was introduced early in somalia, from several sources in the north , ziela, berbera and the other coastal trading towns, islam filtered through to the interior from them, and in the south from the coastal settlements like moqadshu and merca. This was much earlier than shiekh isaaq or darood. one of the famous saints from the norht like shiekh ysuf kownien was AwBale and he was from Bale region , back then in the 1200's it was Sidamo land, with some somali and Afar minorites.
Now if Sidamo all the way from the coast further away from the influence of Ziela and Berbera than the Somalis and Afar could produce a famous islamic scholar, your idea that shiekh darood or shiekh isaaq introduced islam is not logical.

[James Dahl]

Oral Somali history is pretty clear about Sheikh Darod.

I would be interested in knowing how there could be Dir clans in Sanaag in 700 AD. This goes against almost every piece of either archaeological or oral evidence or history. Unless you are claiming that the Dir are not Somali, and the connection with Zumaal Irir was invented later on, this is impossible.

Axum was not a monolithic civilization, but rather a vast network of vassal states who all payed tribute to Axum. Axumite civilization did not for instance collapse so much as very slowly fall apart, as the vassals, one by one, broke away from the Axumite empire and went their own way.

The issue of when Ifat, Shoa and Adal were founded is a tricky question for instance, as there are several centuries of political ambiguity, where they were neither part of Axum or independent of it, and alternated between being enemies or vasssals of Axum.

The thing is, Abysinnia for instance is a SUCCESSOR to Axum, not a continuation of Axum itself. The Zagwe started out as an Axumite vassal the same way Ifat, Adal and Shoa did. If you are looking for "Abyssinian" civilization south of Djubouti of course you aren't going to find it. Axumite civilization was essentially Yemeni in character, and archaeologically identical with early Somali and Afar cities (which were Axumite or south Yemeni in origin). Ge'ez for instance was not the language used by Axum, but rather Old South Arabian, tablets of which you can find buried from Massawa to Dar es Salaam.

[kadarre]

Oral history is unreliable

[James Dahl]

[quote="kadarre"]Oral history is unreliable[/quote]

Have you found an oral history that proved to be incorrect? My own research hasn't shown any, but it's far from extensive.

[gurey25]

James all i am saying is that you took the oral history of one clan, which is a self professed newcomer to somalia, while you ignore the oral history of the DIR which are the oldest somali clan.

for example since you are relying on oral history.
the story of shiekh darood is that he arrived somewhere in sanaag, possibly maydh in the 1000-1100 AD according to the oral history.Then Married Dombiro a daughter of DIR.

while the shiekh isaaq oral history states that he too arrived in maydh but around 2 centuries later in the mid 1200's. Now here it is different, he had 2 wives the first one was the daughter of a prominent shiekh in Harar where he spent a good part of his time, and the other wife from the magadle dir clan which inhabited sanaag and still survive in small numbers today.
the magaadle dir are part of the mahe dir from which several southern clans decend from as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dir_(clan)#Mahe_Dir


now several other DIR clans inhabited the region of somaliland, the Gurgura for example claim Burco and Berbera as thier ancestral lands, they are now in Dire Dawa and Harar.
several southern clans also migrated from the area especially after the successfull raids of amde seyon that reached as far as berbera in the east.




as far as axum civilization is concerned, there is no archeological evidence found south of begemedir,
showa and anything south was hostile and out of the control of Axum.
These areas were only assimilated into amhara culture and christianized by the 1500's and there was a long break from the 1580 till the early 1800's(from the oromo expansion that started in the 1560's) when the abbysinain empire started to expand again.

most of the other cultures were ormozied or partially ormozied.

[James Dahl]

Interesting,

Axum is a different civilization than Amhara or Abyssinian Civilization though. Axum are Sabaeans.
The Amhara and Tigray are the people of ancient Damot and Punt who the Sabaeans conquered about 2500 years ago, later founding Axum. The beginning of Abyssinia was when Axum fell apart into dozens of petty principalities. One of these, Damot, conquered many others in Tigray and Eritrea and founded the Zagwe dynasty.

[gurey25]

Axum was a new hybrid culture a mixture of the sabean immigrants and the local agew cushtic people.
The langauge ceased to be sabean early on, but they kept the same south arabian script.
the mixing of population created new languages and geez was the predominate and royal language of Axum, Basically it was a new civilization.


i believe you have misplaced DAMOT.
Damot if you look in the map is south at the edge of the northern highlands, and DAMOT aong with BEGAMIDR and the area around LASTA(capital of the Zagwe dynasty) was all within the lands of the Agew. The Zagwe themselves are believed to have been Cushtic agew that have partially assimilated into axum culture and they represented the hight of civilization in Ethiopia(eg. Lalibela church in lasta is a prime example of architecture).

DAMOT is south of Lasta and according to the Myths of the Highlanders home to queen JUDITH or YODITH the jewish queen of Damot that destroyed the city of AXUM around 900 AD and had a riegn of terror massacering christians and destroying churches.

The Zagwe dynasty took power because they led the christian revolt against and defeat of queen Judith in the 930-950 AD , Arabic sources like the geographers al Yacqubi and al mascuudi as well the
ethiopian royal chronicals from the later periods agree on the basic story but disagree on the timelime and the dates.

The Solomonic dynasty from the 1200's was the counter coup by the old axum Tigray aristocracy and the new souther power of amhara cooperating against the Zagwe.
Basicaly it was the semetic speaking christians against the cushtic Agew speaking christians.

and all this history is taking place in the northern highlands, only Shoa is within range, the future states of Ifat , moore and others are much further away south.


and Axum is long gone, gone into decline due to internal turmoil, invasion of the beja from the north
and the capture of the port city of Adulis by arab muslim traders operating without the knowledge or permision of the khalifa Umar in 640AD, and the 400 year old capital city of Axum itself destroyed by queen Judith in 900 AD.

[Sadaam_Mariixmaan]

Gurey,

so when did the Walashma Dynasty rise to power and when did Ahmed Gurey get killed and where did he get buried??