Taariikh kooban ee ku saabsan Cadale

Degmada Cadale qarniyadii lasoo dhaafay waxey ka mid eheed furdooyinka ey dadka Soomaalida ah wax uga soo degijireen kuwaas oo kakala imaajiray wadamada Carabta iyo kuwa Afrikada Bari, waxaana laga rarijiray waxyaalaha ey wadamadaas u baahanyihiin sida xoolaha malaayga iwm.Badda Cadale waxaa laga helaa noocyo badan oo malaay ah oo weliba si dhibyar aad ku soo dabo kartid.dhica berriga geed gaab waxaana soomaalidu u taqaanaa deex. Waxaad meeshaas ku arkeysaa meel xoogaa tilaabo ah u jirto xeebta iney joogaan xoola duurta dadku ugaarsaso oo noocyo badan leh. Dadka deegaankaas ku dhaqan waxey kala yihiin xoolo dhaqato iyo malaay gadato. Xoolaha ey dadkaasu dhaqdaan waxey isugu jiraan: Geel, Lo’ iyo Iri, Iriga oo u kala baxo Iricad iyo Ido, waxowna degaankaasu caan ku yahay dhaqashada Idaha oo markii qof marti ah ow tago lagu martiqaado wan jar ah taasoo micnaheedu tahay wan aad u cayilan, dhinaca kale waxey Soomaalidu ku maahmaahdaa “lax iyo laxaw meel islama galaan” laxdaas aad maqashay waa midda ku dhaqan deegaankaa ee daaqdo cowska gumxirka loo yaqaano ee degmadaas iyo ruumanka ku yaalo ey caanka ku yihiin.Dhinaca kale gumeysigii talyaaniga waxow qabsashadii degmadaas kala kulmay halgan dheer oo dadkii degaankaasu lagaleen, makii dambe oo ow qabsadayna waxow u bixiyay magaca ah Italo oo ow kaweday Itaaliyadii yareed taasoo ku timid markii ow layaabay quruxda degmadaas.Kedib xurnimadii degmadaasu wexey kamid naqatay degmooyinkii la ilaabay ahmiyadii eylahaayeen.

Halkee ka yimid magaca Cadale?

Cadale waa degmo ka tirsan Gobolka Shabeelaha Dhexe, waxay ku taalaa Xeebta Badweynta Hindiya, waxayna Muqdisho dhinaca Waqooyi uga beegan tahay ilaa 180Km.

Cadale waxay ka mid tahay degmooyinka caanka ka ah Xeebaha Soomaaliya, waxayna aas aasantay xilli hore oo aan si sax ah taariikhdeeda loo hayn.

Magaca ay leedahay degmadani ee Cadale wuxuu iska saaran yahay labo eray oo gaagaaban, iyadoo midka hore yahay “Caday” iyo “Leh”, waxaana loo jeedaa goob Caday leh oo ay ka buuxaan geedaha lagu rumeysto.
Cadale ka hor intii aan la aasaasin waxay ahayd goob ay ku yaalaan teendhooyin yar yar oo ay leeyihiin dadka Kalluumeysato ah oo ka shaqeysan jiray Xeebaha ku dhow dhow degmada Cadale.
Cadale waxay caasimad u ahaan jirtay dadka ku nool deegaanada ku dhow dhow maadaama ay ahayd magaalo weyn tan iyaga ugu dhow.
Sanadkii 1307 ee Hijriyada ayaa waxaa deegaanadaas ciidamadii Talyaaniga ee gumeystaha kula dagaalamay dadka deegaanka, inkastoo haddana jabhad halkaas laga aas aasay oo ka horjeedday Talyaaniga aysan muddo dheer shaqeyn oo ay mar dambe burburtay.
Degmada Cadale waxay horey u ahaan jirtay magaalo ay deggan yihiin waddaado fara badan, iyadoo ka mid ah magaalooyinkii ugu masaajidyada badnaa xilliyadii hore.

Dadka deegaankaasi deganaan jiray waxaa ka mid ahaa Sheekh Axmed Sheekh Abiikar Xasan (Sh. Axmed Wacdiyow), wuxuuna Sheekhaasi ahaa wadaad aad uga soo horjeeday imaanshihii Talyaaniga ee dalka Soomaaliya, wuxuuna isku dayey in uu si awood ah uga hortago gumeystihii Talyaaniga.

Sheekh Axmed Wacdiyow oo reer Cadale ahaa waxaa jira Gabayo fara badan oo uu ka tiriyey gumeystihii Talyaaniga iyo sida uu uga soo horjeedday, waxaana ka mid ahaa gabayadiisii:

Soomaaliyaan u dagaalamaynaa,
dalkeena ballaaran u daafacaynaa,
kuwa dulmaaya la dood galaynaa,
dabeylka mowdku intuu I daadihin,
hilibka duud cunin deebna uu noqon,
duruyadaada dab looma aasee,
kuwa dambaan u dariiq falaynaa,
kufriga soo dagay diidda leenahay.

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

Beautiful appearance & ugly substance, beautiful substance & ugly appearance.

“There are three things of beautiful appearance and ugly afterwards; and three things of ugly appearance and beautiful afterwards. What are the three things of beautiful appearance and ugly afterwards? The young Guggundabo, the cow with large shoulders, the mature woman: they have a beautiful appearance and are ugly afterwards. — The young Guggundabo carries the shield, a beautiful lance with threads wrapped around, and a mat for prayers. Then he comes to the tree under which they throng for the assembly. Then it would be necessary that he speak. He finds nothing to say. It is said: ‘Let us go to spend the night in the house of this clever young man.’ Then he says: ‘No! No! I have nothing!’ He cries out. The man of handsome appearance is ugly afterwards, so it is-

The young Guggun-dabo is perhaps elegant in appearance, but he is neither eloquent nor hospitable.

-What is the cow with large shoulders? When it is pregnant and in its belly there is milk and it is pregnant, it is said: ‘This is a cow of great beauty.’ Then this cow that had been called nice delivers a little one. Then for two days it does not drink water; it becomes empty (of milk). Then it looks like a dog. It leaves its offspring. Then it is ugly afterwards.

The cow with large shoulders produces little milk, contrary to its appearance.

“A woman who has given birth to three or four children and who is neither young nor old is called mature. When she is free and is not married, she wears an elegant veil, a beautiful kerchief on her head, a double gown. Whoever sees her says: ‘Who will take her [in marriage]? She is elegant.’ Then one marries her. She becomes pregnant. The excrement and the urine of the child spread over her. Then you say: ‘Oh! This one stinks! Is she a slave?’ Once she was elegant, here is one who is ugly afterwards.

“The three things of ugly appearance and beautiful afterwards, what are they? The young Hawâdlä, the camel with large shoulders, and the virgin girl. — You see the young Hawadlä, he carries an old shield, a rusty lance, and a box of tobacco-

Traditionally the Hawâdlä are known as tobacco chewers

-Tied here near the male organ. When he comes to the tree of the assembly, the people are surprised. They say: ‘What does he want?’ Then he speaks in fine words: ‘It is to be done this way! It is to be done this way! This is how it is!’ Then it is said: ‘He is a clever man! Let us spend the night in his house.’ When they have gone to his house, he says: ‘Sit here.!’ He takes a male camel, slaughters it, and milks a she-camel. Then the people satiate themselves. They are satiated with meat, milk, durra. Then it is said: ‘This man is not as I though yesterday.’ Here is one who is beautiful afterwards-

The young Hawâdlä, careless about his clothing, is, on the other hand, eloquent and hospitable

— The she-camel with 216   large shoulders, when it has its little one in the womb for twelve months, if you take it to pasture, you say: ‘It will not give birth soon.’ It is thin and hungry. When the twelve months have elapsed, it instead will give birth. When it has given birth, you obtain much milk. If you are thirsty and there is dry weather, you will not be disturbed. You squeeze out the milk that it is full of. Then it is beautiful afterwards-

The she-camel with large shoulders, which needs care during the twelve months of gravidity (it also refers to the difficulty of pasturage for the camels during dry weather), on the other hand gives milk in abundance after the delivery.

-What is the virgin girl? She is a girl with the tonsure. Her appearance is ugly when one marries her. When the man spends the night [with her], and he sees her heart troubled, she then, very sad, runs away nto the woods. At night she does not come home-

During the first days of marriage the girl is easily overcome by melancholy and mourns for her free life.

-Then you say: ‘Who is this slave?’ The veil is wrapped around her head in an ugly way. And she wears cotton that is cheap and all dirty-

The very young wife does not yet know how to dress well or to adorn herself

–Then when she becomes pregnant, her relations with her husband are good and they are in accord. It is said: ‘She puffs out the sides of her hair. She makes herself elegant. She is a clever woman! Remember how she was before?’ Here is what is beautiful afterwards”

The girl who is not experienced about men does not know how to make her charms appreciated, but once she is accustomed to the new life, she is much more preferable than the mature woman.

 References

Enrico Cerulli “How a Hawiye tribe use to live”

The former course of the Webbi

This Webi is thus at present, but in olden times the Webi did not pass through this territory, from here to Gälädi and more. At that time the Aguran and the Garrä used to live here. The ones who lived toward Gälädi used to drink at the wells. The people of Walamoy used to drink at Mogadiscio. Until today the village of Walamoy has been called Walamoy Hamar-däy (‘Look toward Mogadiscio’). And even today the place in which they stopped in the woodland of Däh is called: Hariri Walamoy (‘the stop of Walamoy’).

“It was (the saint) Au Hiltir who brought the Webi here. This was obtained through his prayers. When the waters (of the Webi) were thus seen to come down, Au Hiltir said: ‘These waters have been obtained from God. Do not wash your uncleanness in these waters!’ Thus it was forbidden to people to wash unclean things in these waters (of the Webi). But once a freed went into the water of the Webi, being all unclean, and he washed himself. From his uncleanness a crocodile was born. Thus the crocodiles began.”

This tradition also adumbrates a historical reality. Actually even now a depression starts from the W]ebi in the upper part of the zone of the Sidlä, crosses the territory now inhabited by the Mobilen, and returns to the present course of the river upstream from Gälädi. Locally this depression is usually explained as one of the far of the Webi. The defluents of the Webi in the sections where it has a pensile course are called by the name of far (‘finger’), but the same name also designates the biggest canals taking the irrigation water from the river. The tradition published here proves how the great depression of which we have spoken rather represents an ancient bed of the river. The Webi, because of the slight slope of its middle course in Somalia, may in fact, without any difficulty, have changed its bed in some part of its path.

The circumstance mentioned in the tradition, that the Garrä and the Aguran lived in the zone of the depression, now held by the Mobilen and the Híllibi, relates the event of the change of the course of the river to at least the XV century.

This geographical situation that the tradition attests to is then further confirmed by recent events, of which we have been witnesses. During a very great flood in 1916 the Webi entered the old bed with its waters and thus caused very serious damage to the villages and to the farming of the Mobilen. Subsequently, during another menacing flood in 1922, in order to avoid damage which would have been irreparable in the zone of the Villaggio Duca degli Abruzzi, the cutting of the stoppage of the old depression was undertaken, utilizing it, with all caution and without any harmful consequences, in order to reduce the level of the flood water.

References;

Enrico Cerulli “How a Hawiye tribe use to live”

Silcis sultanate in Afgooye and El Amir rule in Merka

Local traditions in the Afgooye district speak of the Silcis as despotic rulers. Their sultan enjoyed the ius primae noctis. He exacted tribute from the surrounding populations—by then largely consisting of the ancestors of the present-day Geledi and Wacdaan—in the form of durra and bun, and taxed all livestock which came to water at the river’s edge. The peoples subject to the sultan were compelled to pray at the mosque in Lama Jiidle, the center of Silcis administration. Apparently the Silcis co-opted a segment of the local population; traditions recall that allies of the ruling dynasty placed saab (conical wicker baskets) on the roof peaks of their houses to indicate their immunity from Silcis raids.

Some informants said that the Silcis were actually that section of the Ajuraan which governed the Afgooye district; others that they succeeded the Ajuraan as rulers of the area. In any case, the Silcis, too, were ousted from the lower Shabeelle valley by the combined forces of the Geledi and Wacdaan, whose present-day alliance is said to date from the end of the Silcis sultanate in the early eighteenth century. As with the accounts of Ajuraan decline, a number of different stories purport to explain the end of Silcis rule.

In the vicinity of Marka, a mysterious group known as the El Amir made its appearance in the years between 1650 and 1700. According to an account collected by Guillain in 1847, a leader known as Amir formed a following which invaded the territory of Marka and expelled the Ajuraan. The El Amir then ruled for thirty-four years until the Biimaal definitively occupied Marka.

It is tempting to view this Amir as a warrior-administrator who seceeded from the Ajuraan confederacy and formed a small principality of his own. Biimaal traditions, which associate the end of Ajuraan rule with the defeat of an emir, tend to support this hypothesis; but again, there is a tendency for traditions to confuse the demise of the Ajuraan with that of the El Amir. Guillain suggested that the El Amir were Abgaal; if this were true, their brief period of rule would fit the pattern of Gurqaate ascendancy following upon Ajuraan decline.

Rule by the Silcis and El Amir thus appears to represent the last phase of a period of theocratic government initially imposed by the Gareen. These small polities maintained for a time the form and some of the substance of Ajuraan rule, which helps account for their indistinguishability from the Ajuraan in many (particularly non-Hawiyya) traditions. With the disappearance of the El Amir and the Silcis—the Darandoolle imam remained as a titular clan leader in the Muqdisho area right into the twentieth century—the age of theocracy in southern Somalia came to an end. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, a new pattern of political alliances began to take shape, and the Ajuraan passed into memory and into oral tradition.

Afgooye in the 17th century.

References

The shaping of Somali society

Brief overview of Hawiyya clan settlement pattern

Between 1300-1600

A notion provided by oral tradition about the circumstances in which the Ajuraan state emerged concerns the role of the pastoral Hawiyya clans. Both the origin story and the scattered references to the components of the Ajuraan confederacy suggest that Hawiyya clans formed the core of the polity. External evidence indicates that the present pattern of Hawiyya settlement along both sides of the middle Shabeelle River took shape between 1300 and 1600. Apart from Hawiyya clan traditions, which provide us with a rough chronology of particular clan movements, we find corroboration in Arabic accounts from the coast, which document the spread of Hawiyya trading settlements along the Indian Ocean littoral, and also in Muqdisho town chronicles, which record the intrusion of Hawiyya pastoralists in town life from the mid-fifteenth century.

Hawiyya pastoral migrations involved the occupation of strategic well sites and trading centers as well as extensive grazing areas on both sides of the Shabeelle River. The process of occupation was almost certainly carried out by successive, small-scale advances of herding units and lineage segments over a period of several generations but the end result was the establishment of Hawiyya territorial dominance over a large region. Their control of key pastoral resources provided the economic foundations for an extensive pastoral polity. Indeed, the places identified in tradition as centers of Ajuraan power are without exception sites of important clusters of wells; and most of the ruins attributed to the Ajuraan era lie near well complexes which were central nodes in the annual grazing cycles of the region’s nomads. The inference is that the Ajuraan ruled as a pastoral aristocracy, with the control of wells being the source and symbol of their power.

These roughly contemporaneous Hawiyya pastoral movements can be seen as contributing to the consolidation of a regional polity that fits well with what we know of the Ajuraan from traditions. While the traditions can do no more than indicate the general circumstances in which Ajuraan power was exercised, they do help us weight the external evidence from the period. By juxtaposing oral sources with other fragmentary evidence, it has been possible to suggest a historical explanation for the appearance of the Ajuraan “state” around 1500.

References

The Shaping of Somali society

The Khulafa of Shaykh Uways B.Muhammed Al Barawi

The following is a list of prominent Qadiriyah Khulifa listed in the hagoigraphy of Shaykh Aweys Al Barawi, al Jawar al Nafis (pp.17-24),

the following mentioned are affiliated with a Hawiya lineage.

Shaykh Imam Mahmud b. Benyamin al-Yaqubi
Shaykh Shakh’a famous as Shaykh Shaykhow
Shaykh Muhammad b. Uthman b. Ma’ow al-Yaqubi
Shaykh Yahya b. ‘Adow (known as Hajji Wahiliyya)
Shaykh Hajji Mahmud b. Hasan al-Warshaykhi 

Shaykh Abdi ‘Eli al-Warshaykhi
Shaykh Abu Bakr b. Muhammed b. Uthman al-Wa’issli
Shaykh Mahmud b. Hasan al-Daudi
Mu’allim Qassim al-Dubbarwayni al-Qadiri
Shaykh Ahmad b Mu’allim ‘Uthman al-Kandrashi
Shaykh Mukhtar Askub al-Kandrashi
Shaykh Ahmad b. Hajj Nur Jahbaz al-Kandrashi
Ahmad Yarow al-Sa’adi al-Qadiri
Abdullah b. Mu’allin Yusu al-Qutbi
Abd al-Salam b. Hajj Jama’ al-Qutbi
Muhammad b.Hajj Jama’ al-Qutbi
Hassan b. Barre al-Qubti al-Qadiri
Abu Bakr b. Ibrahim al-Qutbi al-Qadiri
Ahmad al-Qutbi al-Qadiri
Hajji Mahmud Fulow b. Mu’allin ‘Umar al-Qutbi
Al-Qadi Ali b. Mahmud b. Thabit al-Jawhari al-Qadiri
Faqi Ma’ow al-Qadiri
Abd Malaq al-Qadiri
Hajji Mayrow al-Qadiri
Uthman b. Aliyow
Hajji Nur al-Qadiri
Sultan Salad
Abdiyow Karkar wa al-Qadiri
Muhammad b. Ali al-Qadiri

References;

Scott Reese “Holy men and social discouse in Colonial Benaadir”; Appendix One.

The injustice of the Abgal Imam

In the annals of the Benaadir, the three hundred years from 1500-1800 is viewed as a dark time of troubles. From the Benaadiri perspective it was also a time that was survived only through the piety of a few individuals whose spiritual strength preserved the social fabric in the face of tyranny and agression. This is especially true in the traditions of Mogadishu where such evils were held in check only through the efforts of righteous individuals. By the late nineteenth century, as we shall see, the Abgal of Shangani had become productive citizens. Oral traditions contend, however, that this was not always the case. During the first years of pastoral occupation, Abgal rule was characterized by innumerable injustices. The practise of forcing all new brides in the town to spend the first seven days of marriage in bed, The good Muslims of Mogadishu were outaged by such evil but were too oppressed to resist. One pious man named Abu Ahmad Ala’ al-Din decided to take action. The father of the seven daughters, he swore an oath not to allow any of them to submit to such immoral humiliation. Instead, when he married off the first of his offspring, he and his daughter plotted to foil the lecherous Imam. Abu Ahmad and his daughter let it be known publicly that she had been wed. When new of the union reached the Abgal Imam, he sent a slave to the house demanding the ruler’s rights. Instead, Abu Ahmad beat the slave and sent him back to his master. Incensed, the Imam decided to go to the recalcitrant father’s house personally to punish him and take the bride to his bed. When he entered the house, however, Abu Ahmad and his kinsmen ambushed the ruler and killed him. This sparked a spontaneous uprising and the Abgal were expelled from the city. Abu Ahmad then gathered the elders of the town and instructed them to build a wall so that the pastoralists might never again settle in the town unimpended. While the Abgal were eventually allowed to reuturn and even regained much of their political power, so the story continues, they never again attempted to terrorize the townspeople or act in ways contrary to the laws of God. *

* Interview, Amina Shaykh Ali Nuur, Octover 6, 1994. As Cassanelli has pointed out, this is a common trope in the oral lore of the Benaadir. The fall of the Ajuran 300 years earlier is attributed to a similar display of royal hubris. Cassanelli, Shaping of Somali soceity, pp.109-112.

References;

Scott Reese “Holy men and social discourse in Colonial Benaadir”

Taking up arms against Menelik

In Jonathan A. Grant’s book named “Rulers, guns, and money” he states that,

“… In October 1907 the commisioner of Somaliland stated that, though the Somalis were not allowed to purchase arms openly in Djibouti, no restrictions were placed on Arabs and Danakils, who acted as agents for the Somalis. The British vice consul at Harrar, writing of the Hawiya tribe in the Ogaden, who were in revolt against the Ethiopians, reported that they had always been powerful, but had become much stronger after being furnished with a good supply of arms from Djibouti. He anticipated that all the Somali tribes would be so well armed in the near future that the Ethiopians would have great difficulty in preserving their rule in Harrar.”

 

References

“Rulers, guns and money” pg 68

 By Jonathan A. Grant