Adaris are the natives of Harar, and no they are not Cushitic, they are habesha.
It is pretty strange/funny when I come across Somalis on a Gragn-praising high, saying he was the great Somali guy who destroyed the Ethiopians.
I've had some good laughs reading some threads in the archives of this forum where Somalis argue over which sub-tribe Gragn was from even
Fact of the matter is, Gragn was (unfortunately) not Somali, but actually a Belew Muslim leader, a fact corroborated by contemporary books on him in Amharic and Arabic. There were several Abyssinian kingdoms and sultanates in the middle ages, both Muslim and Christian. Gragn's raid on a series of Christian Abyssinian kingdoms is most famously recorded in Futu7 el 7abesha (meaning the Conquering of the Abyssinians). Which I always thought was a funny title because there was no Futu7, since Ato Gragn's raids consisted of destroying ancient monasteries, violating women and killing monks. His raids were Muslim versus Christian forces and called Holy Jihads, yet he conveniently forgot all the rules laid out for a Jihad like not harming peaceful monks or womenfolk, much like the Islamist terrorists you see today around the world with their black flags committing atrocities in the name of their religion and god.
The Somalis I meet are always keen to point out some bizarre myths they have about Gragn, like the fact that he taught us tera sega
(raw meat dishes). Sorry to burst your bubble again, but Abyssinians have been eating raw meat dishes long before Gragn was even born. Books by explorers for millennia mention Abyssinian warriors and their consumption of fresh tera sega with strong t'ej and spices with injera. For example, there's a book by the Egyptian Arab historian Al-Maqrizi called el 2elmaam bi man fil 2ar9' el 7abashah man Malouk el 2islaam from 14th century where he notes the unusual (to him) dietary custom of tera sega by mentioning how an Abyssinian king was eating the raw meat of a large cow. This is centuries before Gragn was born.
In the Somali mythos about Ato Gragn, he supposedly scared Abyssinian Christians so badly they didn't cook their foods with fire in fear of getting sighted
Funny stuff.
By the way, you guys should really try some tera sega dishes sometime. Nothing like a nice kitfo dinner on a hot summer evening with some fiery t'ej honey wine
It was interesting to note when we were in R'2as el 3eyn in the Kurdish part of Syria, the locals also had a similar raw meat dish to kitfo called Kebbe, although I still think the spice overload in our kitfo was stronger. The French interpretation on raw meat delicacies in the form of steak tartare is not bad with a nice cup of Bordeaux.
Lastly, to expand on what I meant by Futu7 el 7abash being a misnomer, Ato Gragn was a failure of a shifta because all the land he raided was all taken back within a few years and he was ultimately killed having failed at his goal (holy war on the Christians and the establishment of his Muslim state in their lands).
His death and failure to conquer marked the decline of the Muslims in the Horn from then on, and led to the eventual conquering of many Muslim kingdoms by the various Christian Abyssinians in the area. The nomadic groups in the periphery deserts would be raided in campaigns called semaj for centuries to collect taxes for tribute (you can ask your grandparents about the Abyssinians coming on horse-back with their guns to forcibly collect taxes in the area called the Ogaden today) until eventually late 19th century Abyssinian Emperors tied loose ends and formally included conquered pastoralist Muslim groups into the Ethiopian Empire (like the Afar and Somali, now part of the Afar and Somali Kililoch of Ethiopia).
So just my 2 cents, after reading a lot of misinformation about this guy online on this forum and elsewhere spread by Somalis.
