Most Arabs in Zeila were prisoners

[Midas]

Theyre not Somali tribes from the interior. Heres a first hand account from Major Henry Rayne from 1921. Somalis and saylacaawis coexisted in saylac and Somalis predate them in the city View attachment 365702

There just an urban somali pouplation with some slight foreign ancestory. They're basically the equivalent of reer xamar but even more somali.

 

[Xareen]

the fact that we need to even state such questions in the first place shows you we are defeated people

Discussing Somali history with normsomaloids is literally trying ur very best to convince them that they're human and they reject it. Even worse in the UK cos we're collectively bums so they need reason to explain their bummedness without self-agency. So sad. I'm so done with trying to tell Somalis that we wuz kangz I just let them wallow in their self-pity and discuss esoteric shi with the realest Somali niggas on the planet.

 

[Idilinaa]

Discussing Somali history with normsomaloids is literally trying ur very best to convince them that they're human and they reject it. Even worse in the UK cos we're collectively bums so they need reason to explain their bummedness without self-agency. So sad. I'm so done with trying to tell Somalis that we wuz kangz I just let them wallow in their self-pity and discuss esoteric shi with the realest Somali niggas on the planet.

The average Somali outside of this forum and a handful of social media accounts isn’t sitting around obsessing over history or identity politics. Most people are focused on real life: building businesses, raising families, and creating opportunities for themselves and their communities.

Let’s be honest a lot of these so-called 'history discussions' online are dominated by half-serious trolls or people projecting their own failures onto the Somali collective. They turn Somali history into some weird identity politics game just to cope.

Meanwhile, real Somalis in places like the UK are out here making real moves. You’ve got people like this starting businesses and partnerships:


And a record number of Somalis are getting elected to local councils:

Record number of Somalis elected as UK Councillors

London (HOL) - 26 Brits of Somali origin were elected as local councillors in cities across the UK on Thursday, setting a record number for the number Somali-Brits were elected into public office.

www.hiiraan.com

Far from being 'bums,' they’re active, building wealth, and gaining political ground. I can’t say the same for someone who spends their time calling other Somalis 'normsomaloids' from behind a screen.

 

[Barkhadle1520]

Contrary to popular belief, majority of Arabs in Zeila were exiled from the peninsula to be imprisoned. A minority of skilled masons and musketeers were imported from hadhramaut, their descendants mixed with the local Somali populace thus creating the saylacaawi people. Zeila had 3 main inhabitants, Somalis, saylacaawis, and ArabsView attachment 365602

This is BS, kulaha zeila means exile, dont tell me youre taking ts seriously

 

[Barkhadle1520]

It is without a doubt this city was Somali even throughout its *brief* ottoman period of nominal rule

Brief ? For most of its history since the 16th century it was ruled by Ottomans and Qasimids

 

[Barkhadle1520]

It is without a doubt this city was Somali even throughout its *brief* ottoman period of nominal rule

This doesn't prove the city is Somali, I'm not denying it was Somali but this is such a weak and bad argument, according to your screenshot Somali nomads were also "opressed" by the inhabitants of Saylac

Why are you guys reaching so far just to claim a Somali city ? Isnt Ibn battuta and Colonial demographic stats enough ?

 

[Barkhadle1520]

They did an awful job at it btw. In 1516 the portugese burned zeila to the ground, the following year they burned berbera

They burned Saylac and berbera twice and Berbera never recovered, by the way at that time Ottomans werent in the red sea yet so its irrelevant to put the blame on them.

 

[Barkhadle1520]

Theyre not Somali tribes from the interior. Heres a first hand account from Major Henry Rayne from 1921. Somalis and saylacaawis coexisted in saylac and Somalis predate them in the city View attachment 365702

In medieval times there were a lot of Arabs in Somaliweyn even in cities of the interior like the Ba Alawi family of Janasir, most of them were Yemeni and the Ba Alawi family even has a manuscript citing every name of the ba alawis who fought with somalis in Abyssinia
Basically there were cadcads all over somaliweyn and not only in banadir, but the ones in banadir mixed with other communities like hindi

 

[Barkhadle1520]

Large parts of that population was a floating population meaning they stayed and came and there was a permanent population of 1500.
View attachment 365706

Yeah, if you look at 1800s pictures of the city, there were tons of huts and caarish like at berbera or hafun etc

 

[Barkhadle1520]

You’re deffo cadcad

Nah I'm not and dont derail the thread, for once its an interesting historical topic

 

[Idilinaa]

This doesn't prove the city is Somali, I'm not denying it was Somali but this is such a weak and bad argument, according to your screenshot Somali nomads were also "opressed" by the inhabitants of Saylac

Why are you guys reaching so far just to claim a Somali city ? Isnt Ibn battuta and Colonial demographic stats enough ?

It's not like Mocha and Aden stopped being Yemeni cities because Somalis formed a significant part of the population, running businesses and Ottomans ruled over it appointing governors. Same goes for Zayla it was still a Somali city.

What we’re seeing here is people playing shallow identity politics instead of engaging with the historical nuance. But yeah the period he is showing in the late 1800s has some interesting historical context to it in terms of shifting dynamics.

Yeah, if you look at 1800s pictures of the city there were tons of huts and caarish like at berbera or hafun etc

It was the same in Harar, Luuq, Mogadishu, and Barawa you’d see caarish structures next to whitewashed stone dwellings. The wealthier a town became, the more stone properties you'd find, sometimes even managed by relatives while the owners were away elsewhere.

Which to me, that shows a constant movement of people in and out of these cities and towns. Zayla and Berbera especially were seeing a revival in most of the 1800s, with growing traffic and renewed economic activity.

 

[Saleh]

This is BS, kulaha zeila means exile, dont tell me youre taking ts seriously

Arabic is an adaptive language, for example the term habesha has origins predating the Arabic language, but its definition in Arabic is "mixed" because of their obviously mixed heritage. Now apply that concept to zeila and we arrive at our conclusion

 

[Saleh]

They burned Saylac and berbera twice and Berbera never recovered, by the way at that time Ottomans werent in the red sea yet so its irrelevant to put the blame on them.

the ottomans are 100% to blame for this zeila and berbera are a drop in a bucket of cities pillaged looted or burned by the portugese, they burnt mombasa and kilwa if im not mistaken and only avoided burning malindi because of an alliance they had with its emir. they attempted to burn xamar but were repelled. this is just in the coast of east africa, the portugese were also burning and looting muslim cities all across india and attempted to siege jeddah as well, where were the ottomans? they inherited a strong naval force from the mamluks and had presence in the red sea as far as the gulf of aden by 1517 and they are somehow not to blame? is this a joke?

 

[Saleh]

This doesn't prove the city is Somali, I'm not denying it was Somali but this is such a weak and bad argument, according to your screenshot Somali nomads were also "opressed" by the inhabitants of Saylac

Somali nomads were ostracized in every competent Somali polity. In karin, a reer yeesif Habr jeclo settlement on saxil's coast, they built walls to keep HJ nomads out. does it make it any less somali because somali nomads were excluded from the civilization?

 

[Barkhadle1520]

the ottomans are 100% to blame for this zeila and berbera are a drop in a bucket of cities pillaged looted or burned by the portugese, they burnt mombasa and kilwa if im not mistaken and only avoided burning malindi because of an alliance they had with its emir. they attempted to burn xamar but were repelled. this is just in the coast of east africa, the portugese were also burning and looting muslim cities all across india and attempted to siege jeddah as well, where were the ottomans? they inherited a strong naval force from the mamluks and had presence in the red sea as far as the gulf of aden by 1517 and they are somehow not to blame? is this a joke?

Zeila and Berbera at that time were under the Bar saad al din not Ottomans, the sultan even had its own navy but not equipped with cannons so the when the tahirid coastal cities were being sacked and harassed by the portuguese he sent a letter to the Somali king requesting naval support but the King refused saying he needed all his ships to protect his own coast

The truth is there was nothing we could do, not even the best Ottoman ships could rival the Portuguese armadas and caravels, even if the area was under the ottomans there was absolutely nothing they could do, to give you a modern comparison its as if a WW1 fleet of airplanes tries to go against soviet era migs

Also it was the ottomans that renovated and took care of Saylac all the way into the 18th century when it was chaos inland and the somali kingdom was getting invaded by the oromos, so your argument is really really stupid believe me

 

[Barkhadle1520]

Somali nomads were ostracized in every competent Somali polity. In karin, a reer yeesif Habr jeclo settlement on saxil's coast, they built walls to keep HJ nomads out. does it make it any less somali because somali nomads were excluded from the civilization?

"I'm not denying it was Somali" is what I've written

I was just pointing out how stupid your argument could be

 

[Barkhadle1520]

It's not like Mocha and Aden stopped being Yemeni cities because Somalis formed a significant part of the population

"I'm not denying it was Somali" Learn to read instead of jumping to conclusions

It was the same in Harar, Luuq, Mogadishu, and Barawa

Not really, in Saylac and Berbera sometimes there were 10 times more temporary dwellings than stone building, and the reason for this is attributed to nomads. Berbera was the most extreme case cause from its second destruction all the way to the 19th century it could barely be considered a settlement, it was a seasonal fair.

Harar kept Somali and oromo nomads out for a while so waaaay less huts and less significant hut to stone dwellings ratio

Luuq wasnt even temporary dwellings but straight up mud huts

Xamar was same as Harar, in the revoil drawing you can even see some huts in the middle of the city, less so in Barawe I believe

 

[Idilinaa]

Arabic is an adaptive language, for example the term habesha has origins predating the Arabic language, but its definition in Arabic is "mixed" because of their obviously mixed heritage. Now apply that concept to zeila and we arrive at our conclusion

The local name for the town was Awdal, which is clearly Somali.

Portuguese sources from the 1500s even mention that the natives referred to it by that name.

We also have a 13th-century Arabic writer Al-Dimishqi that spells it in the Somali pronunciation, calling Zayla ‘Awdal’.

You can also find that Zayla and the northern Somali coast were often referred to as Bar al-Ajam (the land of non-Arabic speakers), which further shows that the region was recognized as culturally and linguistically distinct by Arab writers.

As for the name ''Zayla'', it's likely of Arabic origin though the exact meaning is unclear. Still, this dual-naming is a common feature in Somali port towns.
For example:

Bosaso → Bandar Qasim

Qaw → Bandar Siyada

Qandala → Bandar Khor

Xamar → Mogadishu

It comes from Somalis being bilingual in Arabic and Somali and the unique mix of geography, trade activity, and cultural interaction Somalia had with our Arab neighbors led to the creation of place names (toponyms) that blend both Arabic and Somali linguistic elements.

 

[Saleh]

Zeila and Berbera at that time were under the Bar saad al din not Ottomans, the sultan even had its own navy but not equipped with cannons so the when the tahirid coastal cities were being sacked and harassed by the portuguese he sent a letter to the Somali king requesting naval support but the King refused saying he needed all his ships to protect his own coast

The truth is there was nothing we could do, not even the best Ottoman ships could rival the Portuguese armadas and caravels, even if the area was under the ottomans there was absolutely nothing they could do, to give you a modern comparison its as if a WW1 fleet of airplanes tries to go against soviet era migs

Also it was the ottomans that renovated and took care of Saylac all the way into the 18th century when it was chaos inland and the somali kingdom was getting invaded by the oromos, so your argument is really really stupid believe me

You are grossly underrating the ottomans naval capacity. They inherited the naval fleet of the mamluks who had reverse engineered and modified spanish carracks used to expel the portugese from chaul in 1508. The ottomans had all of this at their disposal and failed to expand beyond the medeterranian after their coup in egypt and muslims suffered as a result through the red sea to the indian ocean. Besides that, there were ottoman fleets present in al shihr the same year berbera was burnt suleiman al khadim was more than capable of sending support to adal but failed to, the same way he failed to support the muslims on the swahili coast, in india, and most of hadhramaut. as a matter of fact, sulaiman himself sacked and looted aden and hung its emir. they had no vested interest in defending muslims only exploiting them

 

[Barkhadle1520]

You are grossly underrating the ottomans naval capacity. They inherited the naval fleet of the mamluks who had reverse engineered and modified spanish carracks used to expel the portugese from chaul in 1508. The ottomans had all of this at their disposal and failed to expand beyond the medeterranian after their coup in egypt and muslims suffered as a result through the red sea to the indian ocean. Besides that, there were ottoman fleets present in al shihr the same year berbera was burnt suleiman al khadim was more than capable of sending support to adal but failed to, the same way he failed to support the muslims on the swahili coast, in india, and most of hadhramaut. as a matter of fact, sulaiman himself sacked and looted aden and hung its emir. they had no vested interest in defending muslims only exploiting them

The ottoman navy was nothing compared to the portuguese one, this is not coming from me but ottoman historians themselves, i think youre over-estimating their capabilities, and it would only make sense that their biggest vessels would be in the mediterranean defending their seas rather than the swahili coast