Mogadishu, locally known as Xamar or Hamar, is the capital and most populous city of Somalia. The city has served as an important port connecting traders across the Indian Ocean for millennia and has an estimated urban population of 4,126,815.
Mogadishu is located in the coastal Banaadir region on the Indian Ocean, which, unlike other Somali regions, is considered a municipality rather than a maamul goboleed (federal state).
Mogadishu has a long history, which ranges from the ancient period up until the present, serving as the capital of the Sultanate of Mogadishu in the 9th–13th century, which for many centuries controlled the Indian Ocean gold trade and eventually came under the Ajuran Sultanate in the 13th century which was an important player in the medieval Silk Road maritime trade. Mogadishu enjoyed the height of its prosperity during the 14th and 15th centuries and was, during the early modern period, considered the wealthiest city on the East African coast, as well as the center of a thriving textile industry. In the 17th century, Mogadishu and parts of southern Somalia fell under the Hiraab Imamate. In the 19th century, it came under the sphere of influence of the Sultanate of the Geledi.
In 1894, the Somali chief signed a treaty of peace, friendship, and protection with Filonardi of the Commercial Company of Benadir. The onset of Italian colonial rule occurred in stages, with treaties signed in the 1880s followed by economic engagement between Somali clans and the Commercial Company of Benadir, and then direct governance by the Italian Empire after 1906, British Military Administration of Somalia after World War II and the Trust Territory of Somaliland administered by Italy in the 1950s.
This was followed by independence in 1960, the Somali Democratic Republic era during Siad Barre's presidency (1969–1991). The three-decade long Somali Civil War afterwards devastated the city. In the late 2010s and 2020s, a period of major reconstruction commenced.
Etymology
The origin of the name Mogadishu (Muqdisho) is thought to possibly be derived from the Somali words Muuq and Disho, which together mean "sight killer" or "blinder", possibly referring to the city's blinding beauty. The 16th century Andalusi explorer Leo Africanus knew the city as Magadazo (alt. Magadoxo) and described it as a "beautiful, rich place". Another theory is that the name consists of two Somali words, Maqal and Disho, meaning "the place where sheep are slaughtered".
The city nickname used by the locals is Xamar (Ḥamar), which may refer to the color red. This could be in reference to the reddish environment and hills, meaning a city that was built on red sand. The old neighborhood of Hamar Weyne combines two words, ḥamar (red) and weyn (big). It is also a Somali word for tamarind as well as for a chestnut-colored horse.
In Abyssinia, the city of Mogadishu and its surrounding area were known as Machidas. A thriving and powerful kingdom, with which the Abyssinians were frequently at war. Described as a fine city built at a short distance from the seashore. Machidas featured a king's palace, several mosques and houses of stone painted in fresco with terraced flat roofs. The name Machidas also appears on maps from the 18th and 19th centuries.
Medieval and early modern Arabic sources record Mogadishu as Maqdīshū (مقديشو). The book An Azanian Trio suggests a link to the Hebrew MQDSH (מקדש), meaning "holy place". The book further ties it to chronicles of two rabbis in Mogadishu's early history.
History
Antiquity
Sarapion
The ancient city of Sarapion is believed to have been the predecessor state of Mogadishu. It is mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a Greek travel document dating from the first century AD, as one of a series of commercial ports on the Somali littoral. According to the Periplus, maritime trade already connected peoples in the Mogadishu area with other communities along the Indian Ocean.
During ancient times, Mogadishu was part of the Somali city-states that engaged in a lucrative trade network connecting Somali merchants with Phoenicia, Ptolemic Egypt, Greece, Parthian Persia, Sabaeans, Nabataea and the Roman Empire. Somali sailors used the ancient Somali maritime vessel known as the beden to transport their cargo.
Foundation and origins
The founding ethnicity of Mogadishu and its subsequent sultanate has been a topic of intrigue in Somali studies. Ioan Lewis and Enrico Cerulli believed that the city was founded and ruled by a council of Arab and Persian families. However, the reference I.M. Lewis and Cerulli received traces back to one 19th-century text called the Kitab Al-Zunuj, which has been discredited by modern scholars as unreliable and unhistorical. More importantly, it contradicts ancient oral and written sources, as well as archaeological evidence on the pre-existing civilizations and communities that flourished on the Somali coast, which were the forefathers of Mogadishu and other coastal cities. Thus, the Persian and Arab founding "myths" are regarded as an outdated, false colonialist reflection on Somalis' ability to create their own sophisticated states. It has now been widely accepted that there were already communities on the Somali coast with ethnic Somali leadership, of whom the Arab and Persian families had to ask for permission to settle in their cities. It also seems the local Somalis retained their political and numerical superiority on the coast, while the Muslim immigrants would go through an assimilation process by adopting the local language and culture.
Mogadishu, along with Zeila and other Somali coastal cities, was founded upon an indigenous network involving hinterland trade, and that happened even before significant Arab migrations or trade with the Somali coast. That goes back approximately four thousand years and is supported by archaeological and textual evidence.
This is corroborated by the first-century CE Greek document, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, detailing multiple prosperous port cities in ancient Somalia, as well as the identification of ancient Sarapion with the city that would later be known as Mogadishu. When Ibn Battuta visited the Sultanate in the 14th century, he identified the Sultan as being of Barbara origin, an ancient term to describe the ancestors of the Somali people. According to Ross E. Dunn, neither Mogadishu nor any other city on the coast could be considered alien enclaves of Arabs or Persians, but were, in fact, Somali towns.
Yaqut al-Hamawi, a Muslim medieval geographer in the year 1220, describes Mogadishu as the most prominent town on the coast. Yaqut also mentioned Mogadishu as being a town inhabited by Berbers, described as "dark-skinned" and considered ancestors of modern Somalis. By the thirteenth century, Ibn Sa'id described Mogadishu, Merca and Barawa located on the Benadir coast had become Islamic and commercial centers in the Indian Ocean. He said the local people in the Benadir coast and the interior were predominantly inhabited by Somalis, with a minority of Arab, Persian and Indian merchants living in the coastal towns. Ibn al-Mujawir mentions the Banu Majid, who fled the Mundhiriya region in Yemen in the year 1159 and settled in Mogadishu and also traders from the port towns of Abyan and Haram.
Mogadishu is traditionally inhabited by four clans. These are the Moorshe, Iskashato, DhabarWeyne, and the Bandawow. Moorshe is regarded as the oldest group in Mogadishu and is considered to be a sub-clan of Ajuran who established one of the most powerful medieval kingdoms in Africa, the Ajuran Sultanate. The Gibil Madow (Dark Skins) faction of the Benadiri are said to hail from the Somali clan groups from inland which make up the majority of Benadiris with a small minority being Gibil Cads (Light Skins) which descend from Muslim immigrants.
Medieval Period
Mogadishu Sultanate
The Mogadishu Sultanate was a medieval Somali sultanate centered in southern Somalia. It rose as one of the pre-eminent powers in the Horn of Africa under the rule of Fakhr ad-Din before becoming part of the expanding Ajuran Empire in the 13th century. The Mogadishu Sultanate maintained a vast trading network, dominated the regional gold trade, minted its own currency, and left an extensive architectural legacy in present-day southern Somalia. A local city-state with much influence over the hinterland neighbouring coastal towns. Commerce relationships also existed with inland towns such as Harar.
For many years Mogadishu functioned as the pre-eminent city in the بلد البربر (Bilad al Barbar – "Land of the Berbers"), as medieval Arabic-speakers named the Somali coast. Following his visit to the city, the 12th-century Syrian historian Yaqut al-Hamawi (a former slave of Greek origin) wrote a global history of many places he visited Mogadishu and called it the richest and most powerful city in the region and was an Islamic center across the Indian Ocean.
Medieval Mogadishu
During his travels, ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi (1213–1286) noted that Mogadishu city had already become the leading Islamic centre in the region. By the time of the Tangier born traveller ibn Battuta's appearance on the coastline of Somalia in 1331, the city was at the zenith of its prosperity. He described Mogadishu as "an exceedingly large city" with many rich merchants, which was famous for its high quality fabric that it exported to Mamluk Sultanate-ruled Egypt, among other places. He also describes the hospitality of the people of Mogadishu and how locals would put travellers up in their home to help the local economy. Battuta added that the city was ruled by a Somali sultan, Abu Bakr ibn Shaikh 'Umar, He noted that Sultan Abu Bakr had dark skin complexion and spoke in his native tongue (Somali) but was also fluent in Arabic. The Sultan also had a retinue of viziers, legal experts, commanders, royal eunuchs, and other officials at his beck and call. Ibn Khaldun (1332 to 1406) noted in his book that Mogadishu was a massive metropolis. He also claimed that the city was very populous with many wealthy merchants.
This period gave birth to notable figures like Abd al-Aziz of Mogadishu who was described as the governor and island chief of Maldives by ibn Battuta. After him is named the Abdul-Aziz Mosque of Mogadishu, which survived for centuries.
The island's appellation "Madagascar" is not of local origin but rather was popularized in the Middle Ages by Europeans. The name Madageiscar was first recorded in the memoirs of 13th-century Venetian explorer Marco Polo as a corrupted transliteration of the name Mogadishu, the famous port with which Polo had confused the island.
Vasco da Gama, who passed by Mogadishu in the 15th century, noted that it was a large city with houses of four or five stories high and large palaces in its centre and many mosques with cylindrical minarets. In the 16th century, Duarte Barbosa noted that many ships from the Kingdom of Cambaya sailed to Mogadishu with cloths and spices for which they in return received gold, wax and ivory. Barbosa also highlighted the abundance of meat, wheat, barley, horses, and fruit on the coastal markets, which generated enormous wealth for the merchants. Mogadishu, the center of a thriving weaving industry known as toob benadir (specialized for the markets in Egypt and Syria), together with Merca and Barawa also served as transit stops for Swahili merchants from Mombasa and Malindi and for the gold trade from Kilwa. Jewish merchants from Ormus also brought their Indian textile and fruit to the Somali coast in exchange for grain and wood.
Duarte Barbosa, the famous Portuguese traveller, wrote about Mogadishu (c 1517–1518):
It has a king over it, and is a place of great trade in merchandise. Ships come there from the kingdom of Cambay (India) and from Aden with stuffs of all kinds, and with spices. And they carry away from there much gold, ivory, beeswax, and other things upon which they make a profit. In this town there is plenty of meat, wheat, barley, and horses, and much fruit: it is a very rich place.
In 1542, the Portuguese commander João de Sepúvelda led a small fleet on an expedition to the Somali coast. During this expedition, he briefly attacked Mogadishu, capturing an Ottoman ship and firing upon the city, which compelled the sultan of Mogadishu to sign a peace treaty with the Portuguese.
According to the 16th-century explorer, Leo Africanus indicates that the native inhabitants of the Mogadishu polity were of the same origins as the denizens of the northern people of Zeila region. They were generally tall with an olive skin complexion, some darker. They would wear traditional rich white silk wrapped around their bodies and have Islamic turbans, and coastal people only wore sarongs and wrote in Arabic as a lingua franca. Their weaponry consisted of traditional Somali weapons such as swords, daggers, spears, battle axe, and bow and arrows. However, they received assistance from its close ally, the Ottoman Empire, and with the import of firearms such as muskets and cannons. Most were Muslims, although a few adhered to pre-Islamic beliefs; there were also some Orthodox Tewahedo Christians further inland. Mogadishu itself was a wealthy, and well-built city-state, which maintained commercial trade with kingdoms across the world. The metropolis city was surrounded by walled stone fortifications.
The Ajuran Sultanate collapsed in the 17th century due to heavy taxation against their subjects, which started a rebellion. The ex-subjects became a new wave of Somali migrants, the Abgaal, moved both into the Shebelle River basin and Mogadishu. A new political elite led by Abgaal Yaquub imams, with ties to the new leaders in the interior, moved into the Shangani District of the city. Remnants of the Ajuran lived in the other key-quarters of Hamar Weyne District. Ajuran merchants began to look for new linkages and regional trade opportunities since the Abgaal had commandeered the existing trading networks.