Zeila Saylac زيلع
19th-century engraving of Zeila
Zeila Location in Somalia
Coordinates: 11°21′10″N 43°28′25″E / 11.35278°N 43.47361°E / 11.35278; 43.47361Coordinates: 11°21′10″N 43°28′25″E / 11.35278°N 43.47361°E / 11.35278; 43.47361
Country	Somalia
Autonomous state	Awdalland
Region	Awdal
Time zone	East Africa Time (UTC+3)

Zeila, also known as Zaila^[1] (Somali: Saylac, Arabic: زيلع‎), is a port city on the Gulf of Aden coast, situated in the northwestern Awdal region of Somalia.

Located near the Djibouti border, the town sits on a sandy spit surrounded by the sea. It is known for its offshore islands, coral reef and mangroves. Landward, the terrain is unbroken desert for some fifty miles. Berbera is 170 miles (270 km) southeast of Zeila, while the Ethiopian city of Harar is 200 miles (320 km) to the west.

Local control of Zeila is disputed between Awdalland, a proposed autonomous state, and Somaliland, a self-declared sovereign state that is internationally recognised as an autonomous region of Somalia.^[2]

History[link]

Zeila is a very old city and has been identified with what was referred to in classical antiquity as the city of the Avalitae. According to Richard Pankhurst, the city first appears under its own name at least as early as 891, when the geographer al-Yaqubi mentions Zeila in his Kitab al-Balden ("Book of the countries").^[3] Zeila is described by successive geographers who include al-Masudi, who wrote his Muruj adh-dhahab wa ma'adin al-jawhar ("Meadows of Gold and Mines of Precious Stones") c. 935; and Ibn Hawqal who described it as the port of embarkation from Ethiopia for Hijaz and Yemen in his Kitab Surat al-'Ard ("Configuration of the Earth"), which he completed in 988.

Zeyla was of an important port from its formation in 9th century until it was occupied by the British forces in 19th century. And it was an autonomous Emirate within the Ifat Sultanate and then under the Sultanate of Adal. The reason was that it was a very rich province due to its owning a sea port. In the 10th and 11th centuries, Arab authors often referred to Zeila as an important port for both Muslim and Christian merchants in the region of "bilad al-Habasha", an early medieval fluctuating term denoting parts of the modern region of the Horn of Africa. Many foreign travelers resided in the city and did commerce. According to Ibn Said, Zeila was a town of considerable size and its inhabitants were completely Muslim. Another 13th century writer al-Dimashqi highlighted the predominant Somali demographic of the city and began referring to it by its Somali name of Awdal.^[4] By 1330, the Moroccan historian and traveler Ibn Batutta would describe the city as dominated by Muslims from the Zaidi Shi'ite denomination, an apparent indication of the early Persian influence in the region.^[5]

Zeila's importance as a trading port is further confirmed by al-Idrisi and ibn Said, who describe it as a town of considerable size and a center of the slave trade. Pankhurst, amongst other writers, thought Marco Polo was referring to Zeila (then the capital of Adal) when he recounts how the Sultan of Aden seized a bishop of Ethiopia traveling through his realm, attempted to convert the man by force, then had him circumcised according to Islamic practice. This outrage provoked the Emperor into raising an army and capturing the Sultan's capital.^[6]

Ruins of the Muslim Sultanate of Adal in Zeila, Somalia. (circa 1500)

The Sultanate of Adal with its capital Zeila thus appears to date from the 9th or 10th century and its history from its origins is the chronicle of a series of wars with Ethiopia. Dependent on trade with southern Abyssinia, Zeila flourished in the 14th century. It sold incense, myrrh, slaves, gold, silver, camels, and much more. Zeila started to grow into a huge multicultural metropolis by the 14th century, with Arab, Somali, Afar, Oromo and even Persian inhabitants. Zeila was also instrumental in bringing Islam and civilization to the Oromo and other Ethiopian ethnic groups. By this time, Zeila was subject to the Walashma dynasty, who also ruled over Ifat. By the reign of Sultan Sa'ad ad-Din II the Walashma family had sufficient control of the town for that sultan to take refuge there in 1403 (other sources say 1415) from Emperor Dawit I. The Ethiopian Emperor besieged the sultan there for several days, depriving sultan Sa'ad ad-Din of water, until at last the Ethiopians entered the city and killed the unfortunate ruler. Following his death, the sultan came to be considered a saint, and his tomb was venerated for the next several centuries.^[7]

Travellers' reports — such as the memoirs of the Italian Ludovico di Varthema — in the 16th century show that Zeila had become an important marketplace by that time,^[8] despite being ravaged by the Portuguese in 1517 and 1528. Later that century, destructive raids by nearby Somali nomads caused the ruler of the port, Garad Lado, to have a strong wall built around Zeila.

Although, with Tadjoura, Zeila was one of the principal ports for the city of Harar and the regions of Aussa and Shewa, the town declined in importance over the next centuries. Beginning in 1630, the port city became a dependency of the ruler of Mocha, who farmed out for a small sum the African port to one of the office-holders of Mocha, who in return collected a toll on its trade. Zeila was ruled on the spot by an Emir, whom Mordechai Abir describes "has some vague claim to authority over all of the sahil, but whose real authority did not extend very far beyond the walls of the town. With the help of a small troop of mercenary matchlockmen and a number of canon, the governor defended the town against the disunited Somali nomads who roamed in the area, and against pirates who operated in the Gulf of Aden.^[9] By the first half of the nineteenth century, Zeila was a mere shadow of its former self, "a large village surrounded by a low mud wall, with a population that varied according to the season from 1,000 to 3,000 people."^[10] Zeila retained what little importance as the port of Harar, and beyond it Shewa, but as a new route was opened between Tadjoura and Shewa, Zeila declined further.^[11]

Although nominally part of the Ottoman Empire, between 1821 to 1841, Muhammad Ali, Pasha of Egypt came to control Yemen and the sahil with Zeila included. In 1874-75 the Egyptians obtained a firman from their Ottoman overlords by which Zeila became Egyptian, while at the same time securing British recognition of her jurisdiction as far east as Cape Guardafui.^[12] Local merchants like Haj Ali Shermerki and Abu Bakr were made rulers of Zeila by the Egyptians in return for a small tribute, but after the Egyptian garrison was evacuated from Harar in 1885 the port was caught up in the competition between the French (based in Tajura) and the British for control of the strategic coastline along the Gulf of Aden; I.M. Lewis mentions that "by the end of 1885 Britain was preparing to resist an expected French landing at Zeila."^[13] However the two powers decided instead to turn to negotiations, and in 1888 they concluded an agreement defining the boundary between their protectorates. As a result, Zeila and its eastern neighbor Berbera came to be part of British Somaliland.

The construction of a railway from Djibouti to Addis Ababa in the late 19th century continued the decline of Zeila.^[14] At the beginning of the next century Zeila was described in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica as having a "good sheltered anchorage much frequented by Arab sailing craft. However, heavy draught steamers are obliged to anchor a mile and a half from the shore. Small coasting boats lie off the pier and there is no difficulty in loading or discharging cargo. The water supply of the town is drawn from the wells of Takosha, about three miles distant; every morning camels, in charge of old Somali women and bearing goatskins filled with water, come into the town in picturesque procession. ... [Zeila's] imports, which reach Zaila chiefly via Aden, are mainly cotton goods, rice, jowaree, dates and silk; the exports, 90% of which are from Abyssinia, are principally coffee, skins, ivory, cattle, ghee and mother-of-pearl".^[14]

Modern times[link]

During the Somali civil war, Zeila was bombed frequently and nearly all the buildings were either demolished or semi-demolished. Residents fled the town and emigrated to neighbouring countries and cities such as Djibouti Lughaya,Borama and Gabiley. Remittance money sent from overseas relatives contributed tremendously in the reconstruction of the town as well as the trade and fishing industry. Today, the city's population is estimated at around 25,000 inhabitants with the majority belonging to the Maxamed Ase subclan of the Gadabursi clan.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Sir Richard Burton's account of Zeila in the late 19th century