That person is hugely mistaken if they think Arabs were the first people in Xamar. Never mind the fact that there are ancient Greek/Roman records of Somalis living around Mogadishu's areas, Xamar's oral history plainly says that it was gibil madow (ethnic Somali) clans that are the oldest inhabitants of the city.
I actually debated someone about this a few months ago and broke down the makeup of the Reer Xamar clans. A lot of people try to erase their history, and many Somalis are unaware because they mistakenly believe "Reer Xamar" refers only to groups with partial Arab ancestry. In reality, it's an umbrella term for the townspeople of Mogadishu , the majority of whom have deep Somali agro-pastoral roots and long-established lineages in the region.
The confederacy collectively called Reer Xamar are founded by core pastoral lineages. Which migrants later married into and joined. As you have shown from Murshow 5 out of the 7 lineages claim Ajuran or Abdalla Dayle and the two rest are Somali clans with immigrant paternal roots that married into them.
And Amin Khalafow is the Hawiye clan that founded the Bandawow confederacy, has nothing to do with sicilis which is connected to Abgaal. They are connected to a town in the upper levels of shabelle river called Qalafo in Ogaden and settled in Mogadishu during the towns founding.
It shows the towns connection to the interior and the production around the shabelle zone.
As for Murusola gate named after Murusade proves their importance in controlling that caravan trade route leading up to the town and how the inclusion of them in the towns inhabitants shows that the earliest inhabitants are just those people who set up on the coast as an exchange outlet for the interior. Mogadishu is commercial town after all. Not really that much different from the formation of the Eastern coastal settlements, other than ecology.
There other benadiri clans i have mentioned before like Shaykh Mummin who controlled the caravan route from Luuq/Buur Hakaba & to Mogadishu. There is also the Sheikhaal clan etc.
Only Saddex Geedi, Hirab/Yacuub are clans that arrived recently post 1500 according local traditions as Abgaal clans. and guess what just like the other older clans i mentioned, immigrants married into Yacuub and created Bafadal. So you have, Saddex Geddi, Yacoub and then also Bafadal Somali clans.
What you mentioned is really important , Greek and Roman writings confirm that the Somali coast has been continuously inhabited by native populations who followed consistent ways of life for centuries. Later on archeological substantiated it.
From Zayla to Kismaayo, the entire coastline is dotted with indigenous coastal villages and historic port towns. At no point in history did any part of the coast become a foreign enclave dominated by outsiders. These have always been Somali lands with deep-rooted cultural and historical continuity.
The coast was not some empty space waiting to be โdiscoveredโ by foreigners. It was already home to thriving, organized, and inhabited by Somali communities long before any outside presence.
Then we can go to written records from Muslim travellers, the oldest of which I believe are 12th century which also speak of dark skinned Barbars aka Somalis living in the city.
Even in the Rasulid writings and other early Islamic manuscripts, they often referred to the coastal inhabitants as Habash, Sudan or Barbar to distinguish them from Arab populations. The southern Somali coast was even called ''Bar al-Ajam'' , the โLand of Non-Arabic Speakers.โ Interestingly, this is also how Somalis historically referred to their own lands.
Ibn Battuta remains the most credible source, being a direct eyewitness who actually visited and stayed in Mogadishu. He described the Somali coast from Zayla to Mogadishu as inhabited by Barbars , Black-skinned Shafi'i Muslims. He notes their pastoral lifestyle: owning many sheep, goats, and camels, and even mentions Mogadishu's mass slaughtering of hundreds of camels daily. He documents their clothing style , wrapping robes around their shoulders and waist , and even includes Somali vocabulary like the word Caamba (mango). He also describes the Abaan system and refers to the sultan as being โBarbar in origin.โ
This gives us a vivid and clear native Somali portrait of the city, strongly connected to the wider Somali cultural and economic landscape.
Whatโs also worth noting is how Ibn Battuta clearly separates Mogadishu from the Swahili coast. For instance, he describes Kilwa as a distinct coastal enclave that raided the interior, whereas Mogadishu was integrally tied to its Somali hinterland.
Thereโs no real racial component here, despite attempts to politicize identity. The Somali coast isnโt some empty land discovered by outsiders , itโs part of a long-standing agro-pastoral system.
The southern coast, though dry, functioned as a vital commercial outlet for inland Somali producers in the fertile interior, linked through trade caravans and kinship networks.
There is not many immediate resources in Mogadishu or on the Benadiri coast in general, early on no one except producers from far interior or the hinterland would settle there and use it as an exchange center for their products. Whether they be agro-cultivators or camel herders.
People who lived in the hinterland of Mogadishu weren't all simple camel herding nomads either, a lot of them were settled agro-pastoralists living in a number of farming villages near/along the banks of the shabelle river. Each village inhabited by 200 people.
The earliest mentions of Mogadishu/Merca in medieval sources paints the same picture, connecting it to it's hinterland and describing the 50 villages along the banks of the river.
This is also supported by archeological excavations in Afgoye, that shows that the agricultural town pre-dates Mogadishu. The economic developments in the hinterland directly led to the formation, settlement and development of the urban towns on the coast.
Note that there other interior commercial urban towns(
most now abandoned) along caravan routes, the oldest surviving of them being the walled city of Lugh. Benadiri Reer Shaykh Mumin clan is one example that is interspersed between the camel caravan trade routes that links to Lugh(Interior city) and Bur Hakaba(Agricultural center) from the coast of Mogadishu(Coastal City) and commanded it.
''The town depended on the grain brought by camels from the Galadi(Shabelle) River''
Migration happened, yes , but it was two-way. In fact, Somalis often migrated outward to settle abroad, and were even credited in various foreign sources with introducing crops like coffee, new fruits, and irrigation technologies like cisterns.
Thatโs why you find references to Al-Zayla, Al-Jabarti, Al-Maqdishi , even Al-Sumal and Al-Daroodi(In Oman) , scattered throughout medieval and early modern Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East.
The current identity divide is largely self-inflicted. Because some coastal families have partial ancestry from Southwest Asia or Arabia, theyโve internalized a sense of exceptionalism, imagining or exaggerating differences that donโt really exist. Hence, them trying to invent a separate โBenadiriโ identity or culture. But when you look closely, there is no historical, linguistic, or social basis for separating the southern coast from the rest of Somalia.
Even Barawa which was a a cultural center in it's own right , had its own dialect of Somali spoken within the city, distinct from the Tunni dialect of the inland areas. This shows that it was, and always had been, a Somali city governed under the guurti system.
And all of this is unraveling now, because contemporary sources for periods are easily accessible. Anyone can go back and read how Mogadishu was described and itโs clear, it was always perceived as a Somali city.
And finally, the claim that the oldest graves are Arab/Persian is blatantly false. The oldest graves are actually Somali, the foreign graves you find in Mogadishu are just that, they are foreign. Their nisba gives away the fact that they were originally born outside or Somalia.
They donโt even mention that many of the graves in Mogadishu donโt carry a nisba , which clearly indicates they belonged to natives. A nisba is typically used to show where someone comes from if theyโre from another town or country. If you're born and buried in your own city, there's no need for one.
Not only that, but some of these native graves also have names inscribed using Somali calendar references ,further proof they were local Somalis, not foreign migrants.