SomaliNet Forums

Has anyone read it yet?

It's content is deep tumultuous war and killings.

Religious wars are terrible.

In the beginning, young Axmed Gurey was challenged by a corrupt Somali or Arab sultan who ruled Harar. He drew his military support from Somali tribes. Later the ulama and elders broker peace between Imam Gurey and the sultan with the Imam accepting the rule of the Sultan. But this sultan hardly changes his bad deeds and misrule. He was finally killed by the Imam.

Then Imam gurey wins over Somali tribes and embarks his campaign. Many other tribes from Ethiopia who converted into Islam for fear of being enslaved or killed joined the Jihaad.

It was a brutal time.

......

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/imageviewer.asp?ean=9780972317252

this book is one of the best historical Novels ever to be Written about the Horn of Africa, every somali should read it.

you're right, it deeply describes 15th century warfare, raids, counterraid, pillaging, burning of Sacred houses of worship and taking of Slaves, however its not only about Warfare.

the book describe in great detail the Geography of the Region, the customs of it people. and what makes this book very exciting is how the muslim on the verge of defeat against unsurmountable odds somehow come out victorious sustain throughout their ordeal by their faith.

the book tells about the politic dynamics of the Abyssinia (one might with dozen of province and many vessal tribes and region) and Adal (in the 15th century greatly reduce in power consisting of only on the land of Sa'ad al Din, and the Hararaghe Platue and the port of Zeila).

what shocking about this book is how easy it was back than for people to change their religion only to save their necks. there are many muslim apostates int he book who govern Abyssinia provinces and eventually switch sides and of course when Ahmed Guray conquor much of ethiopia many converted our of expediance rather than true belief in Islam.

the Book talk about Iman Ahmed Guray not only about his conquest but how he was a man, and his ambition he really want to conquor all of abyssinia. it talk about the political marriages he forged. He married a Daughter of the govern of Hadiya. he married the Daughter of the Sultan of Mazaga (a muslim sultan west of Tigre), he took the wife of Takla Haymanot as a concubine, an Apostate who the Iman sold into slavery in Aden and he took another concubine a girl who was the neice of the Emperor of ethiopia Wanag Segad (Lebna Dengal 1508-1540)

and lastly it talk about our people role in Ahmed Guray conquest of Abyssinia. example at the battle of SemberA Kore, out of 12 thousand infantry, 500 cavalry, the Somali made up 5000 infantry and 250 cavalry and Somalis, Harlas lost the most troops in this compaign. The book talks about clans that everyone in Snet recognizes today the Merahan, the Gerri Kombe, Harti, the Gorgorah, the Bursuk (a dir clan), Yibbir, and Hawiye. and clans which i have never heard of like the Habr Maqdi, Zairan, Mazzar and Sagara tribe: a Somali tribe whose name is lost to the vial of time but preserved in a village by the name of Sagharrah which Richard Burton travel through during the 19th century. it seem that our people were crucial to the iman early victory put after the Iman conquored the central platue of Abyssinia were was joined by countless soldiers from Maya, Sawa, Bali, Ganz and Hadiya on the eve of the Iman conquest of Bet Amhara and Tigre his army probable exceeded 50,000 and thousand of cavalry and he didn't need the repellious Somali as much.

Somaliemir. By reading this great book, I realized how devastating religious wars can be.

Now I know why the Christian Ethiopians hate us so much. Somalis were not only the nation in this Jihadic campaign led by Axmed Gurey but they were the main Group.

At one time, Somalis were slaughtered like flies. Over 3000 of them die in one battle.

Back then, no such moral appeals and universal rules existed. They were all like beasts devouring the hell out of each other.

The war was forced on the muslims, by portuguese midget highlander heretics alliance. If you really want to understand what Imam Al ghazi was facing read also about the brutal legacy of the portuguese the first wild and brutish tribes to break into the indian ocean

I am confused was ahmed-gurey a Somali or Habash??? I am clue-less in Somali history.

Ahmed Gragn was not a Somali. He was more of a Harari and was armed and led by the Ottoman empire without whom he was nothing. They armed him with major weapons, trained his men and supplied him with whatever he needed. That was the reason for his success. The Portuguese considered the ottomans a very big threat and therefore decided to arm the Ethiopian king leveling the playing field. The Ethiopians easily eliminated Ahmed Gragn and recaptured all areas.

http://www.historum.com/showthread.php?t=6329

There is also a Portuguese account of the same events. From memory, Gurey had about 12,000 troops at the critical battle, of which 2000 were musketeers from Yemen and 800 were artillerymen from Turkey. This particular link says there were 400 Portuguese. What I remember was a total Abyssinian forces of about 5,000. Gurey was killed after a five year running batle in which his forces actually held no land, so the term "conquest" is a misnomer.

After Gurey's death, his nephew fortified Harar and was essentially used by the Ethiopian emperors as a buffer against the Oromo.

Grant you are over estimating the influence the Abbysinian royal house had after the great war.
The war destroyed both the muslims and the Christian highlanders,it was a mutually assured destruction, and this left the waaqist oromo that were simultanuosly experiencing a population boom and were starting to expand,with little opposition.

The reason that The highlanders are still christian today is becuase of the terrain and the higher population they had compared to the low land muslim sultanates like haddiya and adal.

The Oromos facing no opposition from the weakend combatants expanded thier territory 4 fold,
and assimmilated entire ethnic groups, possible as high as 3/4 of the barentu oromo are actually assimilated haddiye and gurage.. allot of somali clans dissapeared into the oromo nation, some survived but changed like the garre( which were enslaved by the oromo for 200 years) and other barley survived encirclement by the oromos like the Gurgura and Akiisho.

The Highlanders lost land and people to the oromos but they were able to survive becuase they had a greater population to fall back on, while the muslim sultanates collapased totally when facing the oromo expansion..

The war was from 1529 to 1543 when the imam was killed during the battle of weyne dhaga.
thats 14 years..

and the previous 300 years before that was an almost uninterrupted expansion of the highland christians,
Ahmad gurey role in history was to check that expansion and drive home a vengfull retaliation all the way to the tigre mountains..

The political situation of the 1520's adal mirrors that of many of todays muslim countries.
Adal was defeated previosly and was basically surviving at the whim of the xabasha..
The xabasha were interfering in adal politics, they were arming factions within the adal sultanate.
They had muslim clerics and most of the royal family in thier pocket.
That period was also the period of moral decline, where according to the futuxat al xabash alcohol drinking was very popular, and so were provocative clothes and many scandals in the royal family..

in this period we have ahmad gurey, who basically mounted a successfull coup against the corrupt royal family,
and then promptly attacked and defeated the interfering ethiopians.

and then he united all the surrounding muslims and took the attack to the enemy...

when will todays muslims live up to his example..

inshallah.

The period prior to the Ottoman/Portuguese involvement was characterized by mutual raiding, a form of border-keeping, if you will, in which no attempt was made to permanently seize territory. The heavy fighting didn't occur until the Ottoman and Portuguese firepower arrived on the scene. I was thinking that was 1538 rather than 1541.

You are, of course, correct, that Ahmad seized the Sultanate of Adal, united some of the tribes, and began the jihad in 1529; but the exhaustion that you note does not seem like a desireable outcome to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Gragn

Ahmed Gurey was definately a Somali. He was born near Zeila and began his war at the age of 19 years. His sister Farduusa was married to Garaad Matan, the Garad of Gerri(Darood) while his paternal aunt's son was the Garaad of another Somali tribe.

The contribution of the Ottoman and Portugese to the war was minimal relative to what the locals had accomplished. You will find all these facts by reading this book, credited with mostly objective content by most historians because the author was an eye witness. The author does not conceal the casualties inflicted on the Muslims either, especially the BATTLE of BADEQA--a village with ancient churches near the modern day Addis Ababa.

Two of the three divisions of the Imam were made up of Somalis and each division has its knights, cavalry and infantry.

The two most feared tribes were of Gerri and Harti. According to the book the Gerri are all horsemen knights whereas the Harti are popular infantry men who are ferocious fighters. The author compares the Harti to a famous Arab knight whose name was Hamzah al-Jufi.

On the left was the Somali tribe of Harti, from the people of Mait; a people not given to yielding. There were three hundred of them, famous among the infantry as stolid as swordsmen.....One of the Arabs called Hamzah al-Jufi engaged in a battle to the death in front of the Imam of the Muslims. He was one of the footsoldiers and stood his ground and stood the test, confronting war with a full heart. He never struck one infidel whom he did not unhorse, dead. He killed so vast a number of them in the middle of the river, that the river water was turned red by the blood. The whole tribe of Harti was like him. Page 78.



In the book, from the Abyssinian side, there were over 200,000 infantry and 16000 knights led by patricians and the King Lebna Dengel.

Later on, most of the tribes bring more of their strongmen to stand the test of the raging battle.

Grant wrote:http://www.historum.com/showthread.php?t=6329

There is also a Portuguese account of the same events. From memory, Gurey had about 12,000 troops at the critical battle, of which 2000 were musketeers from Yemen and 800 were artillerymen from Turkey. This particular link says there were 400 Portuguese. What I remember was a total Abyssinian forces of about 5,000. Gurey was killed after a five year running batle in which his forces actually held no land, so the term "conquest" is a misnomer.

After Gurey's death, his nephew fortified Harar and was essentially used by the Ethiopian emperors as a buffer against the Oromo.

First the Sayid, now the most legendary hero of the Somali people. And all these great men you belittle incidentally have led campaigns with Islamic taste to them.

Lol @ at that Warsangeli kid from San Diego up to his usual tricks. Yeah there were two great clans in the Sayid's camp. Gerri was one of them, right but the other is wrong. Give you one try to get the correct clan.

Grant what ottoman involvement, ur regurgitating the racist european histiography who considered turkey as the sick man of europe and were bent on making the struggle that ensued as two european powers and their african proxies...wallaahi ur cheap, make effort and uncover the truth instead of being a passive consumer of brutish european lies. The Ottoman Khalifa was different from the previous khalifates in that they were not using the midget highlanders to check the power of muslims in the area who were essentially states run by the ahlul bayt of the rasuul scws. The entrance of brutish european into the horn started first during the crusades by way of the diseased templars, the portuguese represented the next phase and were the foot soldiers of the papacy if you know what these brutes did in the americas a worse faith was waiting for the muslims of the horn of Africa, who they could not defeat in the open sea or dislogde their hold on the oriental trade. Eventually the templar british succeeded because of their immoral monetary system and financial schemes by which they enslaved their own populace along with the physical enslavement of unorganized section of the human race

One more thing the turkish presence in the orient trade routes was negligible, this was the domain of the cushitic peoples and also the persian shiites europeans trading in the indian ocean used to pay baaad, baad ma taqaana...until the 18th century to relatively small hashemite/cushitic/xabasha interconthinental holy warriors and statesmen't imagine if the whole cushitic nation is awaken to their old culture. The state records of the princely states and island forts belonging to cushitic peoples were mysteriously burned in fires to cover up precisely the embarrassing weak state of the brutish british and other europeans until relatively recently...something their weak ego could never handle