The Judaism claims are very dubious. All they have to show for it, from even looking at Sada Mire's book, are stars of David which we know full-well Orthodox Ethiopian Christians in the Horn would also have a tendency to draw.
Ethiopian Jews themselves are also quite fraudulent. There is however ample evidence of some Christian presence around the northwest of Somalia like Awdal, Woqooyi Galbeed and Togdheer. There's even evidence, I believe, of churches and many finds of Christian burials/stele and Ge'ez bibles though the utter lack of any real Xabashi genetic imprint that is pronounced among northwest Somalis, even those near Harar who practiced agriculture, implies to me this was not left behind by a large migrant community that just got assimilated. So, in lieu of some sort of giant population collapse and massive exodus, which I doubt, it would seem at least some portion of northwest Somalis in the pre-Islamic era were Ethiopian Orthodox Christians.
You do see this in some strange customs like going to shrines in places like Galbeed and the northwest and using residue scraped off the saint's shrine to draw a cross on their foreheads (something I recall Sada Mire taking note of as well) and in some of the myths surrounding ancestral figures in that general area. But it was probably always a minority belief system as it doesn't remotely pervade across the Somali language the way Waaqism clearly does.
Islam clearly came to Somalis in a very syncretic manner via trade. The speed at which it caught on is hard to parse out now without more in-depth cross-referencing between archaeology, oral traditions and written records. But it is obvious it came to Somalis via trade with Yemen based on our madhab and the stories since time immemorial have always imparted tales of Arabian proselytizers coming on down and spreading Islam to Somalis peacefully. This fits the nature of Islamic practice historically among Somalis as well and why many native customs like sacred trees, trials by fire and folkstories like
this survived until just a hundred years ago.
A lot of negotiating and letting the locals be in terms of their customs had to be established hence why women were walking around with their shoulders exposed even in many of the magaalo and why all these customs survived even with
Wadaads consistently traveling the countryside and educating reer miyi on their culture. The syncretic nature of the conversion is so apparent that it even arises in the tribal founding myths:
Anyway, sorry for the delayed write up. Hope that was interesting.
