Mogadishu

Mogadishu (, also ; so, Muqdisho or ; ar, مقديشو ; it, Mogadiscio ), locally known as Xamar or Hamar, is the capital and most populous city of Somalia. The city has served as an important port connecting traders across the Indian Ocean for millennia, and has an estimated population of 2,388,000 (2021). Mogadishu is located in the coastal Banadir region on the Indian Ocean, which unlike other Somali regions, is considered a municipality rather than a (federal state).

Mogadishu has a long history, which ranges from the ancient period up until the present, serving as the capital of the Sultanate of Mogadishu in the 9th-13th century, which for many centuries controlled the Indian Ocean gold trade, and eventually came under the Ajuran Empire in the 13th century which was an important player in the medieval Silk Road maritime trade. Mogadishu enjoyed the height of its prosperity during the 14th and 15th centuries and was during the early modern period considered the wealthiest city on the East African coast, as well as the center of a thriving textile industry. In the 17th century, Mogadishu and parts of southern Somalia fell under the Hiraab Imamate and in the 19th century came under the Geledi Sultanate's sphere of influence.

In 1894 the Hiraab chiefs on behalf of Mogadishu had signed a treaty of peace, friendship and protection with Filonardi of the Italian Benadir Company. The onset of Italian colonialism occurred in stages, with Italian treaties signed in the 1880s followed by economic engagement between Somali clans and the Italian Benadir Company and then direct governance by the Italian government after 1906, British Military Administration of Somalia after World War Two and the UN Italian Trust Territory in the 1950s. This was followed by independence in 1960, the ''Hantiwadaag'' (socialist) era during Barre's presidency (1969–1991), a three-decade civil war afterward, and as of the late 2010s and 2020s a period of reconstruction.

Etymology

The origins of the name Mogadishu (Muqdisho) has many theories but it is most likely derived from a morphology of the Somali words "Muuq" and "Disho" which literally means "Sight Killer" or "Blinder" possibly referring to the city's blinding beauty. Other theories suggest the Persian word ''Maq'ad-i-Shāh'' (), which means "the seat of the Shah". and another theory is that it is derived from the Arabic root '', which means "hallowed (place)," but the place is far too ancient. The 16th century explorer Leo Africanus knew the city as ''Magadazo'' (alt. ''Magadoxo'').

History

Antiquity

Tradition and old records assert that southern Somalia, including the Mogadishu area, was inhabited very early by hunter-gatherers. Although most of these early inhabitants are believed to have been either overwhelmed, driven away or, in some cases, assimilated by later migrants to the area, physical traces of their occupation survive in certain ethnic minority groups inhabiting modern-day Jubaland and other parts of the south. The latter descendants include relict populations such as the Eile, Aweer, the Wa-Ribi, and especially the Wa-Boni. By the time of the arrival of peoples from the Cushitic Rahanweyn (Digil and Mirifle) clan confederacy, who would go on to establish a local aristocracy, other Cushitic groups affiliated with the Oromo (Wardai) and Ajuuraan (Ma'adanle) had already formed settlements of their own in the sub-region.

Sarapion

The ancient city of Sarapion is believed to have been the predecessor state of Mogadishu. It is mentioned in the ''Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'', a Greek travel document dating from the first century AD, as one of a series of commercial ports on the Somali littoral. According to the ''Periplus'', maritime trade already connected peoples in the Mogadishu area with other communities along the Indian Ocean.

During ancient times Mogadishu was part of the Somali city-states that engaged in a lucrative trade network connecting Somali merchants with Phoenicia, Ptolemic Egypt, Greece, Parthian Persia, Sabaeans, Nabataea and the Roman Empire. Somali sailors used the ancient Somali maritime vessel known as the '' beden'' to transport their cargo.Journal of African History p.50 by John Donnelly Fage and Roland Anthony Oliver

Foundation and origins

The founding ethnicity of Mogadishu and its subsequent sultanate has been a topic of intrigue in Somali Studies. Ioan Lewis and Enrico Cerulli believed that the city was founded and ruled by a council of Arab and Persian families.I.M. Lewis, ''Peoples of the Horn of Africa: Somali, Afar, and Saho, Issue 1'', (International African Institute: 1955), p. 47.I.M. Lewis, ''The modern history of Somaliland: from nation to state'', (Weidenfeld & Nicolson: 1965), p. 37 However, the reference I.M Lewis and Cerulli received traces back to one 19th century text called the Kitab Al-Zunuj, which has been discredited by modern scholars as unreliable and unhistorical. More importantly, it contradicts oral, ancient written sources and archeological evidence on the pre-existing civilizations and communities that flourished on the Somali coast, and to which were the forefathers of Mogadishu and other coastal cities. Thus, the Persian and Arab founding "myths" are regarded as an outdated false colonialist reflection on Africans ability to create their own sophisticated states. It has now been widely accepted that there were already communities on the Somali coast with local African leadership, to whom the Arab and Persian families had to ask for permission to settle in their cities. It also seems the local Africans retained their political and numerical superiority on the coast while the Muslim immigrants would go through an assimilation process by adopting the local language and culture.

Mogadishu along with Zeila and other Somali coastal cities was founded upon an indigenous network involving hinterland trade and that happened even before significant Arab migrations or trade with the Somali coast. That goes back approximately four thousand years and are supported by archaeological and textual evidences.

This is corroborated by the first century AD Greek document the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, detailing multiple prosperous port cities in ancient Somalia, as well as the identification of ancient Sarapion with the city that would later be known as Mogadishu. When Ibn Battuta visited the Sultanate in the 14th century, he identified the Sultan as being of Barbara origin, an ancient term to describe the ancestors of the Somali people. According to Ross E. Dunn neither Mogadishu, or any other city on the coast could be considered alien enclaves of Arabs or Persians, but were in-fact African towns.

Yaqut al-Hamawi, a Muslim medieval geographer in the year 1220 describes Mogadishu as the most prominent town on the coast. Yaqut also mentioned Mogadishu as being a town inhabited by Berbers, described as "dark-skinned" and considered ancestors of modern Somalis. By the thirteenth century, Ibn Sa'id described Mogadishu, Merca and Barawa located in the Benadir coast had become Islamic and commercial centers in the Indian Ocean. He said the local people in the Benadir coast and the interior were predominantly inhabited by Somalis with a minority of Arab, Persian and Indian merchants living in the coastal towns. Ibn al-Mujawir mentions the Banu Majid who fled the Mundhiriya region in Yemen in the year 1159 and settled in Mogadishu and also traders from the port towns of Abyan and Haram.

Mogadishu is traditionally inhabited by four clans. Ajurans(Hawiye),Abgaal(Hawiye),Majerteen(Darood)and the reer xamar clan groupings (Somali: afarta reer xamar). These are the Moorshe, Iskashato, DhabarWeyne, and the Bandawow. And with Moorshe being regarded as the oldest group in Mogadishu and is considered to be a sub-clan of Ajuran who established one of the most powerful medieval kingdoms in Africa called Ajuran Sultanate. The Gibil Madow (Dark Skins) faction of the Benadiri are said to hail from Somali clan groups from the interior and make up the majority of Benadiris with a small minority being Gibil Cads (Light Skins) which descend from Muslim immigrants.

Medieval Period

Mogadishu Sultanate

The Mogadishu Sultanate was a medieval Somali sultanate centered in southern Somalia. It rose as one of the pre-eminent powers in the Horn of Africa under the rule of Fakhr ad-Din before becoming part of the expanding Ajuran Empire in the 13th century. The Mogadishu Sultanate maintained a vast trading network, dominated the regional gold trade, minted its own currency, and left an extensive architectural legacy in present-day southern Somalia. A local city-state which much influence over the hinterland neighboring coastal towns.
For many years Mogadishu functioned as the pre-eminent city in the (''Bilad al Barbar'' – "Land of the Berbers"), as medieval Arabic-speakers named the Somali coast. Following his visit to the city, the 12th-century Syrian historian Yaqut al-Hamawi (a former slave of Greek origin) wrote a global history of many places he visited Mogadishu and called it the richest and most powerful city in the region and was an Islamic center across the Indian Ocean.

Ajuran Sultanate

In the early 13th century, Mogadishu along with other coastal and interior Somali cities in southern Somalia and eastern Abyissina came under the Ajuran Sultanate control and experienced another Golden Age.Lee V. Cassanelli, ''The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600–1900'', (University of Pennsylvania Press: 1982), p.102. By the 1500s, Mogadishu was no longer a vassal state and became a full-fledged Ajuran city. An Ajuran family, Mudaffar, established a dynasty in the city, thus combining two entities together for the next 350 years, the fortunes of the urban cities in the interior and coast became the fortunes of the other.

During his travels, Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi (1213–1286) noted that Mogadishu city had already become the leading Islamic center in the region. By the time of the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta's appearance on the Somali coast in 1331, the city was at the zenith of its prosperity. He described Mogadishu as "an exceedingly large city" with many rich merchants, which was famous for its high quality fabric that it exported to Egypt, among other places. He also describes the hospitality of the people of Mogadishu and how locals would put travelers up in their home to help the local economy. Battuta added that the city was ruled by a Somali Sultan, Abu Bakr ibn Shaikh 'Umar,David D. Laitin, Said S. Samatar, ''Somalia: Nation in Search of a State'', (Westview Press: 1987), p. 15. He noted that Sultan Abu Bakr had dark skin complexion and spoke in his native tongue (Somali) but was also fluent in Arabic. The Sultan also had a retinue of wazirs (ministers), legal experts, commanders, royal eunuchs, and other officials at his beck and call. Ibn Khaldun (1332 to 1406) noted in his book that Mogadishu was a massive metropolis. He also claimed that the city was a very populous with many wealthy merchants.

This period gave birth to notable figures like Abd al-Aziz of Mogadishu who was described as the governor and island chief of Maldives by Ibn Battuta After him is named the Abdul-Aziz Mosque in Mogadishu which has remained there for centuries.

The island's appellation "Madagascar" is not of local origin but rather was popularized in the Middle Ages by Europeans.Cousins (1895), pp. 11–12 The name ''Madageiscar'' was first recorded in the memoirs of 13th-century Venetian explorer Marco Polo as a corrupted transliteration of the name Mogadishu, the famous port with which Polo had confused the island.Room (2006), p. 230

Vasco Da Gama, who passed by Mogadishu in the 15th century, noted that it was a large city with houses of four or five storeys high and big palaces in its centre and many mosques with cylindrical minarets. In the 16th century, Duarte Barbosa noted that many ships from the Kingdom of Cambaya sailed to Mogadishu with cloths and spices for which they in return received gold, wax and ivory. Barbosa also highlighted the abundance of meat, wheat, barley, horses, and fruit on the coastal markets, which generated enormous wealth for the merchants. Mogadishu, the center of a thriving weaving industry known as ''toob benadir'' (specialized for the markets in Egypt and Syria), together with Merca and Barawa also served as transit stops for Swahili merchants from Mombasa and Malindi and for the gold trade from Kilwa. Jewish merchants from the Hormuz also brought their Indian textile and fruit to the Somali coast in exchange for grain and wood.

Duarte Barbosa, the famous Portuguese traveler wrote about Mogadishu (c 1517–1518):

The Portuguese Empire was unsuccessful in conquering Mogadishu permanently, despite the city being destroyed by a powerful naval Portuguese commander called João de Sepúvelda. After the Battle of Benadir, a peace treaty was signed.

According to the 16th-century explorer, Leo Africanus indicates that the native inhabitants of the Mogadishu polity were of the same origins as the denizens of the northern people of Zeila the capital of Adal Sultanate. They were generally tall with an olive skin complexion, with some being darker. They would wear traditional rich white silk wrapped around their bodies and have Islamic turbans and coastal people would only wear sarongs, and wrote Arabic as a lingua franca. Their weaponry consisted of traditional Somali weapons such as swords, daggers, spears, battle axe, and bows, although they received assistance from its close ally the Ottoman Empire and with the import of firearms such as muskets and cannons. Most were Muslims, although a few adhered to heathen bedouin tradition; there were also a number of Abyssinian Christians further inland. Mogadishu itself was a wealthy, and well-built city-state, which maintained commercial trade with kingdoms across the world. The metropolis city was surrounded by walled stone fortifications.

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