|
Somalia Mogadishu and Its Banaadir Hinterlands
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the southern city
of Mogadishu became Somalia's most important city. Mogadishu,
Merca, and Baraawe, had been major Somali coastal towns in
medieval times. Their origins are unknown, but by the fourteenth
century travelers were mentioning the three towns more and more
as important centers of urban ease and learning. Mogadishu, the
largest and most prosperous, dates back at least to the ninth
century, when Persian and Arabian immigrants intermingled with
Somali elements to produce a distinctive hybrid culture. The
meaning of Mogadishu's name is uncertain. Some render it as a
Somali version of the Arabic "maqad shah," or "imperial seat of
the shah," thus hinting at a Persian role in the city's founding.
Others consider it a Somali mispronunciation of the Swahili "mwyu
wa" (last northern city), raising the possibility of its being
the northernmost of the chain of Swahili city-states on the East
African coast. Whatever its origin, Mogadishu was at the zenith
of its prosperity when the well-known Arab traveler Ibn Batuta
appeared on the Somali coast in 1331. Ibn Batuta describes
"Maqdashu" as "an exceedingly large city" with merchants who
exported to Egypt and elsewhere the excellent cloth made in the
city.
Through commerce, proselytization, and political influence,
Mogadishu and other coastal commercial towns influenced the
Banaadir hinterlands (the rural areas outlying Mogadishu) in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Evidence of that influence was
the increasing Islamization of the interior by sufis (Muslim
mystics) who emigrated upcountry, where they settled among the
nomads, married local women, and brought Islam to temper the
random violence of the inhabitants.
By the end of the sixteenth century, the locus of
intercommunication shifted upland to the well-watered region
between the Shabeelle and Jubba rivers. Evidence of the shift of
initiative from the coast to the interior may be found in the
rise between 1550 and 1650 of the Ujuuraan (also seen as
Ajuuraan) state, which prospered on the lower reaches of the
interriverine region under the clan of the Gareen. The
considerable power of the Ujuuraan state was not diminished until
the Portuguese penetration of the East African coast in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Among Somali towns and
cities, only Mogadishu successfully resisted the repeated
depredations of the Portuguese.
|
