The Sa'ad ad-Din Islands (, ), also

Romanized In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and transcription, ...

as and known as the Zeila Archipelago, are a group of

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

s off the northwestern coast of

Somalia Somalia, officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, is the easternmost country in continental Africa. The country is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, th ...

. They are situated near the ancient city of

Zeila Zeila (, ), also known as Zaila or Zayla, is a historical port town in the western Awdal region of Somaliland. In the Middle Ages, the Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela identified Zeila with the Biblical location of Havilah. Most modern schola ...

. The Zeila Archipelago is made of six small islands all of which are low-lying and have sandy

beaches A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from Rock (geology), rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle beach, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological s ...

. The largest of these islands are '' Sacadin'' and '' Aibat'', which are six and nine miles off the coast of

, respectively. There is also a

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lens (optics), lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Ligh ...

at Aibat.

Etymology & History

An old map of Zeila featuring the Somali Gadabuursi Dir clan2

The name for the

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...

comes from the

Sultan Sultan (; ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be use ...

Sa'ad ad-Din II Sa'ad ad-Din II (), reigned – c. 1403 or c. 1410, was a Sultan of the Ifat Sultanate. He was the brother of Haqq ad-Din II, and the father of Mansur ad-Din, Sabr ad-Din II and Badlay ibn Sa'ad ad-Din. The historian Richard Pankhurst desc ...

who was killed by the Emperor of

Abyssinia Abyssinia (; also known as Abyssinie, Abissinia, Habessinien, or Al-Habash) was an ancient region in the Horn of Africa situated in the northern highlands of modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea.Sven Rubenson, The survival of Ethiopian independence, ...

on the main island in 1403. Along with his name, there are many different spellings for the island such as , , and . The archpeligo is also known as the ''Zeila Archipelago'' and the ''Sa'ad ad-Din group''. Legendary Arab explorer Ahmad ibn Mājid wrote of the archipelago and a few other notable landmarks and ports of the northern Somali coast, including

Berbera Berbera (; , ) is the capital of the Sahil, Somaliland, Sahil region of Somaliland and is the main sea port of the country, located approximately 160 km from the national capital, Hargeisa. Berbera is a coastal city and was the former capital of t ...

, Xiis,

Alula The alula , or bastard wing, (plural ''alulae'') is a small projection on the anterior edge of the wing of modern birds and a few non-avian dinosaurs. The word is Latin and means "winglet"; it is the diminutive of ''ala'', meaning "wing". The a ...

, Ruguuda,

Maydh Maydh (also transliterated as Maedh, Mette, Mait or Meit) (, ) is an ancient port city in the eastern Sanaag region of Somaliland. History Antiquity According to Augustus Henry Keane, Maydh represents an early center of dispersal of the Somali ...

, Ceel-Sheekh,

Siyara Siyara () was a historic coastal settlement and fort located in the Sahil region of Somaliland. It served as the first capital of the Adal Sultanate following the Muslim resurgence spearheaded by Sabr ad-Din II.Pankhurst, Richard. ''The Ethiopia ...

and El-Darad. The archipelago is the site where the remaining forces of

Sheikh Bashir Sheikh Bashir Sheikh Yusuf Sheikh Hassan (, , born c. 1905) was a Somali religious leader famed for leading the 1945 Sheikh Bashir Rebellion against the British colonial authority in Somaliland. Biography Sheikh Bashir was born in 1905 in Tal ...

were shipped to after the conclusion of the 1945 Sheikh Bashir Rebellion.

Environment

The Sa'ad ad-Din Islands are well known for their splendid

coral reefs A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. ...

similar to those found on the southern coast of

Oman Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman, is a country located on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in West Asia and the Middle East. It shares land borders with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Oman’s coastline ...

. These reefs are the most diverse and well formed coral reefs on the coast of the

Gulf of Aden The Gulf of Aden (; ) is a deepwater gulf of the Indian Ocean between Yemen to the north, the Arabian Sea to the east, Djibouti to the west, and the Guardafui Channel, the Socotra Archipelago, Puntland in Somalia and Somaliland to the south. ...

and possibly the largest in the region. From provincial counts, ninety-nine different species of

coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...

from forty-three different

genera Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...

have been found on the islands. There are also a hundred and thirty-two different species of coral fish found around the archipelago. Many of these species include those also found in the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

, Gulf of Aden, and the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

. The island of Sa'ad ad-Din and Aibat (called ''Ceebaad'' in Somali) both are sites of major bird colonies. On the island of Sa'ad ad-Din alone, there were more than 100,000 breeding pairs recorded. Following the

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami On 26 December 2004, at 07:58:53 local time ( UTC+7), a major earthquake with a magnitude of 9.2–9.3 struck with an epicentre off the west coast of Aceh in northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The undersea megathrust earthquake, known in the sci ...

, the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the stat ...

(IUCN) and other NGO worked with local authorities to establish protected areas and monitor fishers on the islands.

Demographics

The archipelago currently has no permanent residents and is uninhabited, though it is still occasionally visited by tourists, local fishermen, and those who wish to honor Sa'ad ad-Din II.

Citations

Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{refend Archipelagoes of Somaliland Islands of Somaliland

Etymology & History

Environment

Demographics

See also

Citations

Sources