HISTORY The Earliest Surviving Manuscript Known Written By A Somali From 1692

Most clans are 900 years old on Yfull age estimates while Dir is 1600 but estimates can be off by a century or two. Most likely beginning of Islam in the 8th century in Zeila-Hararghe is when tribes like Dir where formed making them one of the oldest. Hawiye is under tested. Not enough samples but we do have two Karanle sub sub sub tribes that are 1200 each and have potential to reach 1600 or more if more older branches get tested.
What about Ptolemy's map? Does this dir really refer to us?
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Garaad diinle

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A friend of mine told me that garaad diinli is the best person you can ask about history of Somalia. I opened this account just to ask you about your opinion about whether Somali tribes were formed before or after Islam .. And Ist true that dir appears on Ptolemy's map?
I can only give you my opinion since this topic hasn't been well studied by any researcher or anthropologist. If you wanna look at it from a genetic perspective currently somalis of various clans did a dna test where they were grouped with their closest genetic relative. These grouping more or less or for the most part is alongside somali clan division. Of course we still need a lot more people to test so that we can see the full picture but what we have now is good enough for us to see the outline or the genetic reflection of somali clan structure that predates islam.

In terms of lineage sab iyo samaale are the most conservative clans in somaliweyn when it comes to their abtirsi. You'd find some people of both clans counting up to 45 to sab iyo samaale. To put it in perspective the crown prince of jordan or al-urdun that hails from banu hashim count 42 to علي بن أبي طالب رضي الله عنه. What is even more interesting is that both sab iyo samaale have a common ancestor named hill abroone. The abtirsi doesn't stop at sab iyo samaale but it extends further and for some people it may reach up to 50 if not more.

After islam most of these old linages were forgotten so we don't have more examples of long abtirsi. Also some names might be forgotten for example you might come across two people of the same reer but one count up to 40 while the other count up to 20. Now imagen how many names where forgotten between hill abroone and his ancestors. There were even an effort to arabise some of these archaic somali clan names so you might find some of them have one somali name that is often said to be a nickname or a title and one arabic name.

Finally we come to dir. According to genetics the tmrca of dir or time to most recent common ancestor of dir is 2200 years ago. Now 2000 years ago you've got ptolemy talking about a town on the horn of africa named dire or diria that is most likely or almost definitely refers to the dir clan. I remember reading about some roman or greek traveller who described these people as nomadic pastoralists who practice circumcision much like proto somalis. Now the genetic part holds up and the geographic part also holds up. This means that dir is the oldest named somali clans and the one with the oldest history.
 
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There are probably a number of somali manuscript hidden all over Soomaaliweyn.

This is a manuscript on biimaal geneology writing around 200 years ago i think it wa copied from an older version.

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This is a manuscript said to be writing in far wadaad.

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This is a manuscript about sheikh hussein al-marki of bale most likely.

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is there a way to repost this its unavailable now. thanks in advance
 
@Garaad diinle and please in the future brother if possible dont post using imgur just post onto the site directly, imgur is a temporary way to share images, future brothers and sisters interested in somali history wont be able to see the beautiful sources you shared months or years down the line
 
The “sesea” mentioned in the Adulis text could be an early reference to ciise

Probably a stretch but who knows, the description sounds like somewhere near Djibouti
 
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