Aw-Barkhadle

Aw-Barkhadle
Aw-Barkhadle
Aw-Barkhadle Aw-Barkhadle
	Aw-Barkhadle Location in Somaliland Aw-Barkhadle Aw-Barkhadle (Somaliland)
	Coordinates: 9°41′22″N44°18′39″E / 9.68944°N 44.31083°E
Country	Somaliland
Region	Maroodi Jeex
District	Hargeisa District
Elevation	2,031 m (6,663 ft)

Last updated August 16, 2024

Aw-Barkhadle is a town located near Hargeisa in modern-day Somaliland. It was part of the Muslim empires in the Horn of Africa during the middle ages and served as the capital of the Adal Sultanate. It was also the burial place for many of the local leaders including the rulers of the Walashma dynasty that governed the Ifat and Adal Sultanate and kingdoms. Prior to that, it was a very important pre-Islamic center. The town is wholly dominated by the Eidagale reer Cabdi ciise and Habr Yunis Isaxaaq carre. Both belong to the Garhajis clan.

Overview

The site of Aw-Barkhadle includes archaeological remains, a ruined town within which the current mausoleum of Saint Aw Barkhadle is located, as well as different types of burial traditions, including Christian, Muslim, and others of non-Islamic character such as cairns, dolmens and stelae including phallic gravestones. The leaders let themselves be buried at the Aw-Barkhadle site.

However, the site was a pre-Islamic centre, and the sacred landscape includes a mountain, trees, stones and well associated with deities, most prominently the sky God Waaq. Here, everything has been given a meaning and placed in a divine order. It connects the pre-Islamic/pre-Christian with the Islamic through myths, legends and ancestor worship.^[1]

History

It was the second capital of the medieval Adal Sultanate, after the polity moved its initial headquarters from Zeila in modern-day Somaliland by Sultan Badlay.^[2]

In medieval times this was a major town, with a large city wall. During the formation of the early Islamic kingdoms of Ifat and Awdal, it seems that city was a religious centre that played an important ritual and ideological role.^[3]

According to Sada Mire the location of the Aw-Barkhadle shrine near Hargeisa was previously known as Doggor. Philipp Paulitschke names a place called ‘Dakar’ as the historical capital of Adal and mentions ‘AwBerkele’ although he did not seem to have known where exactly ‘Dokor,’ the centre of ‘AwBerkele’, was located. He postulated it was near Dire Dawa in Ethiopia, This is however unlikely to be the case, especially given the nature of the archaeology of the Aw-Barkhadle centre.

Paulitschke’s ‘Dakar’ refers to Dogor/Doggor and his ‘AwBekele’ refers to Aw-Barkhadle. Hence, Aw-Barkhadle’s centre is most likely to have been an early capital of the Adal sultanate.^[3]

It appears likely that Aw-Barkhadle was a place of political and ritual importance across the centuries. This view is supported by the reported use of the site as a burial place for the leaders of the Walashma dynasty. For example, a chronicle from Harar, Titled "Tarikh al-Mujahidin"(The History of the Mujahideens), discusses the death of Garaad Jibril who revolted against an ‘Uthman’, the ruler of Harar in 1569, and mentions Aw-Barkhadle, ‘the place of the great saint known as Aw Barkhadle’, as the burial place of this Garaad Jibril.^[3]

The sixteenth-century record confirms the site’s ritual significance and its historical importance. The historical evidence, according to Paulitschke, explains clearly why the Walashma leaders would want to be buried here. As noted previously, not only is Saint Aw-Barkhadle credited with having spread Islam in this region; the Walashma dynasty is also genealogically linked with Saint Aw-Barkhadle, whom they claim to be the fifth ancestor in their lineage.^[3]

Archeology

At the site of Aw Barkhadle there are pre-Islamic and pre-Christian burials buried inside tree trunks, in connection with the widespread belief of sacred trees that continued in conjunction with Islam. Other pre-Christian and pre-Islamic burials are the decorated Stelae Cemeteries which is part of the Cushitic tradition of stelae erection. These are usually sacred landscapes in the Horn of Africa. The grave-markers carry engravings, which include solar and geometric signs as well as schematic depictions of animals.

At the site of Aw Barkhadle it's also been found a grave marked with a stele carrying an Orthodox cross which confirms that Christianity was known here during pre-Islamic times or contemporary with Islam.^[4]

Related Research Articles

The Adal Sultanate also known as the Adal Empire, or Bar Saʿad dīn was a medieval Sunni Muslim Empire which was located in the Horn of Africa. It was founded by Sabr ad-Din III on the Harar plateau in Adal after the fall of the Sultanate of Ifat. The kingdom flourished c. 1415 to 1577. At its height, the polity under Sultan Badlay controlled the territory stretching from Cape Guardafui in Somalia to the port city of Suakin in Sudan. The Adal Empire maintained a robust commercial and political relationship with the Ottoman Empire. Sultanate of Adal was alternatively known as the federation of Zeila.

The Sultanate of Ifat, known as Wafāt or Awfāt in Arabic texts, or the Kingdom of Zeila was a medieval Sunni Muslim state in the eastern regions of the Horn of Africa between the late 13th century and early 15th century. It was formed in present-day Ethiopia around eastern Shewa in Ifat. Led by the Walashma dynasty, the polity stretched from Zequalla to the port city of Zeila. The kingdom ruled over parts of what are now Ethiopia, Ogaden, Djibouti, Somaliland or Somalia.

The Walashma dynasty was a medieval Muslim dynasty of the Horn of Africa founded in Ifat. Founded in the 13th century, it governed the Ifat and Adal Sultanates in what are present-day, Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea and eastern Ethiopia.

Mansur ad-Din was a Sultan of the Sultanate of Adal and a son of Sa'ad ad-Din II. He was of a Somali ethnic background.

Jamal ad-Din II was a Sultan of the Adal Sultanate. He was the youngest son of Sa'ad ad-Din II. He was of a Somali ethnic background.

The history of Somaliland, a country in the eastern Horn of Africa bordered by the Gulf of Aden, and the East African land mass, begins with human habitation tens of thousands of years ago. It includes the civilizations of Punt, the Ottomans, and colonial influences from Europe and the Middle East.

Laas Geel, also spelled Laas Gaal, are cave formations on the rural outskirts of Hargeisa, Somaliland, situated in the Maroodi Jeex region of the country. They contain some of the earliest known cave paintings of domesticated African aurochs in the Horn of Africa. Laas Geel's rock art is estimated to date to circa 3,500-2,500 BCE.

The Awal, also contemporarily known as the Habr Awal, Subeer Awal, and alternately known as the Zubeyr Awal is one of the largest subclans of the wider Isaaq clan family, and is further divided into eight sub-clans of whom the two largest and most prominent are the Isamusa and Sa'ad Musa sub-clans. Its members form a part of the Habar Magadle confederation.

The Argobba are an ethnic group inhabiting Ethiopia. A Muslim community, they are spread out through isolated village networks and towns in the north-eastern and eastern parts of the country. Group members have typically been astute traders and merchants, and have adjusted to the economic trends in their area. These factors have led to a decline in usage of the Argobba language. Argobba are considered endangered today due to exogamy and destitution as well as ethnic cleansing by the Abyssinian state over the centuries.

Somali mythology covers the beliefs, myths, legends and folk tales circulating in Somali society that were passed down to new generations in a timeline spanning several millennia in Somalia and Djibouti dating back 6000 years ago. Many of the things that constitute monotheistic Somali mythology today are traditions whose accuracy have faded away with time or have been gentrified considerably with the coming of Islam to the Horn of Africa.

Somali architecture is the engineering and designing of multiple different construction types such as stone cities, castles, citadels, fortresses, mosques, temples, aqueducts, lighthouses, towers and tombs during the ancient, medieval and early modern periods in Somalia and other regions inhabited by Somalis, as well as the fusion of Somalo-Islamic architecture with Western designs in contemporary times.

The Harla, also known as Harala, Haralla are an ethnic group that once inhabited Ethiopia, Somalia, and Djibouti. They spoke the now-extinct Harla language, which belonged to either the Cushitic or Semitic branches of the Afroasiatic family.

Yusuf bin Ahmad al-Kawneyn, popularly known as Aw Barkhadle or Yusuf Al Kownayn, was an Islamic scholar and traveler based in Zeila, Somalia. Based on reference to Yusuf Al Kawneyn in the Harar manuscripts, Dr. Enrico Cerulli.

Sada Mire is a Swedish-Somali archaeologist, art historian and presenter from the Arap clan, who is currently a professor of Heritage Studies at University College London. She is a public intellectual and heritage activist who has argued that cultural heritage is a basic human need in her 2014 TEDxEuston talk. In 2017, Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts selected Mire as one of their 30 international thinkers and writers. She became the Director of Antiquities of Somaliland in 2007. Raised in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, Mire fled the country at the start of the civil war at the age of 15. She then traveled to Sweden seeking asylum. She has since returned to the Horn of Africa as an archaeologist.

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Harla Kingdom was a 6th century Harla state centered around what is present day eastern Ethiopia. The kingdom had trading relations with the Ayyubid and Tang dynasties. It also established its own currency and calendar. The kingdom is mentioned by Ethiopian as well as Arab medieval writers including al-Mufaddal ibn Abi al-Fada'il and Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi. Timothy Insoll identifies the Harlaa ruins to be Hubat the capital of the Harla state, a subordinate of Ifat Sultanate in the thirteenth century and later under the Adal Sultanate as an autonomous tribal confederation in the fifteenth century. Early Muslim states in the Horn of Africa such as the Makhzumi dynasty had their bases within Harla territories. According to historian Mohammed Hassen a power struggle had developed in the early 16th century between Harla state leaders and the Walashma dynasty. Researcher Dominico Patassini states the Harla kingdom was succeeded by Harar city-state in the sixteenth century.

The Isaaq Sultanate was a Muslim sultanate that ruled parts of the Horn of Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries. The kingdom spanned the territories of the Isaaq clan in modern-day Somaliland. It was governed by the Rer Guled branch of the Garhajis clan and is the pre-colonial predecessor to the modern Republic of Somaliland.

Adal, known as Awdal or Aw Abdal was a historical Muslim region in the Horn of Africa. Located east of Ifat and the Awash river as far as the coast, and including Harar as well as Zeila. The Zeila state often denoted Adal and other Muslim dominions in medieval texts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ifat (historical region)</span> Historic state in Horn of Africa

Ifat also known as Yifat, Awfat or Wafat was a historical Muslim region in the Horn of Africa. It was located on the eastern edge of Shewa.

References

↑ Mire, Sada (2015). "Mapping the Archaeology of Somaliland: Religion, Art, Script, Time, Urbanism, Trade and Empire". African Archaeological Review. 32: 111–136. doi: 10.1007/s10437-015-9184-9 .
↑ Lewis, I. M. (1999). A Pastoral Democracy: A Study of Pastoralism and Politics Among the Northern Somali of the Horn of Africa. James Currey Publishers. p. 17. ISBN 0852552807.
1 2 3 4 Mire, Sada (5 February 2020). Divine Fertility: The Continuity in Transformation of an Ideology of Sacred Kinship in Northeast Africa. Routledge. Chapter 3. ISBN 978-0-429-76924-5.
↑ Mire, Sada (2015). "Mapping the Archaeology of Somaliland: Religion, Art, Script, Time, Urbanism, Trade and Empire". African Archaeological Review. 32: 111–136. doi: 10.1007/s10437-015-9184-9 .

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[1] Mire, Sada (2015). "Mapping the Archaeology of Somaliland: Religion, Art, Script, Time, Urbanism, Trade and Empire". African Archaeological Review. 32: 111–136. doi: 10.1007/s10437-015-9184-9 .

[Lewispd-2] Lewis, I. M. (1999). A Pastoral Democracy: A Study of Pastoralism and Politics Among the Northern Somali of the Horn of Africa. James Currey Publishers. p. 17. ISBN 0852552807.

[SadaMire-3] 1 2 3 4 Mire, Sada (5 February 2020). Divine Fertility: The Continuity in Transformation of an Ideology of Sacred Kinship in Northeast Africa. Routledge. Chapter 3. ISBN 978-0-429-76924-5.

[4] Mire, Sada (2015). "Mapping the Archaeology of Somaliland: Religion, Art, Script, Time, Urbanism, Trade and Empire". African Archaeological Review. 32: 111–136. doi: 10.1007/s10437-015-9184-9 .

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