Zeila was never historically a Somali city. It was a city ruled by Semitic speakers. The majority of the inhabitants of Zeila were arabs from Yemen. The Ruiling class of the Adal sultante constructed a huge wall with five gates in Zeila to keep the Somali nomads out. It wasn't until after the fall of the Adal sultante the Somali nomads were able to enter the ancient city. The dir nomads came to Zeila around the late 15th century. Zeila was historically ruled and inhabited by arabs from Yemen.
LMAO Zeila is so old it had another name in antiquity, it was called Avalites.
"Zeila is an ancient Somali city and has been identified with what was referred to in
classical antiquity as the town of
Avalites, situated in the erstwhile
Barbara geographical region on the northern Somali coast. Along with the neighboring
Habash (
Habesha or Abyssinians) of
Al-Habash to the west, the Barbaroi or Berber (ancestral
Somalis) who inhabited the area was recorded in the 1st century CE Greek document the
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea as engaging in extensive commercial exchanges with
Egypt and pre-Islamic
Arabia. The travelogue mentions the Barbaroi trading
frankincense, among various other commodities, through their port cities such as Avalites (modern Zeila). Competent seamen, the Periplus' author also indicates that they sailed throughout the
Red Sea and
Gulf of Aden for trade. The document describes the Barbaroi's governance system as decentralized and essentially consisting of a collection of autonomous city-states. It also suggests that "the Berbers who live in the place are very unruly," an apparent reference to their independent streak.
[1]"