HISTORY Futuh al-Habasha: Somalis As Bedouins

[Zak12]

This thread needs to be stickied in my opinion, I always come back to it since it so informative.

 

[ICEcold]

This thread needs to be stickied in my opinion, I always come back to it since it so informative.

Genuinely one of the most impressive, and easily most creative, pieces of textual analysis I've ever seen. Really takes a special something to abandon your initial and obvious view on a matter, and explore a fresh, new perspective. Have told a few people about this thread since I'm still blown away by it.

 

[gasara]

Gerri is still in Galbeed. They neighbour Gadabuursi, Jaarso and other Darood.

As for the clans who are not mentioned as 'Somali', I might know why for at least Bartire.

Bartire are recorded as late as Burton's travels as being agro-pastoralists and growing coffee in the vicinity of Harar. The ban around Jigjiga is good for cultivation and it is possible they were agro-pastoralist around the time of the Futuh too and if we are going with the theory that "Somali" = bedouin ethnic Somali only this makes sense.

Another potential cause for the slightly odd names is the Ethiopian practice of holding princes and children of Adal notables hostage.

This is true. They were agro-pastoralists during that time. But they weren't only engaging in agro-pastoralism. If y'all ever go to Jigjiga or wherever they are at you must try their coffee. I'm a coffee hater but they arguably had the best coffee in my opinion.

 

[NidarNidar]

This is true. They were agro-pastoralists during that time. But they weren't only engaging in agro-pastoralism. If y'all ever go to Jigjiga or wherever they are at you must try their coffee. I'm a coffee hater but they arguably had the best coffee in my opinion.

Pure pastoralism only exists in areas that receive very little rainfall, grain was grown near Zeila with the help of underground water.

 

[chut]

@Shimbiris were the habr jeclo mentioned in the futuh? If not wouldn't that be weird as habr jeclo are descended from a Harari woman so wouldn't they atleast have ties to harar, unless they had a different name that they were called.

Also, if you don't mind can you show me any sources or books to read so I can learn about this in detail.

 

[chut]

@Shimbiris were the habr jeclo mentioned in the futuh? If not wouldn't that be weird as habr jeclo are descended from a Harari woman so wouldn't they atleast have ties to harar, unless they had a different name that they were called.

Also, if you don't mind can you show me any sources or books to read so I can learn about this in detail.

@Yami @Garaad Awal

 

[chut]

why is no one replying to this thread.

 

[novanova]

I did some digging about this matter to see if something registered in the available online archives -- what I found was validating, indeed. There seemed to have existed a Bah-Xarla group in the Awdal region. To give context to what "bah" means in the Somali clan context:

"Bah" in Somali is a common shared grouping supplementing uterine links, i.e., shared mother on top of shared father. In agnatic clan systems, weaker, larger family units can form closer collateral ties because their agnatic counterparts might be politically larger and more powerful. What the weaker do to strengthen their standing is they grow a supplementary unity based on a shared mother, not shared with the other stronger same-father descended groups, given these family units formed out of polygamous marriages. I imagine this can take form for many reasons, not only under the pressure of outside but to increase land and resources, political influence, even a way to fix internal disputes between the ones that share a mother, etc.

Here is a model for that:

B, C, and D share the same mother, so their descendants form a "bah" to grow stronger, for example, avoiding getting overshadowed by a stronger sibling sub-clan (A) that shares the same father lineage (X) yet has another mother. It is finding a genetic reason to establish a merger to grow stronger.

Going back to the Xarla thing with this in mind, bah-Xarla exists among Dir, once again appearing more than one way associated with the Dir:

That screenshot was taken from a General Survey Somaliland Protectorate 1944-1950, taken in Zeila and Borama district. One can see that Adawi Abdallah, Ali Abdallah, and Gedi Abdallah, all Ciise agnatic brothers, shared a uterine tie, i.e., the same mother who was Xarla. Their other brothers had Guragura and Forlaba mothers, respectively, so they formed other uterine ties. Now, this further builds the case that Xarla was Somali and those Abdallah Khaireh agnatic brothers had a mother highly likely under Dir, given what we know that they are under Ciise in Djibouti, while also here showing they even strengthened further with other Ciise clans by way of marriage. This bolsters the claim that Xarla lived among Dir deep in Somali places. Any notions of saying they are of Habash or non-Somali origin is long eliminated at this point -- entirely intellectually and historically irrelevant -- now we are only practically talking about an internal Somali matter.

I have more.

Another source claimed Xarla resided since old times in the land of Ciise:

The Japan Times 1972-01-10: Iss 26234 mentioning Harla and Yaroun being massacred by Ethiopians and designating them under Ciise:

Everything up to now is consistent with what my grandmother told me and what we know about them, proven consistently here, and this Japanese source from the early 70s again shows such proof. But let me go further.

Yaroun is another sub-clan of Ciise:

It all ties together consistently.

These are not some mythical people from a distant past lost in time. My family knew them, born and bred Somalis in Djibouti as Dir today. While talking with my mother about Djibouti, she described her childhood with information about the various groups in that country. Something that led me to this deeper digging. What started the whole conversation was very interesting and peculiar, but I think this is quite long.

Found a map showing ’Reer Harle’ in a book from 1888

They’re listed as an cisse subgroup in the same book, check number 4

 

[NidarNidar]

Absame (Absama), Magan, Geri (Girri), Bartire (al-Bartirri)... these are outright Somali names but they are never adjoined with the moniker "the Somali" like the Chieftains of tribes like the Mareexaan or the Geri Kombe such as Mattan. In fact, one of the absolute most damning examples is the father of the Mareexaan Chief who is named "Goita Tedros bin Adam":





He is the father of a "Somali" chieftain yet he is never called a Somali himself and before you make too much of the name, there are other Somalis with such names such as Garad Dawit:



I recall reading that there seem to have been forced conversions when people got caught by Habeshas but then they escaped and returned to Islam after but weirdly I guess kept the new name. Point is, his dad is obviously Somali like him yet he is not dubbed as such and his dad is often around the Imam Ahmed as a member of one of his inner circles, as you can see above, and likely a "citizen" who lives in the towns with the Imam rather than being a nomad. Then there are people we know via other historical records like Nur Ibn Mujahid to apparently be Somali yet in the Futuh they are not dubbed "Somali".

Post continued below:

I forgot to mention this, but Abyssinians were known to take child hostages during those times, until the 19th century, when Somali clan leaders' children were taken as a way to force loyalty; it was called hostage diplomacy, which was also common in medieval Europe.

 

[Arabsiyawi]

I forgot to mention this, but Abyssinians were known to take child hostages during those times, until the 19th century, when Somali clan leaders' children were taken as a way to force loyalty; it was called hostage diplomacy, which was also common in medieval Europe.

One of the Malassay’s Garaads was named Shimcoon (Simon). At first that threw me off, but now that you say this it makes sense. Wild that people with that sort of history, ig, and these names end up as leaders

 

[Chaseyourdreamzz]

Found a map showing ’Reer Harle’ in a book from 1888
View attachment 359935

They’re listed as an cisse subgroup in the same book, check number 4

View attachment 359936

Source for the map ?

 

[Bataati]

Source for the map ?

https://digital.library.illinois.edu/items/38e56af0-e946-0133-1d3d-0050569601ca-6#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&r=0&xywh=-2937,-919,8863,4444

 

[NidarNidar]

One of the Malassay’s Garaads was named Shimcoon (Simon). At first that threw me off, but now that you say this it makes sense. Wild that people with that sort of history, ig, and these names end up as leaders

The only explanation, and it makes sense, Somalis tend to like giving negative nicknames.

 

[Guure⁸]

Ar waxan maxa waye niyaho, ar maad ilaahay ka baqtid. Coming out of your hiatus with a fire thread and a chunky one at that, we've let you cook but you've clearly cooked to much my friend kkk.

This thread is in line with what i've always assumed the name somali originally meant that is to say it being an occupational designation for pastoralist. Here you've explored even further and found references and example of cases where it was utilized as such that is to say in reference to pastoralist communities rather than an ethnicity. By the way the oldest mention of the name arab goes back too around 1200 bc in the levant, meaning it's a 3200 year old name.

We also find the name somali used in southern somalia and northern kenya in the context of pastoralism but also in a casual way not in reference to an ethnicity for example a sub clan of elaay is named gaal soomaale and a rendile sub clan is named adhi soomaale. Both of these names are archaic in nature and is used in two different somali or somaloid dialects which might indicate it's age.

While exploring this topic i've also found that the name somali is also used in another context other than an ethnic name or an occupational name. It's used as the opposite of gaal hence why i call it the gaal-somali identity, i wanted to make a thread about it specially since it touches on somali lore and origin story but gathering sources and what have you takes a lot of time.

A bit of commentary on my part here. The name somali was first mentioned by the chinese in the 10th century as 三麻兰 romanised as sān má lán and transliterated as samalan which is probably the formal chinese way of saying somali. Another interesting thing is tumur/temur which is the harari name for somalis. The name itself was first mentioned in the 16th century in the chronical of sarsa dengel as one of the mean constituent of the malasay.

The name dawit is a peculiar name. There were a user here on sspot who's name was dawit, there is also a somali garre from nfd with that name too not to mention i've seen a number of somali genealogical tree the included the name dawit. Similarly the name kaahin is also another peculiar name, perhaps mr. T-L208 @Yami can tell us about it .

Another thing i've observed in the xarla genealogical tree is the recurrent of the name kabir. In southern somalia kabir is the second in command after the macalin quraanka in the dugsi. When the macalin goes the kabir takes charge of the dugsi. Interesting to see how it might've been much more significant of a rank in northern galbeed.


About this i've also suspected a similar thing. Some of the people if not all of them that he interviewed might actually be somalis. I've seen someone that collected a number of words all of whom are found in af somali mentioned in the futuh such as the word used for saddle which is kore/koore a somali name for a saddle.

As for bati del wanbara i actually think it's her authentic name/title and i have a good theory why she is named/titled as such but first let's look at the name. It's made out of three parts one is wanbara which is also a somali word and it's alternatively writing as gambar both meaning a seat.

Del/dil means victory in ethio-semitic languages and is used by royalties such as dil na'od an ethio-semitic ruler.

Finally there is speculation of how some somalis actually lived on the shewan plateau such warjih, galab and alula. We also have an oromo who tested positive for the somali subclade E-Y18629. He is from welega west of addis.

There is hints in futuh of a presence of somalis deep in modern day ethiopia there might be a whole hidden history we've yet to discover out there.


Farshaxan is af somali and it means to paint/painting/draw/drawing.

We also do have kabir in Northern somalia

 

[Guure⁸]

Who said they lived in PL? PL has nothing to do with Adal. The Harla lived from Shewa to the modern Harar region and their influences are heavily felt in Fafaan,Sitti & Western SL

Harti were with imam ahmed so its likely there were majeerten aka puntland in adal

 

[Guure⁸]

Another word I'd like to throw into the hat is the title "Garaad" which is used all over the book. @Idilinaa has in the past made a strong case for its inherently Somali roots:



I'd recommend going to the thread for more as well. Soomaali, Garaad, Webi, Koore... It's interesting how any non-Arabic words discernible in the book that aren't speaking in relation to Christian Xabashis are seemingly Somali. I think he really was mostly interviewing people who were Somali speakers. That would ostensibly include the Imam himself.

We should really get a skilled comparative linguist to read the original copy thoroughly. You'd be amazed how much they can elucidate. They're pretty much how we know that the Hyksos/Semites came to eventually dominate Egypt after the Hyksos migration because not long after the Hyksos come in you later start to see that Egyptian names suddenly start to look West-Semitic. From the highest Pharaoh to the lowest slave; Semitic names everywhere. I tried to do what they did in my own amateurish way but I bet a legit linguist would find even more.

Garaad just means intelligence it doesn't need that much searching or digging