Hawiye History Before the Republic

[Grant]

https://operationoverload.wordpress.com ... ic/page/4/

Written by daud jimale, January 25, 2009, posted in Hawiye History before the Somali Republic, Hiiraab

You have to check the archives to get all the topics. The origin of the Ajuuraan is in January of 2009:

https://operationoverload.wordpress.com/2009/01/


Great history of more than just the Hawiye. Historical maps, colonialism and the southern resistance, etc.

[Grant]

I am much chagrined by the lack of interest. This is some good stuff.

From the March, 2009 archive:

https://operationoverload.wordpress.com/2009/03/


First Mentions of Hawiye

"The first clear written reference to any Galla or Somali group is found in
the writings of the thirteenth-century Arab geographer, Ibn Sa’id. Ibn
Sa’id says that Merca, a town on the southern Somali coast near the Shebeli
River, was the ‘capital of the Hawiye country’, which consisted of more
than fifty villages (or districts or tribes).3 This area is today the home of the
Hawiye Somali clan-family, so there is good reason to assume that the Merca
region has been occupied continuously by the same Somali group for the
past 700 years. In fact, we can probably extend this to 800 years, for the
geographer al-Idrisi remarks that Merca was the region of the ‘Hadiye’
in the twelfth century. It is quite likely that the extant texts contain an
error, and that it should be ‘Hawiye’, as Guillain, Schleicher, and Cerulli ,,,(have said.)


The Aguran driven from the Webi by the Badi ‘Addä and Galga ‘el.

“In ancient times the Badi ‘Addä lived at Kahandalä. The Abgal later lived in that locality. It is near the sea (Kahandalä). This locality of Kahandalä, the Badi ‘Addä say, was near Märeg, on the coast in the southwest of Obbia, on the borders of the territory held today by the Abgal Waeslä and by the Habar Gidir. The Badi ‘Addä emigration from Kahandalä to the territory then held by the Mogosilä and Aguran therefore represents one more episode in the struggle of the tribes of pastoralists from the woodland to reach the river. Then (the Badi ‘Addä) emigrated from there. They came here. When they came here, the Agurän and the Mogosilä lived in these places. First of all, the Galgä‘el and they (Badi ‘Addä) are brothers. (Galgä‘el) is their maternal uncle (of the Badi ‘Addä). The Galgä‘el, or rather their founder, is the “maternal uncle” of the Badi ‘Addä, because the mother of the Badi ‘Addä, according to the genealogies, was a sister of Galgä‘el. ). Galgä‘el left his territory and went to Kahandalä and asked them for help (the Badi ‘Addä). Then they left together: ‘We shall go to our land!’ Then the Mogosilä and the Agurän lived together. They made war. The Mogosilä thus were made to emigrate from the country. The Mogosilä therefore emigrated from the Webi before the Aguran.“The Aguran lived from Mogadiscio as far as Ilig. Then they held an assembly. They met by the pool of Beha above Sibay. Then the Sultan said: ‘Here we shall hold an assembly. Everyone shall come tomorrow!’ Everyone brought a camel loaded with durra and butter and milk and a slaughtered animal. Then (the Sultan) said: — In ancient times there was water in the pool of Beha –. When they came to the pool, he (the Sultan) said: ‘Keep silent; I shall talk.’ Then he-said: ‘Now water is there in this pool. Anyone who would say leave the water and do not take it is cursed. By now it is cursed. By now it is finished!’ he said. ‘Let us emigrate from here.’ Then the Badi ‘Addä entered their territory.

“The Aguran had much arrogance. A Badi ‘Addä composed a distich:

If arrogance had led to anything, the Aguran would not have left the country.

“What was the controversy at first? The Galgä‘el and the Aguran fought each other first. Then the Galgä‘el were vanquished. They became afraid. Then they went in search of the Badi ‘Addä. They went to them at Kahandalä. They said: ‘Now we have neither brothers nor others. We want to be helped.’ They obtained help from us. The Badi ‘Addä, when they left Kahandalä, were only sixty persons and carried gourds. In the gourds they carried water. For this reason they are given the nickname of: ‘Badi ‘Addä of the gourds’. bo‘or is the water container produced from a dried gourd. Hence the nickname bo‘orräy given to the Badi ‘Addä. It was when the Badi ‘Addä helped the Galgä‘el; and the Aguran were vanquished.”

[TheLoFather]

You seem obsessed with Hawiye, what's up with ya'? Maxaa lagaa dhacay Ninyoo?

[gegiroor]

Grant, ok Merca is mentioned. What about Warsheikh? The Warshiekh that I am referred to is the city whose ruins are near the current Warsheikh. Any documentation from Ibn Batuta and Ibn Said?

We (Somalis) have been in this land for thousands of years. The language, the traditions, and dances, and the different religions we have beleived in different millennia are clear indicators.

I've settled down to one thing: Somalis' thousands year old history has not been fully studied. All of these papers are just touching the cover. They never go deep and devote considerable time on it.

[Grant]

LoDoon,

We have a drought here, so I am Roobdoon. Pleased to meet 'cha.
This is a reference source and need not concern you.

Gegi,

There is a huge amount of material there. You're just going to have to wade through it same as me. If you like, I will post additional tidbits as I find them. According to this though, the earliest mention of Somalis as Somalis was 12th century.

Not only are we just touching the surface, but the material is very difficult to access. Collections of sources like this are precious.

[PrinceNugaalHawd]

Good stuff

[Grant]

July, 2009:

The Ajuran; a theocratic polity



About 1500, there rose to power in the Benaadir interior a group known as the Ajuran. Traditions say that the Ajuran governed from Qallafo on the upper Shebelle river, to the Indian ocean coast, and from Mareg, in the extreme north of the Benaadir, to the Jubba river in the south. To this legendary people are attributed a great variety of technological marvels; large stone wells, many of which still are used throughout the Southern Somali interior; systems of dikes and dams for irrigation along the Shebelle and huge houses and fortifications of stone. It is said that the Ajuran leaders were the first to impose a regular system of tribute on the surrounding population. The Ajuran had a powerful army and may have employed firearms toward the close of their period of domination.

Evidence to be published elsewhere suggests that the Ajuran were in fact a group of allied Hawiyya clans. Moving from the southern Ogaden into the inter-riverine area, these Hawiyya groups gained control of several important chains of wells. They also occupied stretches of the alluvial plains along the lower and middle Shebelle, plains previously cultivated by Bantu-speaking farmers. By dominating the critical watering sites and river crossings, the Ajuran controlled the trade routes which ran from the Jubba and Shebelle basins to the Benaadir coast. Taxes collected from nomads, farmers, and caravan traders provided the bases of Ajuran wealth and power.

For our present purpose, what should be noted is the terminology employed in oral accounts (predominately Hawiyya) to describe the leadership of the Ajuran. The key figure was the Imam, who was chosen from the family of the Garen within the Jambelle section of the Hawiyya. This is one of the rare instances where a leader in southern Somalia is recalled with the title of Imam, rather than a Somali title (ugas, waber, islao) or with the more amorphous suldaan. The Garen Imam apparently fulfilled the traditional Islamic role, for one account says that “the Imam of Ajuran was in the mosque, preaching the khudba, when the war began.”

Traditions dealing with the Ajuran also refer to wazirs, amirs, and naibs who held various positions in the Ajuran administration. (Such titles sometimes are preserved in Benaadir place-names such as Awal-el-amir, “tomb of the emir.”) Most of my informants asserted that the law of the Ajuran was the Shari’a. What this admittedly fragmentary evidence suggests is the existence in the sixteenth-century Benaadir of a theocratic conception of government and its identification with a specific clan confederation. Even if the Ajuran “state” consisted solely of those territories held by Hawiyya clans, and even if the confederation’s underlying cohesion rested on agnatic ties, the idiom of rulership was Islamic and the central focus of authority- the Imam- was a theocratic one.

Available evidence further suggests that the emergence of a theocratic tradition in the Benaadir was linked to events in the northern parts of the horn of Africa, rather than with developments along the nearby Indian ocean coast. It is known that some sections of the Hawiyya participated in the sixteenth-century jihaad of Ahmed Gran against Abyssinia. The Garen, who provided the Imam of the Ajuran, appeared to have ruled a kingdom of sorts in the Ogaden prior to their appearance in the Benaadir. Then too, the ancestors of Amir ‘Umar, a governor of Merka in the Ajuran era, supposedly came from the Sudan and (more immediately) passed through Darandolle (Hawiyya) country in the eastern Ogaden. Since sections of the Hawiyya were migrating southward both before and during Gran’s jihaad, it is not inconcievable that they brought certain theocratic notions with them. Indeed, the Ajuran maintained a wakil (governor) in the region around Qallafo. This area not only was the traditional Hawiyya homeland, but also stood midway geographically between the emirate of Harar and Benaadir, an ideal link for the transmission of political and religious ideas.

B.G Martin has shown how immigrants from Southern Arabia provided inspiration and manpower throughout the years of Muslim-Christian warfare in the Horn. He has further suggested that, particularly after the collapse of Ahmed Gran’s offensive, many Hadrami sharifs and sayyids drifted southward in the hope of carving out new spheres of authority for themselves. In a few cases these immigrants can be identified with those families known in Somalia as gibil’aad (“white skins,”) several of whom have traditions of arriving along the Benaadir in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. It is not difficult to imagine the gibil’aad serving as religious counselors, legal experts, and tax collectors in the Ajuran administration. Their zeal for formal Islamic authority may have reionforced the confederation’s tendency towards theocratizisation.

Also, on an another case, Borana Galla traditions recall continual fighting with the sagal (the “nine”, almost certainly that division of the Rahanweyn known as Alemo Sagal). While Somali-Galla warfare is particularly associated in Borana tradition with the gada of Abbayi Babbo (1667-1674). It probably flared intermittently throughout the century. Infact the Ajuran are said to have sent periodic military expeditions against Galla forces which were threatening the frontiers of their domain. It is interesting to speculate whether the Galla would have made significantly greater inroads into southern Somalia if their earliest (in the third quarter of the sixteenth-century) had not occured during the peak of Ajuran power in the inter-river area. It is equally possible that Galla pressures acted as a catalyst for the further consolidation of the Ajuran confederacy.

Briefly, to complete the saga of the Ajuran, traditions agree that they ruled for about 150 years. By the middle of the seventeenth-century, other militant Hawiyya clans were challenging the hegemony of the Garen in various districts of the Benaadir. These challenges led to the fragmentation of Ajuran unity; the Abgal (Gurgate Hawiyya) took control of the hinterland of Mogadishu and eventually the town itself; the El-Amir (probably Hirab Hawiyya) assumed power in Merka, the Sil’is (Gurgate) near Afgoy, and the Galjaal and Badi Ado (Guggundabe Hawiyya) along the mid-Shebelle. Each of these groups had traditions of battling and ultimately defeating the Ajuran. Such shifts in power no doubt were linked to the arrival of new groups of Hawiyya and to the growing numerical superiority of certain of them who then forcibly could occupy wells and pasture previously held by the Ajuran. Traditions variously point to arrogance, tyranny, religious latitude, and economic oppressions as causes for the Ajuran decline. By 1700, there is virtually no trace of the Ajuran polity in the Benaadir.

References;

“Migrations, Islam and Politics in the Somali Benaadir 1500-1843”

By Lee Cassanelli

[AbdiWahab252]

Interesting read. I have started research on the Ajuuran, their rise and collapse. Their history is rich and am trying to interview the elderly ones who knew Olol Dinle, their Last Emperor.

[PrinceNugaalHawd]

I wanna know more about the non somali people of the deep south n north, it seems like we nomads desroyed, kicked out or made serfs out of the original people. There are ruined towns in the middle of the north not even close to the coast, meaning they had a large population.

[X.Playa]

The Ajuuraan are not Hawiye,

[PrinceNugaalHawd]

The Ajuuraan are not Hawiye,

I met one and he said that to me, plus the story of one of there daughters marrying hawiye.

[X.Playa]

Ajuuraan are more related to Raxanweyn then Hawiye, for some political convenience they are Hawiyenized .

[LiquidHYDROGEN]

How can Ajuuraan be Hawiye if their collapse was cause by Hawiye?

The same with the Walashma Dynasty, I think the Ajuuraan were some ancient Dir or independent tribe.

[zumaale]

How can Ajuuraan be Hawiye if their collapse was cause by Hawiye?

The same with the Walashma Dynasty, I think the Ajuuraan were some ancient Dir or independent tribe.

The Ajuuran are an independent Samaale group that are neither Dir or Hawiye. They are sometimes lumped together with Hawiye by Western academics out of convenience.

They were usurped by a combination of Southern clans that fought individual battles against them.

Nor are they closer to Raxanweyn even though some have joined the Raxanweyn confederation. Sadly, the history of many Samaale clans that are not Irir has been ignored in academic circles.

[LiquidHYDROGEN]

Sax