Zeila (Somali: Saylac, Arabic: زيلع) is a town located in the Awdal region of Somaliland. Situated on the Gulf of Aden coast near the Djibouti border, the town sits on a sandy spit surrounded by the sea.
Zeila, Somaliland
It is known for its coral reef, mangroves and offshore islands, which include the Sa'ad ad-Din archipelago named after the Sultan Sa'ad ad-Din II of the Sultanate of Ifat. Landward, the terrain is unbroken desert for some fifty miles. Borama lies 151 miles (243 km) southeast of Zeila, Berbera lies 170 miles (270 km) east of Zeila, while the city of Harar in Ethiopia is 200 miles (320 km) to the west.
Ancient Origins and Trade
Zeila is an ancient city and has been identified with the trade post referred to in classical antiquity as Avalites (Greek: Αβαλίτες), situated in the region of Barbara in Northeast Africa. During antiquity, it was one of many city-states that engaged in the lucrative trade between the Near East (Phoenicia, Ptolemaic Egypt, Greece, Parthian Persia, Saba, Nabataea, Roman Empire, etc.) and India.
Most modern scholars identify Zeila with the site of Avalites mentioned in the 1st-century Greco-Roman travelogue the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and in Ptolemy, although this is disputed. In Camoens: His Life and Lusiads, Richard F. Burton links the Somali Habr Awal people with the ancient Avalitae mentioned by Ptolemy and in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.
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Along with the neighboring Habash of Al-Habash to the west, the Barbaroi who inhabited the area were 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.
Competent seamen, the Periplus' author also indicates that they sailed throughout the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden for trade. Zeila, along with Mogadishu and other Somali coastal cities, was founded upon an indigenous network involving hinterland trade, which happened even before significant Arab migrations or trade with the Somali coast. That goes back approximately four thousand years.
Early Islamic Center
Islam was introduced to the area early on from the Arabian Peninsula, shortly after the Hijrah. Zeila's two-mihrab Masjid al-Qiblatayn dates to the 7th century, and is the oldest mosque in the city. In the late 9th century, Al-Yaqubi wrote that Muslims were living along the northern Somali seaboard.
Masjid al-Qiblatayn in Zeila
By the 9th century, Zeila was the capital of the early Adal Kingdom and Ifat Sultanate in the 13th century, it would attain its height of prosperity a few centuries later in the 16th century. He also mentioned that the Adal kingdom had its capital in the city, suggesting that the Adal Sultanate with Zeila as its headquarters dates back to at least the 9th or 10th centuries. According to I.M. Lewis, the polity was governed by local dynasties consisting of Somalized Arabs or Arabized Somalis, who also ruled over the similarly established Sultanate of Mogadishu in the Benadir region to the south.
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Zeila in the Middle Ages
In the Middle Ages, the Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela identified Zeila with the Biblical location of Havilah. By the years (1214-17), Ibn Said referred to both Zeila and Berbera. Zeila, as he tells us, was a wealthy city of considerable size and its inhabitants were completely Muslim. Ibn Said's description gives the impression that Berbera was of much more localized importance, mainly serving the immediate Somali hinterland while Zeila was clearly serving more extensive areas.
But there is no doubt that Zeila was also predominantly Somali, and Al-Dimashqi, another thirteen-century Arab writer, gives the city name its Somali name Awdal (Adal), still known among the local Somali. The author’s description about seasons generally corresponds to the local seasons in historical Awdal where Karan or Karam is an important rainy season at the beginning of the year. The second half of the year is called ‘Bilo Dirir’ (Bil = month; Bilo = months). It appears that the historian was referring, in one way or another, to these still used terms, Karan and Bil.
In the following century, the Moroccan historian and traveller Ibn Battuta describes the city being inhabited by Somalis, followers of the Shafi‘i school, who kept large numbers of camels, sheep and goats. His description thus indicates both the ingenious nature of the city, as indicated by the composition of its population, and, by implication through the presence of the livestock, the existence of the nomads in its vicinity. Through extensive trade with Abyssinia and Arabia, Adal attained its height of prosperity during the 14th century.
Adal Sultanate and Conflicts
It sold incense, myrrh, slaves, gold, silver and camels, among many other commodities. Zeila had by then started to grow into a huge multicultural metropolis, with Somalis (Predominantly), Afar, Harari, and even Arabs and Persian inhabitants. In 1332, the Zeila-based King of Adal was slain in a military campaign aimed at halting the Abyssinian Emperor Amda Seyon's march toward the city. When the last Sultan of Ifat, Sa'ad ad-Din II, was also killed by Dawit I of Ethiopia in Zeila in 1410, his children escaped to Yemen, before later returning in 1415.
In the early 15th century, Adal's capital was moved further inland to the town of Dakkar, where Sabr ad-Din II, the eldest son of Sa'ad ad-Din II, established a new base after his return from Yemen. Adal's headquarters were again relocated the following century, this time to Harar. From this new capital, Adal organised an effective army led by Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi (Ahmad "Gurey" or "Gran") that invaded the Abyssinian empire. This campaign is historically known as the Conquest of Abyssinia (Futuh al Habash).
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I. M. Lewis gives an invaluable reference to an Arabic manuscript on the history of the Gadabuursi Somali. ‘This Chronicle opens’, Lewis tells us, ‘with an account of the wars of Imam ‘Ali Si’id (d. 1392), from whom the Gadabursi today trace their descent and who is described as the only Muslim leader fighting on the Western flank in the armies of Sa'd ad-Din (d. I. M. "Further light on the Dir advance and Galla withdrawal seems to be afforded by an Arabic manuscript describing the history of the Gadabursi clan.
16th Century and Portuguese Raids
Travellers' reports, such as the memoirs of the Italian Ludovico di Varthema, indicate that Zeila continued to be an important marketplace during the 16th century, despite being sacked by the Portuguese in 1517 and 1528. 16th-century Zeila, along with several other settlements on the East African coast, had been visited by the Portuguese explorer and writer Duarte Barbosa, describing the city as such: "Having passed this town of Berbara, and going on, entering the Red Sea, there is another town of the Moors, which is named Zeyla, which is a good place of trade, whither many ships navigate and sell their clothes and merchandise.
It is very populous, with good houses of stone and white-wash and good streets; the houses are covered with terraces, the dwellers in them are black. They have many horses and breed many cattle of all sorts, which they use for milk, butter, and meat.
Dependency and Emirate
Beginning in 1630, the city became a dependency of the ruler of Mocha, who, for a small sum, leased the port to one of the office-holders of Mocha. The latter, in return, collected a toll on its trade. Zeila was subsequently ruled by an Emir, whom Mordechai Abir suggested had "some vague claim to authority over all of the Sahil, but whose real authority did not extend very far beyond the walls of the town." Assisted by cannons and a few mercenaries armed with matchlocks, the governor succeeded in fending off incursions by both the disunited nomads of the interior, who had penetrated the area, as well as brigands in the Gulf of Aden.
19th Century: Decline and Re-emergence
By the first half of the 19th century, Zeila was a shadow of its former self, having been reduced to "a large village surrounded by a low mud wall, with a population that varied according to the season from 1,000 to 3,000 people." The city continued to serve as the principal maritime outlet for Harar and beyond it in Shewa. Richard Burton explicitly described the Gadabursi as inhabiting the lands immediately to the east and northeast of Harar, and extending their domain to the neighbourhood of Zayla. The Habar Awal clan were present along the seaboard ranging between Zayla and Siyaro, primarily in the coastal towns of Bulhar and Berbera.
Before this, it was the Sharifs of Mocha who exercised nominal rule on behalf of the Ottoman Empire over Zeila. Hajji Sharmarke Ali Saleh came to govern Zeila after the Turkish governor of Mocha and Hodeida handed governorship from Mohamed El-Barr to him. Sharmarke's governorship had an instant effect on the city, as he maneuvered to monopolize as much of the regional trade as possible, with his sights set as far as Harar and the Ogaden. In 1845, he deployed a few matchlock men to wrest control of neighboring Berbera from that town's then feuding Somali authorities.
The Emir of Harar Ahmad III ibn Abu Bakr already been at loggerheads with Sharmarke over fiscal matters. He was concerned about the ramifications that these movements might ultimately have on his own city's commerce. In 1874-75, the Egyptians obtained a firman from the Ottomans by which they secured claims over the city. At the same time, the Egyptians received British recognition of their nominal jurisdiction as far east as Cape Guardafui. In actuality, however, Egypt had little authority over the interior. Their period of rule on the coast was brief, lasting only a few years (1870-84).
Relationships with Local Clans
The policy of the rulers of Zeila in the past had been to subsidise the Issa. It was therefore usual for a newly appointed Ughaz to pay his respects first of all to the Governor of Zeila, who on his side was always anxious to propitiate the King of the Black Issa, in the hope that he would restrain his clansmen from molesting all caravans on the Zeila-Harar road. In 1876, the Ughaz was received and welcomed in Zeila in a very splendid way; the Pasha residents there celebrated him and went to receive him in Tocoscia. He was distinguished from the other leaders, because he was equipped with a garment, an umbrella and for the large amount of amulets, pockets and pouches.
Late 19th Century: Population and Daily Life
In 1879, the town had about 4,000 to 5,000 inhabitants, including Afars, Issa/Gadabursi Somalis, Yemenis, Hadharem, Indians, and slaves (mainly Gallas and Abyssinians). Their diet was simple but varied, including grains like dhurra, wheat, and rice, as well as dates, sugar, biscuits, butter, livestock, milk, and fish, often imported from places like Aden, Mocha, and Hodeidah. People commonly wore turbans, vests, robes, and trousers.
French and British Interests
On 25 March 1885, the French government claimed that they signed a treaty with Ughaz Nur II of the Gadabuursi placing much of the coast and interior of the Gadabuursi country under the protectorate of France. The treaty titled in French, Traitè de Protectorat sur les Territoires du pays des Gada-Boursis, was signed by both J. Henry, the Consular Agent of France and Dependencies at Harar-Zeila, and Nur Robleh, Ughaz of the Gadabuursi, at Zeila on 9 Djemmad 1302 (March 25, 1885).
However, the British attempted to deny this agreement between the French and the Gadabuursi citing that that Ughaz had a representative at Zeila when the Gadabuursi signed their treaty with the British in December of 1884. The British suspected that this treaty was designed by the Consular Agent of France and Dependencies at Harrar-Zeila to circumvent British jurisdiction over the Gadabuursi country and allow France to lay claim to sections of the Somali coast.
According to I. M. "By the end of 1885 Britain was preparing to resist an expected French landing at Zeila. Instead, however, of a decision by force, both sides now agreed to negotiate.
20th Century and Beyond
The construction of a railway from Djibouti to Addis Ababa in the late 19th century continued the neglect of Zeila. At the beginning of the next century, the city was described in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica as having a "good sheltered anchorage much frequented by Arab sailing craft. However, heavy draught steamers are obliged to anchor a mile and a half from the shore. Small coasting boats lie off the pier and there is no difficulty in loading or discharging cargo.
The water supply of the town is drawn from the wells of Takosha, about three miles distant; every morning camels, in charge of old Somali women and bearing goatskins filled with water, come into the town in picturesque procession. ... Buralle Robleh the subinspector of police of Zeila was described by Major Rayne as one of the most important men in Zeila along with 2 others. In August 1940, Zeila was captured by advancing Italian troops.
The Austrian explorer and geographer, P. V. Paulitschke, mentioned that in 1886, the British General and Assistant Political Resident at Zeila, J. S. King, recorded a famous Somali folk song native to Zeila and titled: "To my Beloved", which was written by a Gadabuursi man to a girl of the same tribe. The song became huge...
