Horn of Africa
The Horn of Africa, also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa. Located on the easternmost part of the African mainland, it is the fourth largest peninsula in the world. It is composed of Somaliland, Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. Although not common, broader definitions include parts or all of Kenya and Sudan. It has been described as a region of geopolitical and strategic importance, since it is situated along the southern boundary of the Red Sea; extending hundreds of kilometres into the Gulf of Aden, Guardafui Channel, and Indian Ocean, it also shares a maritime border with the Arabian Peninsula.
Names
The peninsula has been known by various names. The Ancient Romans referred to it as Regio Aromatica or Regio Cinnamonifora after the aromatic plants found there, or as Regio Incognita for its poor coverage by classical Mediterranean cartography. In ancient and medieval times, the Horn of Africa was referred to as Bilad al Barbar. It is also known as the Somali Peninsula, or in the Somali language as Geeska Afrika or ''Jasiiradda Soomaali''. In other local languages it is called the direct equivalent of "Horn of Africa" or "African Horn": in, in, in, and in.Description
The Horn of Africa Region consists of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somaliland and Somalia.Geographically, the protruding shape that resembles a "horn" consists of most of Somalia and the easternmost part of Ethiopia, but the geopolitical "Horn of Africa region" also encompasses the rest of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti. Some broader definitions may include Kenya and Sudan. The "Greater Horn Region" might additionally include South Sudan and Uganda. The term "Greater Horn of Africa" is sometimes used to be inclusive of neighbouring southeast African countries to distinguish the broader geopolitical definition of the Horn of Africa from narrower peninsular definitions.
File:Horn of Africa Base Map.png|thumb|The Greater Horn of Africa consists of more than the typical four countries, including also Kenya and Uganda.
The Horn of Africa commonly is referred to simply as "the Horn", while inhabitants are sometimes colloquially termed Horn Africans or Horners. Regional studies on the Horn of Africa are carried out in the fields of Ethiopian studies and Somali studies.
History
Prehistory
Some of the earliest Homo sapiens fossils, the Omo remains and the Herto skull have been found in the region, both in Ethiopia.The findings of the Earliest Stone Tipped Projectiles from the Ethiopian Rift dated to more than 279,000 years ago "in combination with the existing archaeological, fossil and genetic evidence, isolate East Africa as a source of modern cultures and biology."
According to the Southern Dispersal scenario, the Southern route of the Out of Africa migration occurred in the Horn of Africa through the Bab el Mandeb. Today at the Bab-el-Mandeb straits, the Red Sea is about wide, but 50,000 years ago it was much narrower and sea levels were 70 meters lower. Though the straits were never completely closed, there may have been islands in between which could be reached using simple rafts. Shell middens 125,000 years old have been found in Eritrea, indicating the diet of early humans included seafood obtained by beachcombing.
Ethiopian and Eritrean agriculture established the earliest known use of the seed grass teff between 4000 and 1000 BCE. Teff is used to make the flatbread injera/taita. Coffee also originated in Ethiopia and has since spread to become a worldwide beverage.
Historian Christopher Ehret, cited genetic evidence which had identified the Horn of Africa as a source of a genetic marker "M35/215" Y-chromosome lineage for a significant population component which moved north from that region into Egypt and the Levant. Ehret argued that this genetic distribution paralleled the spread of the Afrasian language family with the movement of people from the Horn of Africa into Egypt and added a new demic component to the existing population of Egypt 17,000 years ago.
Ancient history
The area comprising Somaliland, Somalia, Djibouti, the Red Sea coast of Eritrea and Sudan is considered the most likely location of the land known to the ancient Egyptians as Punt, whose first mention dates to the 25th century BCE.Dʿmt was a kingdom located in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia, which existed during the 8th and 7th centuries BCE. With its capital probably at Yeha, the kingdom developed irrigation schemes, used plows, grew millet, and made iron tools and weapons. After the fall of Dʿmt in the 5th century BCE, the plateau came to be dominated by smaller successor kingdoms, until the rise of one of these kingdoms during the 1st century, the Aksumite Kingdom, which was able to reunite the area.
File:Stela aksum.jpg|thumb|left|upright|King Ezana's Stela at Aksum, symbol of the Aksumite civilization
The Kingdom of Aksum was an ancient state located in the Eritrea and Ethiopian Highlands, which thrived between the 1st and 7th centuries CE. A major player in the commerce between the Roman Empire and Ancient India, Aksum's rulers facilitated trade by minting their own currency. The state also established its hegemony over the declining Kingdom of Kush and regularly entered the politics of the kingdoms on the Arabian Peninsula, eventually extending its rule over the region with the conquest of the Himyarite Kingdom. Under Ezana, the kingdom of Aksum became the first major empire to adopt Christianity, and was named by Mani as one of the four great powers of his time, along with Persia, Rome and China.
Somalia was an important link in the Horn, connecting the region's commerce with the rest of the ancient world. Somali sailors and merchants were the main suppliers of frankincense, myrrh and spices, all of which were valuable luxuries to the Ancient Egyptians, Phoenicians, Mycenaeans, Babylonians and Romans. The Romans consequently began to refer to the region as Regio Aromatica. In the classical era, several flourishing Somali city-states such as Opone, Mosylon and Malao also competed with the Sabaeans, Parthians and Axumites for the rich Indo-Greco-Roman trade.
The birth of Islam opposite the Horn's Red Sea coast meant that local merchants and sailors living on the Arabian Peninsula gradually came under the influence of the new religion through their converted Arab Muslim trading partners. With the migration of Muslim families from the Islamic world to the Horn in the early centuries of Islam, and the peaceful conversion of the local population by Muslim scholars in the following centuries, the ancient city-states eventually transformed into Islamic Mogadishu, Berbera, Zeila, Barawa and Merka, which were part of the Barbara civilization. The city of Mogadishu came to be known as the "City of Islam" and controlled the East African gold trade for several centuries.
Middle Ages and Early Modern era
During the Middle Ages, several powerful empires dominated the regional trade in the Horn, including the Adal Sultanate, the Ajuran Sultanate, the Ethiopian Empire, the Zagwe dynasty, and the Sultanate of the Geledi.The Sultanate of Showa, established in 896, was one of the oldest local Islamic states. It was centered in the former Shewa province in central Ethiopia. The polity was succeeded by the Sultanate of Ifat around 1285. Ifat was governed from its capital at Zeila in Somaliland and was the easternmost district of the former Shewa Sultanate.
The Adal Sultanate was a medieval multi-ethnic Muslim state centered in the Horn region. At its height, it controlled large parts of Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Eritrea. Many of the historic cities in the region, such as Amud, Maduna, Abasa, Berbera, Zeila and Harar, flourished during the kingdom's golden age. This period that left behind numerous courtyard houses, mosques, shrines and walled enclosures. Under the leadership of rulers such as Sabr ad-Din II, Mansur ad-Din, Jamal ad-Din II, Shams ad-Din, General Mahfuz and Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi, Adalite armies continued the struggle against the Solomonic dynasty, a campaign historically known as the Conquest of Abyssinia or Futuh al Habash.
File:Gondereshe2008.jpg|thumb|left|The citadel in Gondershe, an important city in the medieval Ajuran Sultanate
Through a strong centralized administration and an aggressive military stance towards invaders, the Ajuran Sultanate successfully resisted an Oromo invasion from the west and a Portuguese incursion from the east during the Gaal Madow and the Ajuran-Portuguese wars. Trading routes dating from the ancient and early medieval periods of Somali maritime enterprise were also strengthened or re-established, and the state left behind an extensive architectural legacy. Many of the hundreds of ruined castles and fortresses that dot the landscape of Somalia today are attributed to Ajuran engineers, including a lot of the pillar tomb fields, necropolises and ruined cities built during that era. The royal family, the House of Gareen, also expanded its territories and established its hegemonic rule through a skillful combination of warfare, trade linkages and alliances.
The Zagwe dynasty ruled many parts of modern Ethiopia and Eritrea from approximately 1137 to 1270. The name of the dynasty comes from the Cushitic-speaking Agaw people of northern Ethiopia. From 1270 onwards for many centuries, the Solomonic dynasty ruled the Ethiopian Empire.
In 1270, the Amhara nobleman Yekuno Amlak, who claimed descent from the last Aksumite king and ultimately the Queen of Sheba, overthrew the Agaw Zagwe dynasty at the Battle of Ansata, ushering his reign as Emperor of Ethiopia. While initially a rather small and politically unstable entity, the empire managed to expand significantly during the crusades of Amda Seyon I and his successors, becoming the dominant force in East Africa.
File:Lalibela_Église_Bet_Giyorgis.JPG|thumb|The Lalibela churches carved by the Zagwe dynasty in the 12th century
In the early 15th century, Ethiopia sought to make diplomatic contact with European kingdoms for the first time since Aksumite times. A letter from King Henry IV of England to the Emperor of Abyssinia survives. In 1428, the Emperor Yeshaq sent two emissaries to Alfonso V of Aragon, who sent return emissaries who failed to complete the return trip.
The first continuous relations with a European country began in 1508 with Portugal under Emperor Lebna Dengel, who had just inherited the throne from his father. This proved to be an important development, for when Abyssinia was subjected to the attacks of the Adal Sultanate General and Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi, Portugal assisted the Ethiopian emperor by sending weapons and four hundred men, who helped his son Gelawdewos defeat Ahmad and re-establish his rule. This Ethiopian–Adal War was also one of the first proxy wars in the region as the Ottoman Empire, and Portugal took sides in the conflict.
File:Fakr Ud Din Mosque.jpg|thumb|left|Engraving of the 13th century Fakr ad-Din Mosque built by Fakr ad-Din, the first Sultan of the Sultanate of Mogadishu
When Emperor Susenyos converted to Roman Catholicism in 1624, years of revolt and civil unrest followed resulting in thousands of deaths. The Jesuit missionaries had offended the Orthodox faith of the local Ethiopians. On 25 June 1632, Susenyos's son, Emperor Fasilides, declared the state religion to again be Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, and expelled the Jesuit missionaries and other Europeans.
During the end of 18th and the beginning of 19th century the Yejju dynasty ruled north Ethiopia changing the official language of Amhara people to Afaan Oromo, including inside the court of Gondar which was capital of the empire. Founded by Ali I of Yejju several successive descendants of him and Abba Seru Gwangul ruled with their army coming from mainly their clan the Yejju Oromo tribe as well as Wollo and Raya Oromo.
File:ST-Massowa.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|The port of Massawa, Eritrea, founded by the Arabs and later modernized and expanded by the Italians, in a 19th-century engraving
File:Hobyo Sultanate Cavalry And Fort.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|The Sultanate of Hobyo's cavalry and fort
The Sultanate of the Geledi was a Somali kingdom administered by the Gobroon dynasty, which ruled parts of the Horn of Africa during the 18th and 19th centuries. It was established by the Ajuran soldier Ibrahim Adeer, who had defeated various vassals of the Ajuran Empire and established the House of Gobroon. The dynasty reached its apex under the successive reigns of Sultan Yusuf Mahamud Ibrahim, who successfully consolidated Gobroon power during the Bardera wars, and Sultan Ahmed Yusuf, who forced regional powers such as the Omani Empire to submit tribute.
The Isaaq Sultanate was a Somali kingdom that ruled parts of the Horn of Africa during the 18th and 19th centuries. It spanned the territories of the Isaaq clan, descendants of the Banu Hashim clan, in modern-day Somaliland and Ethiopia. The sultanate was governed by the Reer Guled branch of the Eidagale sub-clan established by the first sultan, Sultan Guled Abdi. The sultanate is the pre-colonial predecessor to the modern Somaliland.
According to oral tradition, prior to the Guled dynasty the Isaaq clan-family were ruled by a dynasty of the Tolje'lo branch starting from, descendants of Ahmed nicknamed Tol Je'lo, the eldest son of Sheikh Ishaaq's Harari wife. There were eight Tolje'lo rulers in total, starting with Boqor Harun who ruled the Isaaq Sultanate for centuries starting from the 13th century. The last Tolje'lo ruler Garad Dhuh Barar was overthrown by a coalition of Isaaq clans. The once strong Tolje'lo clan were scattered and took refuge amongst the Habr Awal with whom they still mostly live.
The Majeerteen Sultanate was another prominent Somali sultanate based in the Horn region. Ruled by King Osman Mahamuud during its golden age, it controlled much of northeastern and central Somalia in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The polity had all of the organs of an integrated modern state and maintained a robust trading network. It also entered into treaties with foreign powers and exerted strong centralized authority on the domestic front. Much of the Sultanate's former domain is today coextensive with the autonomous Puntland region in northern Somalia.
The Sultanate of Hobyo was a 19th-century Somali kingdom founded by Sultan Yusuf Ali Kenadid. Initially, Kenadid's goal was to seize control of the neighboring Majeerteen Sultanate, which was then ruled by his cousin Boqor Osman Mahamuud. However, he was unsuccessful in this endeavor, and was eventually forced into exile in Yemen. A decade later, in the 1870s, Kenadid returned from the Arabian Peninsula with a band of Hadhrami musketeers and a group of devoted lieutenants. With their assistance, he managed to establish the kingdom of Hobyo, which would rule much of northern and central Somalia during the early modern period.