The Somali Conquest (migration) of the HOA

[hoa]

One of the most sustained and in its effects far-reaching movements of population in the recent history of North Eastern Africa is the expansion of the Hamitic Somali from the shores of the Gulf of Aden to the plains of Northern Kenya over the last ten centuries. Although written historical evidence is available for only a few periods, oral tradition is so abundant, and from a variety of sources both inside and outside Somaliland, so much in agreement, that it is possible to reconstruct much of this Somali migration, at least in broad outline, with what I believe is a fairly high degree of probability.

Anyone interested in this research journal? If so I can post it .

[hoa]

The first clear written reference to any Galla or Somali group is found in the writings of the 13th Century Arab geographer, Ibn Sa'id. Ibn Sa'id says that Merca, a town on the southern Somali cost near the Shebeli river, was the 'capital of the Hawiye country', which consisted of more than fifty villages (or districts or tribes). This area is today the home of the Hawiye Somali clan-family, so there is good reason to assume that the Merca region has been occupied continuously by the same Somali group for the past 700 years.

The earliest written evidence, therefore, indicates that some Somali were quite far south at least as early as the twelfth or thirteenth century.