The complete history of Zeila (Zayla), a medieval city in Somaliland: ca. 800-1885 CE.

Journal of African cities: chapter 14

The Gulf of Aden which links the Red Sea region to the Indian Ocean world was (and remains) one of the busiest maritime passages in the world. Tucked along its southern shores in the modern country of Somaliland was the medieval port city of Zeila which commanded much of the trade between the northern Horn of Africa and the western Indian Ocean.

The city of Zeila was the origin of some of the most influential scholarly communities of the Red Sea region that were renowned in Egypt, Yemen, and Syria. Its cosmopolitan society cultivated trade links with societies as far as India, while maintaining its political autonomy against the powerful empires surrounding it.

This article explores the history of Zeila, outlining key historical events and figures that shaped the development of the city from the Middle Ages to the 19th century.

Maps showing the location of Zeila¹

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The early history of Zeila from the 9th century to the 14th century

The northern coastline of Somaliland is dotted with many ancient settlements that flourished in the early centuries of the common era. These settlements included temporary markets and permanent towns, some of which were described in the Periplus, a 1st-century travel guide-book, that mentions the enigmatic town of Aualitês, a small locality close to the African side of the narrow strait of Bab al-Mandab. Some scholars initially identified Aualitês as Zeila, although material culture dating to this period has yet to be identified at the site.²

Zeila first appears in historical records in the 9th-century account of the Geographer al-Yaʿqūbī, who describes it as an independent port from which commodities such as leather, incense, and amber were exported to the Red Sea region. Later accounts from the 10th century by Al-Iṣṭakḫrī, Al-Masʽūdī, and Ibn Ḥawqal describe Zeila as a small port linked to the Hejaz and Yemen, although it’s not described as a Muslim town.³

Zeila remained a relatively modest port between the 10th and 11th centuries on the periphery of the late Aksumite state whose export trade was primarily conducted through the islands of Dahlak.

It wasn't until the early 13th century that Zeila reappeared in the accounts of geographers and chroniclers such as Yāqūt, Ibn Saʿīd and Abū l-Fidā' who describe it as a Muslim city governed by local sheikhs.⁴ Zeila was regarded as an important stopping place for Muslim pilgrims en route to the Hejaz, as well as for the circulation of merchants, scholars, pilgrims, and mercenaries between Yemen and the sultanates of the northern Horn of Africa.⁵

A 15th-century Ethiopian chronicle describing the wars of King Amda Seyon in 1332 mentions the presence of a ‘King’ at Zeila (negusä Zélʽa). The famous globe-trotter Ibn Battuta, who briefly visited the city in 1331, describes it as "the capital of the Berberah [Somali], a people of the blacks who follow the doctrine of Shāfiʽy", adding that it was a large city with a big market whose butcheries of camels and the smell of fish stalls made it rather unwelcoming.⁶

The Egyptian chronicler Al-ʿUmarī, writing in the 1330s from information provided by scholars from the region, mentions that the Walasma sultan of Ifat (Awfāt) was “reigning over Zaylaʿ, the port where the merchants who go to this kingdom approach … the import is more considerable,” especially with “silk and linen fabrics imported from Egypt, Yemen and Iraq." He notes that external writers refer to the entire region as “the country of Zaylaʿ” which “is however only one of their cities on the sea whose name has extended to the whole."⁷

Tomb of Sheikh Ibrahim of Zeila (Ibrahim Saylici) who is said to have lived in the 13th century. While not much is known about him, Francis Burton’s account on the domed structure of ‘Shaykh Ibrahim Abu Zarbay’ makes mention of an inscription that dates its construction to A.H 1155 (1741 CE), Burton adds that the saint flourished during the 14th/15th century.⁸

Al-Umari’s account and contemporary accounts from 14th-15th century Mamluk Egypt frequently mention the presence of scholars and students coming from the Horn of Africa, who were generally known by the nisba of ‘al-Zayla'ī’ . They were influential enough to reserve spaces for their community at the Umayyad mosque in Damascus (Syria) and at al-Azhar in Cairo (Egypt).⁹

One of these scholars was al-ʿUmarī’s informant; the Ḥanafī jurist ʿAbdallāh al-Zaylaʿī (d. 1360), who was in Cairo at the head of an embassy from the Ifat kingdom to ask the Mamluk Sultan to intervene with the Ethiopian King on their behalf. ¹⁰ Others include the Ḥanafī jurist Uthman al-Zayla'ī (d. 1342), who was the teacher of the aforementioned scholar, and a prominent scholar in Egypt.¹¹

Another family of learned men carrying the nisba al-Zaylaʿī is well-known in Yemen: their ancestor Aḥmad b. ʿUmar al-Zaylaʿī (d. 1304) is said to have come to Arabia together with his father ʿUmar and his uncle Muḥammad “from al-Habaša.” The family settled first in Maḥmūl, and Aḥmad ended his days in Luḥayya, a small port town on the coast of the Red Sea.¹²

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« For more on the Zayla'ī scholars in the diaspora and the intellectual history of the northern Horn of Africa; please read this article »

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Corroborating these accounts of medieval Zeila’s intellectual prominence is the account of the 13th-century Persian writer Ibn al-Muǧāwir, which described the foreign population of Yemen’s main port, Aden, as principally comprising eight groups, including the Zayāliʿa, Abyssinians, Somalis, Mogadishans, and East Africans, among other groups. Customs collected from the ships of the Zayāliʿa accounted for a significant share of Aden's revenues and Zeila city was an important source of provisions for Aden.¹³

Scholars from the northern Horn of Africa who traveled to the Hejaz, Yemen and Egypt brought back their knowledge and books, as described in several local hagiographies. These scholars were instrumental in the establishment and spread of different schools of interpretation and application of Islamic law in the country, such as the Ḥanafī, Šāfiʿī, schools, and the Qadariyya Sufi order.¹⁴ The Qadari order was so popular in the northern Horn of Africa that one of its scholars; Sharaf al-din Isma'il al-Jabarti (d. 1403), became a close confidant of the Rasulid sultan Al Ashraf Ismail (r. 1377-1401) and an administrator in the city of Zabid.¹⁵

Rasulid-Yemen sources from the 14th-15th century describe Zayla as the largest of the Muslim cities along the coast, its mariners transported provisions (everything from grain to construction material to fresh water) as far as Aden on local ships, and the city’s port handled most of the trade from the mainland. The Rasulid sultan reportedly attempted to take over the city by constructing a mosque and having the Friday prayers said in his name, but the people of Zeila rejected his claims of suzerainty and threw the construction material he brought into the sea, prompting the Rasulids to ban trade between Aden and Zeila for a year.¹⁶

Recent archeological surveys have revealed that the site occupied an estimated 50 hectares during the Middle Ages. At least three old mosques were identified, as well as two old tombs built of coral limestone, including the Masjid al-Qiblatayn ("two miḥrāb" mosque) next to the tomb of Sheikh Babu Dena, the Shahari mosque with its towering minaret, the Mahmud Asiri [Casiri] mosque, the mausoleum of Sheikh Eba Abdala and the mausoleum of Sheikh Ibrahim.

The material finds included local pottery, fragments of glass paste, as well as imported Islamic and Chinese wares from the 13th-18th centuries, which were used to date phases of the construction of the "two miḥrāb" mosque (The second mihrab wasn’t found, suggesting that the mosque’s name refers instead to its successive phases of construction which may have involved a remodeling to correct the original orientation). About 8km from the shore is the island of Saad Din, which contains the ruins of several domestic structures made of coral limestone as well as several tombs including one attributed to Sultan Saʽad al-dīn.¹⁷

The Shahari mosque (top) and the Masjid al-Qiblatayn (bottom), photo by Eric Lafforgue, François-Xavier Fauvelle-Aymar and Ibrahim Khadar Saed.

The layout of the remains of the old two mosques by François-Xavier Fauvelle-Aymar.

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Zeila during the 15th and 16th centuries: alliances and conflicts with the kingdoms of Ifat, Adal and Christian-Ethiopia.

In the late 14th century, a dynastic split among the Walasma rulers of Ifat resulted in a series of battles between them and their suzerains; the Solomonids of Ethiopia, ending with the defeat of the Walasma sultan Saʿd al-Dīn near Zeila between 1409-1415, and the occupation of the Ifat territories by the Solomonid armies. In the decades following Saʿd al-Dīn’s death, his descendants established a new kingdom known as Barr Saʿd al-Dīn (or the Sultanate of Adal in Ge’ez texts), and quickly imposed their power over many other formerly independent Islamic territories including Zeila.¹⁸

While there’s no evidence that it came under the direct control of the Solomonids, Zeila remained the terminus of most of the overland trade routes from the mainland, linking the states of Ifat and Ethiopia to the Red Sea region.

An early 16th-century account by the Ethiopian Brother Antonio of Urvuar (Lalibela) describes Zeila as an "excellent port" visited by Moorish fleets from Cambay in India which brought many articles, including cloth of gold and silk. Another early 16th-century account by the Florentine trader Andrea Corsali reported that it was visited by many ships laden with "much merchandise".¹⁹ The 1516 account of Duarte Barbosa describes Zeila’s “houses of stone and white-wash, and good streets, the houses are covered with terraces, the dwellers in them are black.”²⁰

The account by an Italian merchant in 1510 describes Zeila as a “place of immense traffic, especially in gold and elephant’s teeth (Ivory)”. He adds that it was ruled by a Muslim king and justice was “excellently administered”, it had an “abundance of provisions” in grain and livestock as well as oil, honey and wax which were exported. He also notes that many captives who came from the lands of ‘prestor John’ (Christian Ethiopia) went through it, which hints at the wars between Zeila and the Solomonids at the time.²¹

Internal accounts from the 16th century mention that governors of Zeila such as Lada'i 'Uthman in the 1470s, and Imam Maḥfūẓ b. Muḥammad (d. 1517) conducted incursions against Ethiopia sometimes independently of the Adal sultan's wishes.²² This was likely a consequence of pre-existing conflicts with the Solomonids of Ethiopia, especially since Zeila was required to send its ‘King’ to the Solomonid court during the 15th century, making it almost equal to the early Adal kingdom at the time which also initially sent a king and several governors to the Solomonids.²³

Zeila’s relative autonomy would continue to be reflected in the later periods as it retained its local rulers well into the 16th and 17th centuries.

After Mahfuz’s defeat by the Solomonid monarch Ləbnä Dəngəl around the time the Portuguese were sacking the port of Zeila²⁴, his daughter Bati Dəl Wänbära married the famous Adal General Imam Aḥmad Gran, who in the 1520s defeated the Solomonid army and occupied much of Ethiopia, partly aided by firearms purchased at Zeila and obtained by its local governor Warajar Abun, who was his ally.²⁵

Between 1557 and 1559, the Ottoman pasha Özdemir took control of several port towns in the southern Red Sea like Massawa, Ḥarqiqo, and the Dahlak islands, which became part of their colony; Habesha Eyalet, but Zeila was likely still under local control. According to an internal document from the 16th century, the city was ruled by a gärad (governor) named ǧarād Lādū, who commissioned a wealthy figure named ʿAtiya b. Muhammad al-Qurashı to construct the city walls between 1572 and 1577 to protect the town against nomads, while the Adal ruler Muhammad b. sultan Nasır was then in al-Habasha [i.e. Christian Ethiopia].²⁶

Old mosque in Zeila, photos by Eric Lafforgue, Somalilandtravel

Engraving of Zeila, late 19th century.

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Zeila from the 17th century to the mid-19th century: Between the Ottoman pashas and the Qasimi Imams.

Zeila likely remained under local control until the second half of the 17th century, when the city came under the control of the Ottoman’s Habesha Eyalet led by pasha Kara Naʾib, by the time it was visited by the Turkish traveler Evliya Celebi in 1672. Celebi provides a lengthy description of the city, which he describes as a ‘citadel’, with a ‘castle’ that housed a garrison of 700 troops and 70 cannos under the governor Mehemmed Agha who collected customs from the 10-20 Indian and Portuguese ships that visited the port each year to purchase livestock, oil and honey.

He describes its inhabitants as ‘blacks’ who followed the Qadariyyah school²⁷ and were wealthy merchants who traded extensively with the Banyans of Cambay (India) and with Yemen. He adds that they elect a Sunni representative who shares power with the Ottoman governor, along with "envoys" from Yemen, Portugal, India and England, and that the city was surrounded by 70-80,000 non-Muslims whose practices he compares to those of the Banyans²⁸.

remains of an Old building in Zeila, photos from Wikimedia and Somalilandtravel.

Old structures in Zeila, photos by Eric Lafforgue. The second building is often attributed to the Ottoman period.

Carte de la Baie de Zeyla, ca. 1816.

Zeila later came under the control of the Qasimi dynasty of the Yemeni city of Mocha around 1695. The latter had expelled the Ottoman a few decades earlier and expanded trade with the African coast, encouraging the arrival of many Jalbas (local vessels) to sail from the Somaliland coast to Yemen, often carrying provisions. The city was also used to imprison dissidents from Mocha in the early 18th century.²⁹

Zeila in the 18th and 19th centuries was governed by an appointed Amir/sheikh, who was supported by a small garrison, but his authority was rather limited outside its walls. Zeila had significantly declined from the great city of the late Middle Ages to a modest town with a minor port. It was still supplied by caravans often coming from Harar whose goods were exchanged with imports bought from Indian and Arab ships.³⁰

In 1854, it was visited by the British traveler Francis Burton, who described it as such; "Zayla is the normal African port — a strip of sulphur-yellow sand, with a deep blue dome above, and a foreground of the darkest indigo. The buildings, raised by refraction, rose high, and apparently from the bosom of the deep. After hearing the worst accounts of it, I was pleasantly disappointed by the spectacle of whitewashed houses and minarets, peering above a long, low line of brown wall, flanked with round towers."

The town of 3-4,000 possessed six mosques and its walls were pierced by five gates, it was the main terminus for trade from the mainland, bringing ivory, hides, gum and captives to the 20 dhows in habour, some of which had Indian pilots. << Burton also learned from Zeila's inhabitants that mosquito bites resulted in malaria, but dismissed this theory as superstition >> ³¹

The old city of Zeila, ca. 1896.

Zeila Street scene and house where Gordon stayed, ca. 1921, by H. Rayne.

Zeila, ca. 1885, by Phillipe Paulitschke, BnF Paris.

Drawing of Zeila's waterfront, ca. 1877. by G. M. Giulietti.

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Zeila in the late 19th century.

At the time of Burton’s visit, the town was ruled by Ali Sharmarkay, a Somali merchant who had been in power since 1848. He collected customs from caravans and ships, but continued to recognize the ruler of Mocha as his suzerain, especially after the latter city was retaken by the Ottomans a few years prior, using the support of their semi-autonomous province; the Khedivate of Egypt. The Ottoman pasha of the region, then based at Al-Hudaydah, confirmed his authority and sent to Zeila a small garrison of about 40 matchlockmen from Yemen.³²

Ali Sharmarkay attempted to redirect and control the interior trade from Harar, as well as the rival coastal towns of Berbera and Tajura, but was ultimately deposed in 1855 by the pasha at Al-Hudaydah, who then appointed the Afar merchant Abu Bakar in his place. The latter would continue to rule the town after it was occupied by the armies of the Khedive of Egypt, which were on their way to the old city of Harar in the 1870s. ³³

The town's trade recovered after the route to Harar was restored, and it was visited by General Gordon, who stayed temporarily in one of its largest houses. Abubakar attempted to balance multiple foreign interests of the Khedive government —which was itself coming under the influence of the French and British— by signing treaties with the French. However, after the mass evacuation of the Khedive government from the region in 1884, the British took direct control of Zeila, and briefly detained Abubakar for allying with the French, before releasing him and restoring him but with little authority. The ailing governor of Zeila died in 1885, the same year that the British formally occupied the Somaliland coast as their colonial protectorate.³⁴

In the early colonial period, the rise of Djibouti and the railway line from Djibouti to Addis Ababa greatly reduced the little trade coming to Zeila from the mainland.³⁵

The old city was reduced to its current state of a small settlement cluttered with the ruins of its ancient grandeur

In 1891, the Swahili traveler Amur al-Omeri composed a fascinating travelogue of his trip to Germany, describing the unfamiliar landscape and curiosities he witnessed; from the strange circuses and beerhalls of Berlin, to the museums with captured artifacts, to the licentious inhabitants of Amsterdam.

Please subscribe to Patreon and read about an East African’s description of 19th-century Europe here:

1. Maps by Stephane Pradines and Jorge de Torres

2. An Archaeological Reconnaissance in the Horn: The British-Somali Expedition, 1975 by Neville Chittick pg 125, Local exchange networks in the Horn of Africa: a view from the Mediterranean world (third century B.C. -sixth century A.D.) by Pierre Schneider pg 15.

3. A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea by Samantha Kelly pg 96, Le port de Zeyla et son arrière-pays au Moyen Âge by François-Xavier Fauvelle-Aymar et al. prg 55-64)

4. Le port de Zeyla et son arrière-pays au Moyen Âge by François-Xavier Fauvelle-Aymar et al. prg 78-86)

5. A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea by Samantha Kelly pg 97)

6. Le port de Zeyla et son arrière-pays au Moyen Âge by François-Xavier Fauvelle-Aymar et al. prg 92-94)

7. A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea by Samantha Kelly pg 108, 99)

8. First Footsteps in East Africa: Or, An Explanation of Harar By Sir Richard Francis Burton with introduction by Henry W. Nevinson, pg 66.

9. Islam in Ethiopia By J. Spencer Trimingham pg 62)

10. Islam in Ethiopia By J. Spencer Trimingham pg 72)

11. ALoA Vol 3, The writings of the Muslim peoples of northeastern Africa by John O. Hunwick, Rex Seán O'Fahey pg 19)

12. A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea by Samantha Kelly pg 152)

13. A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea by Samantha Kelly pg 442, A Traveller in Thirteenth-century Arabia: Ibn Al-Mujāwir's Tārīkh Al-mustabṣir by Yūsuf ibn Yaʻqūb Ibn al-Mujāwir pg 151, 123, 138.

14. A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea by Samantha Kelly pg 152)

15. Ibn 'Arabi in the Later Islamic Tradition by Alexander D. Knysh pg 241-269)

16. L’Arabie marchande: État et commerce sous les sultans rasūlides du Yémen by Éric Vallet, Chapter 6, pg 381-424, prg 44-49, 78.

17. Le port de Zeyla et son arrière-pays au Moyen Âge by François-Xavier Fauvelle-Aymar et al. prg 13-20, Urban Mosques in the Horn of Africa during the Medieval Period pg 51-52

18. A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea by Samantha Kelly pg 101-3)

19. A Social History of Ethiopia: The Northern and Central Highlands from Early Medieval Times to the Rise of Emperor Téwodros II by Richard Pankhurst pg 55)

20. A Description of the Coasts of East Africa and Malabar in the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century, Volume 35 by Duarte Barbosa, Fernão de Magalhães, pg 17

21. The Travels of Ludovico di Varthema By Ludovico di Varthema pg 86-87

22. Islam in Ethiopia By J. Spencer Trimingham pg 82-86

23. Harar as the capital city of the Barr Saʿd ad-Dıˉn by Amélie Chekroun pg 27

24. Harar as the capital city of the Barr Saʿd ad-Dıˉn by Amélie Chekroun pg 31-32

25. , Ottomans, Yemenis and the “Conquest of Abyssinia” (1531-1543) by Amélie Chekroun, The Conquest of Abyssinia: 16th Century by Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn ʻAbd al-Qādir ʻArabfaqīh, Richard Pankhurst pg 104, 112, 344.

26. A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea by Samantha Kelly pg 469, Harar as the capital city of the Barr Saʿd ad-Dıˉn by Amélie Chekroun pg 37, Entre Arabie et Éthiopie chrétienne Le sultan walasmaʿ Saʿd al-Dīn et ses fils (début xve siècle) by Amélie Chekroun pg 238

27. Celebi refers to Zeila’s inhabitants as “the Qadari tribe.. black Zangis.. they have Tatar faces and disheveled locks of hair”. the translator of his text adds that ‘Based on the tribal name, Evliya associates them with the Qadari theological school, believers in free will, which he frequently joins with other heretical groups’. ** The ethnonym of ‘black Zangis’ is a generic term he frequently uses in describing ‘black’ African groups he encounters. The ‘Tatar faces (Turkish faces) ‘disheveled locks of hair’ indicate that they were native inhabitants, most likely Somali**.

28. Ottoman Explorations of the Nile: Evliya Çelebi’s Map of the Nile and The Nile Journeys in the Book of Travels (Seyahatname) by Robert Dankoff, pg 324-328)

Celebi’s comparisons of the non-Muslim groups in Zayla’s hinterland to the “fire-worshiping” Banyans were likely influenced by the significant trade it had with India, which could have been the source of some traditions at the time that the city was in ancient times founded by Indians before the Islamic era.

29. The Merchant Houses of Mocha: Trade and Architecture in an Indian Ocean Port by Nancy Um pg 26, 32, 114-115.

30. Ethiopia: the Era of the Princes: The Challenge of Islam and Re-unification of the Christian Empire, 1769-1855 by Mordechai Abir pg 14-16, Precis of Papers Regarding Aden, 1838-1872 by N. Elias. pg 21-26)

31. First Footsteps in East Africa: Or, An Explanation of Harar By Sir Richard Francis Burton with introduction by Henry W. Nevinson, pg 27-33)

32. Precis of Papers Regarding Aden, 1838-1872 by N. Elias. pg 22-23, 26, The First Footsteps in East Africa by Francis Burton pg 28-39, 63)

33. Ethiopia: the Era of the Princes by Mordechai Abir pg 19, Sun, Sand and Somals By Henry A. Rayne, pg 16-17)

34. Sun, Sand and Somals By Henry A. Rayne, pg 18-20, Abou-Bakr Ibrahim. Pacha de Zeyla. Marchand d’esclaves, commerce et diplomatie dans le golfe de Tadjoura 1840-1885. review by Alain Gascon.

35. British Somaliland By Ralph Evelyn Drake-Brockman pg 17