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Copyvio
An anonymous user replaced the text with content from http://www.awdaldevelopment.org/Html/history.htm. I have reverted the edits. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 20:49, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Early History of Adal?
This article makes no mention of Adal's origins, foundations, or anything else before the 1500s. I show Adal on my map of the Eastern Hemisphere in 1100 AD because I saw a sourcemap on www.WorldHistory.com that showed Adal in Africa in 1086 AD. When was Adal founded, and whom did it replace? Thomas Lessman (talk) 22:53, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- The Adal Sultanate was founded by the Walashma dynasty, whose first known member lived in the mid-13th century. Dating the existence of this polity before the 13th century is assuming on scanty or no evidence: believe me, I've looked & the evidence in the 13th century is both minimal & hard to come by -- & even worse for previous centuries. See such sources cited in the related articles, written by experts like Taddesse Tamrat, Richard Pankhurst, & so forth.
- Further, dating its foundation to the 7th century is laughable: that forms part of the "Dark Ages" of Ethiopia, when the history of the more important -- & firmly Christian -- country of Axum is mostly guesswork & surmise. To overrule the expertise of these experts -- & the implications of others like Stuart Munro-Hay & Yuri M. Kobishchanov -- with the random comment of some nameless BBC journalist just because he wrote more recently than they is simply untenable if not amazingly silly. -- llywrch (talk) 05:59, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, I'm sure Causteau means well, but there's absolutely no information on Adal before the 13th century, much less the 7th. There's also plenty of evidence against it. Al-Ya'qubi discusses the coastal area of what would have been Adal in the late 9th century and makes no reference to it. Al-Mas'udi describes the port of Zeila as belonging to the king of al-Habashah (Ethiopia) in the 10th century, as does Ibn Hawqal and the cartographer Muhammad al-Idrisi in the mid 12th century. It's only in the 13th century that Adal appears in the historical record and we have no reason to believe it existed before then. A BBC article hardly trumps centuries of academic research.
- Also, that map is very inaccurate for the time. It overestimates Ethiopia's control to the West and most likely to the North as well (it includes Beja lands that had become independent in the 9th century. There were Christianized Beja rulers of much of the North under the Zagwe dynasty known as "Belew," but they did not rule nomadic Beja lands). Moreover, Adal was never that large, even at its height during the Ethiopian-Adal War. It was allied with a number of states in the region, but it was itself of medium size and never stretched as far as Northern Afar lands or what is now Eritrea. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 07:08, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
- You're quite right, Yom. Causteau does indeed mean well. I won't pretend to know more about the topic than I.M. Lewis and co., but don't you find it a little strange that a BBC article (nameless or otherwise) would place the foundation of the Sultanate of Adal all the way in the 7th century as opposed to much later? Why not the 9th or even the 10th? Why specifically the 7th? At this point, I'm wondering where they and the MSN Encarta Encyclopedia got their information from. At any rate, I won't challenge the edit. Causteau (talk) 09:12, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
- A coincidence of two people being sloppy? Although the BBC is known for its accuracy, & the Encarta attempts to be accurate this is an edge example, a situation where few would notice; it's something that a fact-checker could skip & not worry about being caught out. As Yom explains above, there's too much evidence against accepting this earlier date. However if you are convinced that both are building on research that is not well known, I encourage you to investigate, & if there is evidence for the earlier date please share it. -- llywrch (talk) 03:36, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Decline
Trying to piece together the late history of Adal has left me confused. The info box on this page indicates the end of the Sultanate to be 1555. However, later in the article (section Invasion of Ethiopia) has: "In 1577, the capital of the Adal Sultanate was moved from Zeila to Harar"; so, was 1555 not the end of the Sultanate?
The Harar article indicates it became the capital of the Sultanate in 1520 (the capital having being moved from Zeila), and that in 1577 the capital was again moved from Harar to Aussa. The Aussa Sultanate article, calls this move in 1577 a final split of the Adal Sultanate into two pieces, the Imamate of Aussa and the Emirate of Harar.
With that I thought that perhaps the 1555 date comes from the end of the Walashma dynasty, and some other house ruled over the remnant of Adal until the split in 1577. But then both Walashma dynasty and Barakat ibn Umar Din say the last Walashma sultan was defeated in 1559, and the latter article makes 1555 the date of Barakat's ill-fated invasion of Dawaro.
So, my impression (which may be completely wrong) is:
- the 1577 statement in this article is probably in error and should read " was moved from Harar to Aussa", and
- 1555 is wrong and should be either 1559 or 1577 depending on whether Adal is considered to have fallen with the Walashma dynasty or not.
Whatever the case, some clarification from someone who knows would be good. Cheers—Ketil Trout () 23:42, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
NOT original research
It is from a book dont revert my work thank you and zeila was never a capital of adal the firtst capital is DAKKAR http://books.google.ca/books?id=YeKwW3vzQMUC&pg=PA283&dq=first+capital+of+adal+sultanate+dakar&hl=en&sa=X&ei=sW25T_epA-Px6AGe2tzwCg&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=first%20capital%20of%20adal%20sultanate%20dakar&f=false
& another source stating it was dakkar than harar
ANOTHER stating that it was first DAKKAR your recent input even makes it obvious zeila was never a seat of the capital but an emirate under the ifat sultanate.
ZEILA was the seat of the previous ifat sultanate not the new ADAL.
also adal became the Aussa sultanate in 1577 when its capital switched to the afar region from HARAR...all of my input was right it just needed sourcing "In 1577 the residence of the Adal sultanate moved to the oasis of Awssa in the Afar"
The current date is incorrect it was during the reign of sulieman the magnificient of the ottoman empire when imam ahmed was helped by them so it could not have been the date that is current so please stop taking random sources and actually read into the timeline of the events..Ifat existed 1285-1415 and adal from 1415-1577 source below
so ill correct this. Baboon43 (talk) 00:51, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
- Actually, Zeila was indeed the original capital of Adal. The cited work from I.M. Lewis (the Somalist and Ethiopianist scholar) states this plainly too. It also asserts the established fact that Adal actually reached the height of its prosperity in the 14th century (the 1300s), while the polity was still based in Zeila :
Middayexpress (talk) 08:56, 21 May 2012 (UTC)"At the time of Imaam Ahmad's campaigns the capital of the Muslim Sultanate of Adal was Harar. Originally, however, Adal was based on the port of Zeila', whose foundation by immigrant Arabs dates from the tenth century, and was no more than an emirate in the larger Muslim state of Ifaat which lay in the plateau region of eastern Shoa in what is now Ethiopia. Early in the fifteenth century the capital was moved to Dakar, further from the threat of Abyssinian attacks, and Adal then became the principal centre for the struggle of the Muslim communities against the expanding Abyssinian kingdom. Only at the beginning of the sixteenth century were the military headquarters of the sultanate moved to Harar from which base the Imaam launched his attacks. With Zeila' as principal port, through which cannons were imported from Arabia for the Imaam's armies, and trading in slaves, ivory and other commodities with Abyssinia and the Arabian Peninsula, Adal reached the summit of her prosperity in the fourteenth century."
they moved from zeila and formed adal because the abyssinians killed the last ifat sultante so how can zeila be a capital of adal its suppose to be dakkar because that is where they settled..zeila was an emirate under ifat sultanate..its like saying the harar emirate is part of the adal sultanate than becuz harar emirate broke away from aussa. Baboon43 (talk) 09:01, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
that source you gave is just saying that the descendents of adal existed in zeila but there was no adal sultanate..the adal sultanate was established after the fall of zeila..take a look at this source Baboon43 (talk) 10:08, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- Actually, the Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia states the same thing that the Somalist and Ethiopianist scholar Lewis does. Namely, that "Zeila was originally the center of Adal power" . Your link asserts that Zeila was the "focal point of the Ifat Sultanate". Adal already existed as an entity before its original capital was moved from Zeila to Dakkar, where Sabr ad-Din established a sultanate. That's why your link alludes to him building "a new capital called Dakkar, east of Zeila". Middayexpress (talk) 11:06, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Fage & Ethio-Semitic
The scholar J.D. Fage speculates that Ethio-Semitic languages may have been spoken in the Ethiopian parts of the Ifat and Adal Sultanates, by both the rulers and the general populace (). Fage's argument in support of this hypothesis is mainly based on the fact that the names of the rulers of said polities may have been of Ethio-Semitic derivation. However, several factors undermine this overall claim, factors which a user has removed under the erroneous pretext that they are redundant (). First, the leaders of Adal themselves all possessed and claimed Arab genealogies, not Ethio-Semitic ones (c.f. ). That was also what traditionally their extraction was asserted to be. Adal conquered Abyssinia, it wasn't itself Abyssinian (though it was certainly a vassal at some point in its history). Hence, the name "Futuh al-Habash" or the "Conquest of Abyssinia" for the Ethiopian-Adal War. Second, according to the UNESCO General History of Africa, only the reign names of the rulers may have been Ethio-Semitic. Their actual personal names, on the other hand, were likely Muslim/Arab as is often the case, and thus in line with their genealogical traditions (c.f. ). So an Ethio-Semitic affiliation for the rulers on this basis is debatable. Middayexpress (talk) 11:06, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- there's a diference between Adal and the Adal sultanate..Al Umari says ifats language is abyssianian and arabic not just names of the royals so revert it back. your removal of reliable sources is a violation of wikipedia policy..your also misrepresenting the sources another violation of wiki policies. Baboon43 (talk) 11:26, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- Al-Umari says that the language of Ifat (not Adal specifically) was 'Abyssinian and Arabic'. He says nothing about the ethnicity of the people. It's Fage who cites this Al-Umari passage to support his own argument that the Muslim rulers of Ifat and Adal "in the Shoan region at least" may have been Ethio-Semitic . I also didn't remove any reliable sources (c.f. ). As can be seen in the link posted earlier, you did. At any rate, please see our WP:NPOV and WP:CIV policies. Middayexpress (talk) 12:16, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- DONT misrepresent the sources it says clearly "regarding the early sultanate of Shoa and the Walasma dynasty of both Ifat and Adal, indicate that some sort of Ethio-Semetic was spoken by the early Muslims in these areas". Than it says this may be because "early Islam in the shoan region at least, had its first roots among the Ethio-Semetic speakers of the area, who later formed and ran the sulanate of shoa and consequently the walasma kingdoms Ifat and Adal". In the article you put something else that said that the rulers all of a sudden spoke semetic when they were in the shewa region and than spoke another language when they werent which doesnt make any sense. Your mentioning of genealogies in the language section is also out of topic. The subject is about language not genealogies..if you havnt noticed ethio-semetics trace arab background..Abyssinian is not based on ethnicity the reason it is called "Futuh al habash" is because CHRISTIAN abyssinia was invaded by muslims thats the only difference..abyssinia is refered to as christian in historical documents not muslim. Baboon43 (talk) 23:40, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- Before proceeding further, kindly familiarize yourself again with Misplaced Pages's WP:CIV and WP:TALK policies; especially their statements regarding how to communicate with other editors. Moving on, I never wrote that "the rulers all of a sudden spoke semetic when they were in the shewa region and than spoke another language". What I did actually write is the following: "J.D. Fage proposes that Ethio-Semitic languages may have been, in the Shewa region of modern-day Ethiopia at least, the primary mode of communication for the Muslim rulers and inhabitants of the Ifat and Adal Sultanates." This assertion is entirely supported by Fage's book, a work that makes a much more conservative claim than what you are attributing to its author. Fage does not suggest that all or even most of the inhabitants of Ifat and Adal spoke Ethio-Semitic languages. He repeatedly points out that he is specifically referring to those inhabiting the Shewa/Shoa region (and, secondarily, other parts of Ethiopia) as possibly having spoken Ethio-Semitic languages :
- "It is most probably that the rulers of Ifat and their sedentary subjects inhabiting the eastern foothills of Shoa spoke Ethio-Semitic."
- "The implication of all this is that early Islam, in the Shoan region at least, had its first roots among the Ethio-Semitic speakers of the area."
- "This linguistic factor may have provided another dimension for the basic cleavage between the sedentary Muslim communities in the Ethiopian interior and the nomadic peoples of the vast lowlands between the plateau and the coast, who were predominantly speakers of Eastern Cushitic."
- On its face, this is a fairly logical conclusion on Fage's part since none of the inhabitants of Djibouti and northwestern Somalia -- where the first capital of Adal, Zeila, was situated -- are presently or have traditionally been documented in the past as being Ethio-Semitic speakers, whereas those in the Shewa region of modern-day Ethiopia largely are Ethio-Semitic speakers. But then again, you did intimate in this earlier discussion your personal belief that "the habasha AMHARAS controlled somalia so somalis themselves have habasha in them"; so perhaps one should not be surprised here.
- The reason that the Ethiopian-Adal War was called the Futuh al-Habash or "Conquest of Abyssinia" by the very man who chronicled it (namely, Shihab ad-Din (an Arab)) was because Abyssinia as a whole was being conquered. Abyssinia was historically a Christian kingdom, not a Muslim one. Moreover, Ethio-Semitic speakers (Abyssinians) do not traditionally trace descent to Arabs; none of their ancestors spoke the Central Semitic Arabic language as a mother tongue. Though most are actually of Cushitic Agaw origin, they trace descent to migrants from Southwest Asia who spoke Semitic languages belonging to the separate South Semitic cluster. Also, Ibn Khaldun described the Walashma dynasty, which first inhabited the kingdom of Damot and later governed Ifat and Adal, as being of distinct origins from the Abyssinian/Ethiopian rulers : "Ibn Khaldun relates how Damut was attacked and conquered by the Negus of Christian Ethiopia and how a race called Walasma' lived in it, which then emigrated further east and settled in Ifat where it formed another sultanate." This should probably be mentioned somewhere in the article, as it is historical testimony.
- Lastly, the reason why the Arab-origin genealogical traditions of the rulers of Ifat and Adal are cited in the language section is obviously because they directly contradict Fage's hypothesis, cited in that same section, that those rulers may have spoken Ethio-Semitic languages (and thus been Abyssinian). Per WP:NPOV, we can't very well cite Fage's claims vis-a-vis the rulers while ignoring what they themselves traditionally asserted with regard to their own background. Note that the sentence was also taken from the same UNESCO General History of Africa work which discusses Fage's argument that the rulers of Ifat and Adal may have been Ethio-Semitic speakers on the basis of reign names ; so it is germane to the discussion. Middayexpress (talk) 11:37, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
- I also have few WP's to hand out nevertheless..Fage is talking about the whole of the ifat and adal sultanate not just shewa he refers to shewa becuz the first muslims of africa were in ethiopia therefore the shewa region..you are also ignoring fage's quote that i mentioned above and seem to only look at your own selective quotes..amharas DID control parts of somalia its facts not personal beliefs..
- Ethio-Semetics not only trace descendent from ARABS especially the argobas and hararis but also trace ancestry to WALASMA p.174 . so i think your not aware of the different types of ETHIO-SEMITICS that trace arab background you focus mainly on tigray and amharas and assume the word habasha or ethio Semitic is always refering to them..Ethio refers to the nation and semetic are those tribes within the nation of ethiopia just as if Semitics exist in somalia they are somali Semitics...here's another source ethio-semetics claim arab background ..also the semitic gurage were part of Adal during the war of imam ahmed as mentioned here also the "Zay people" who live on the island that imam ahmed conquered speak Semitic and is identical to the harari language of harar which was the capial of the ADAL SULTANATE. Baboon43 (talk) 23:03, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
- Fage's quotes above clearly indicate that he is specifically referring to the Ethiopian parts of Ifat and Adal as possibly having been inhabited and ruled by Ethio-Semitic speakers, not the parts in modern-day Somalia (including Adal's original capital, Zeila). The passage you quoted in part indicates the same thing and reads as follows in its full context : "Again, the names of the princes in the Arabic documents published by Enrico Cerulli regarding the early sultanate of Shoa and the Walasma dynasty of both Ifat and Adal, indicate that some sort of Ethio-Semitic was spoken by the early Muslims in these areas. The implication of all this is that early Islam, in the Shoan region at least, had its first roots among the Ethio-Semitic speakers of the area."
- Besides the continued, unhelpful WP:SHOUTing, the rest of your post is largely off-topic (e.g. the fringe notion that Amhara ruled Somalia). It is really neither here nor there whether or not Ethio-Semitic speakers in general claim Arab background (which, in any case, they don't; only some of the Muslims ones, like many other Muslim peoples in the Horn, do). They must specifically trace their origins to the Walashma, the actual rulers of Ifat and Adal, for it to be relevant here. None of your links indicate that they do. In fact, this one indicates on the page that you directed me to that only the Harari do (your self-professed ethnic group): "When the Harari trace their dynasty, they go back to the Walasma". If you like, we can mention this in the wiki article alongside Ibn Khaldun's historical assertion, quoted in the post above, that the Walashma were a race unto themselves, distinct from the Abyssinian/Ethiopian neguses. Middayexpress (talk) 13:18, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
- You mentioned that i posted about amhara ruling somalia and when i reply to your OFF TOPIC comment you say that im off topic or is it that you forget what you write on this talk page after a few days? firstly you refuse to acknowledge that dakar is the first capital of adal sultanate. secondly your adding unrelated things like "Arab genealogical traditions" in the language section and lastly you take my paraphrasing of the academic source under the language section and change the words of what it actually meant in the reliable source. Im not interested in adding anything at the moment the current article is POV because you changed my words and added irrelevant things in sections that they dont belong in so dont change the subject..Ignoring academic sources and rewording it the way you want will not help this article be accurate..understand my point you CANT add things like adal claims arab descendent than say that fage claims they are ethio semitic when i told you that ethio semitics claim arab. Oh so your logic is since its only "some of the muslim ones" its irrelevant and shouldnt be mentioned that ethio semitics claim arab background? and Yes since you like going OFF TOPIC my professed group is harari and i already know your group you dont need to profess anything Baboon43 (talk) 22:06, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
Let's get cause and effect straight here. I obviously brought up the fact that you are Harari (Harar being the third capital of Adal) and that you've stated in the past that you believed, despite nary any evidence to suggest it, that "the habasha AMHARAS controlled somalia so somalis themselves have habasha in them", to highlight your perspective on this issue. You volunteered that information on your ethnic background in the first place; no one forced you to do this. And you did this ostensibly because you deemed it relevant to Adal-related discussion. As such, there's no point in complaining about it now when I in turn brought it up in this other Adal-related discussion. By contrast, I have never volunteered any information on my ethnic background/made it your business, much less in relation to Adal. So claiming to know it is tantamount to making unwarranted, off-topic assumptions. See the difference?
Moving on, it's not I who refuses to acknowledge what Adal's actual first capital was but clearly you. As can be seen in the extensive discussion above, that original capital was in Zeila, not Dakkar; Adal's headquarters were only later moved to Dakkar (c.f. , ). Adal's golden age was, in fact, during its initial Zeila period. Given this, you'll have a difficult time proving that it is irrelevant; especially when Fage himself asserts that the Adal state was initially run from Zeila : "In eastern and southern Shoa there emerged the states of Ifat, Adal and some smaller principalities that controlled the main trade-routes from Zeila, the most important port for those parts of the Horn of Africa."
The disputed parts of the article are now actually true to their cited sources, whereas this was previously not fully the case. This is all documented above, step by step. Your assertions that Ethio-Semitic speakers as a whole claim Arab descent are still not supported by the links you produced. For one thing, that broad designation would also include largely Christian groups like the Tigray and Amhara, who generally do not claim descent from Arabic-speaking peoples.
The real outstanding issues here are thus certain key, historical testimonials that have yet to be added to the article. The first such testimony I already mentioned: Ibn Khaldun's assertion that the Walashma were a 'race' unto themselves, distinct from the Abyssinian/Ethiopian neguses. This would have made the Walashma something other than Abyssinians/Habesha.
The second outstanding historical testimony involves the actual toponomy of Adal. According to the same scholar Fage in the same work that you picked out, this place-name originates in Zeila, which was the original seat of Islamic dispersal in the Horn of Africa :
"There is no doubt that Zeila was also predominantly Somali, and al-Dimashqi, another thirteenth-century Arab writer, gives the town its Somali name Awdal (Adal), still known among the local Somali. By the fourteenth century the significance of this Somali port for the Ethiopian interior had increased so much that all the Muslim communities established along the trade routes into central and southeastern Ethiopia were commonly known in Egypt and Syria by the collective term of 'the country of Zeila'. Zeila was certainly the point of departure for the numerous Muslim communities and political units in the Ethiopian region, most of which, just like the Somali clan families of Darod and Ishaq, had persistent traditions of Arab origin."
Perhaps now you can appreciate why Fage's assertions regarding the Ethio-Semitic languages as being the primary mode of communication for many peoples inhabiting Adal pertains specifically to the Ethiopian interior, not to Zeila. Middayexpress (talk) 14:35, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
- no you dont seem to understand the sources that you list but i hope this source that i will give you will make it clear for you that academics believe they spoke ABYSSINIAN or ARABIC this is ifat the father of adal now i personally dont agree that they spoke abyssinian but i looked at recent studies, and Semitic groups occupied large parts of somalia which is why harar is semitic..the hararis didnt pop out of nowhere and became natives of the former capital of Adal for nothing..so this source would show u that somali was occupied by amhara and not only that but ifat may have spoken amharic or arabic atleast that is ALL parts of ifat in this source its called yifat but its obvious they are talking about the same ifat they mention zeila and such. scroll down to yifat should be after sawa if it doesnt show when you click search google the exact words you can search is "the yifat people either spoke abyssinian"..also sawa means shewa sultanate but i dont know why they have such horrible spelling but yea this source tells u what i was trying to explain to you said on the other source..accademics say ifat came out of shewa thats why they say its abyssinian but yea thats why i was trying to tell you that the FIRST MUSLIMS IN AFRICA SETTLED IN THE ABYSSINIAN TERRITORY so thats how they made the connection and these people later founded sultanates spoke their language...also that same source says when the last sultanate of ifat was killed in zeila it meant the end of ifat and his children 10 of them went to yemen than it says kingdom of adal began and it shifted eastward although it doesnt mention dakkar specifically you get that its no longer zeila since ZEILA is occupied by amharas from that point on but yea sources that i listed to you which you ignored state it was dakar...since you also dismissed the argoba claiming walasma therefore ifat let me give you a source that states ifats cultural identity with argoba therefore a semitic dynasty because argoba themselves claim arab ancestry as walasma..source on last paragraph by the way im not here to duel with you on talk pages im here for accuracy on wiki..im not here to make things up or claim things. Baboon43 (talk) 16:28, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
- Well, that's good to hear because I'm not here to duel with you either. I'm here to actually improve the article. Perhaps we can work together, then; but you'll first have to lay off of the condescending remarks.
- For instance, you write that I apparently "dont seem to understand the sources that you list". This is ironic since that link of yours above does not state anywhere that Amharic was spoken in Somalia, let alone that the Amhara ruled it. You do realize that the actual Semitic speakers that lived in Somalia are still there, right? They're a known quantity and are called the Benadiri. They also traditionally spoke Arabic, a Central Semitic language, not any languages from the separate South Semitic branch that the Ethio-Semitic languages are linguistically classified as.
- That comment is even more so ironic given the fact that you keep equating Arab descent with Abyssinian descent, when not one of the sources you linked to does that. For one thing, Fage states that the Walashma dynasty was originally founded by actual Arabs, not by Abyssinians. The Walashma in Ethiopia may have eventually adopted the Ethio-Semitic languages of their Abyssinian neighbors, but they weren't originally Abyssinian according to their own traditions : "there were also other non-Mahzumite principalities of Arab origin already established in the Ethiopian region. One of these was the Kingdom of Ifat, whose thirteenth-century ruler, 'Umar Walasma, claimed descent from the family of the Prophet Muhammad through Abu Talib."
- Regarding that Braukämper link above, the author's suggestion that a mysterious Semitic-speaking people may have built most of the stone edifices northwest of Hargeisa is definitely inaccurate.
- For starters, ancient Arab, Greek and Chinese sources (i.e. actual historical documents) all indicate that a people called the "Barbar", "Barbaroi" or simply "Berber" inhabited northern Somalia and engaged in extensive trade. In fact, they named the entire region Barbara after the Berbers that lived there. They called Abyssinia Al-Habash after the Habesha who lived in that separate region. These Berbers also were not a Semitic-speaking people, but rather a Cushitic-speaking people and the ancestors of modern Somalis. We know this because they are described as pastoralists and as practising certain customs that are originally associated with Cushitic nomads.
- Furthermore, there are elaborate stone monuments throughout Somalia, not just in the northwest where Braukämper claims that the fabled Harla may have lived. In fact, a Somali-British archaeological expedition in 1975 led by Neville Chittick found numerous equally and sometimes even more elaborate structures in northeastern Somalia; particularly in a place called Damo near Cape Guardafui.
- Braukämper also claims that Somalis couldn't have built those structures because they "were predominantly a nomadic people who possessed no tradition of stone architecture, and state organization". Besides being patronizing, this is also factually incorrect. Somalis are actually traditionally divided into two social strata: reer magaal (cityfolk) and reer miyi (countryfolk) (c.f. ). The reer miyi indeed are not known for stone construction. Instead, they build portable tents similar to those of the Tuareg and other peripatetic Afro-Asiatic peoples of the continent. The reer magaal, on the other hand, have a well-documented tradition of elaborate architecture and commercial enterprise (see this). Moreover, Somalis actually do have many different examples of state formation, such as the Warsangali Sultanate (a polity whose establishment predates Adal). In rural areas, Somalis have their own traditional judicial system called Xeer, which over the centuries kept the peace. Seeing as how most Ogadenis are of nomadic background, it's perhaps understandable why the Ethiopianist Braukämper was not aware of this.
- If you refer to the Ethiopian Studies page, you'll read that much of that multi-disciplinary field of study originally used to focus almost exclusively on the country's Semitic speakers, with little knowledge on or interest shown in the area's other Afro-Asiatic groups (much less the Nilo-Saharan ethnic minorities). Though this is changing, there are still unfortunately some lingering instances of this chauvinism in the Ethiopianist literature. I also don't think that Braukämper was aware of the sprawling Megalithic Cushite complex, which once extended all the way into northern Tanzania and which left behind elaborate stone ruins (c.f. ). Middayexpress (talk) 17:04, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
- Also, in future, for the sake of orderliness and actually resolving the issue, kindly focus on one or two points at a time. Please also remember to quote the passages from the sources that you think support your argument, as I've done with mine per WP:TALK. Middayexpress (talk) 17:04, 26 May 2012 (UTC)