Zeila (historical Region)

Zeila also known as Zaila or Zayla was a historical Muslim region in the Horn of Africa. The region was named after the port city of Zeila in modern day Somalia.

Geography

In the medieval Arab world the Muslim inhabited domains in the Horn of Africa were often referred to as Zeila to differentiate them from the Christian territories designated Habasha. Ibn Battuta
stated a journey through the whole of Zeila and Mogadishu region would take eight weeks to complete.

Fourteenth century Arab historian Ibn Fadlallah al-Umari recounted on the usage of the term and its origin being the city of Zeila, a vital port in the region.

History

The term Zeila in the thirteenth century was often interchangeable with the Ifat Sultanate which ruled over the entire region and later in the fourteenth century onwards it denoted its successor state the Adal Sultanate as well as Adal region. In this period the attribution ''"al-Zaylai"'' frequently signified an individual from this region however it was not consistently made clear if it referred to the city of Zeila on the coast or Muslims further inland.

In the fourteenth century Egyptian historian al-Maqrizi mentions the inhabitants of Zeila country were fond of the narcotic khat leaf grown in the region. One of the earliest accounts of coffee in text is by the sixteenth century Islamic scholar Ibn Hajar al-Haytami who writes about its development from a tree in the Zeila region.

The fifteenth century empress Eleni of Ethiopia was styled as ''"queen of Zeila"'' due to her Muslim upbringing and connection to the Hadiya Sultanate. The leaders of Adal were also often referred to as Zeila kings in texts most notably Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi conqueror of Abyssinia.

References

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Medieval Somalia
Medieval Ethiopia
Islam in Africa