My Ayeeyo (Grandmother) has a tattoo on her face

[Juke]

Common Cushitic nomad practice. They like to mix it in with the milk then drink it. They even passed it onto the Maasai:

Yup, it's interesting that's the pagan practice Somalis would retain considering blood is haram to consume.

 

[Shimbiris]

Yup, it's interesting that's the pagan practice Somalis would retain considering blood is haram to consume.

Yes, the Qur'an expressly forbids blood drinking pretty much the same way it forbids pork:

(2:173)

إِنَّمَا حَرَّمَ عَلَيْكُمُ الْمَيْتَةَ وَالدَّمَ وَلَحْمَ الْخِنْزِيرِ وَمَا أُهِلَّ بِهِ لِغَيْرِ اللَّهِ

He has only forbidden to you dead animals, blood, the flesh of swine, and that which has been dedicated to other than Allah. ​

 

[Program]

I don’t know what they are ?

A tribe of bantus that live in hirshabelle

 

[Boogie]

Massai cousins

 

[Angelina]

I think it is also partly what I pointed out here in that Islam came to Somalis through trade and was thus adopted in a syncretic manner where it was made to blend in with the local culture rather than hard-line usurping it and expunging non-Islamic elements as though it was being given over to a conquered people. It's not simply that they didn't know enough about Islam as this doesn't necessarily seem true in some cases when you look at accounts like Burton's where he notes that rural Somalis were quite savvy and aware of the world around them:

The Somali Bedouins have a passion for knowing how the world wags. In some of the more desert regions the whole population of a village will follow the wanderer. No traveller ever passes a kraal without planting spear in the ground, and demanding answers to a lengthened string of queries: rather than miss intelligence he will inquire of a woman. Thus it is that news flies through the country. Among the wild Gudabirsi the Russian war was a topic of interest, and at Harar I heard of a violent storm, which had damaged the shipping in Bombay Harbour, but a few weeks after the event.​

Then there's the old Wadaado:

The Wadaad, by Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi​

These guys traveled around everywhere from nomadic camp to camp, village to village and town to town and kept Somalis informed of each other and Islam. They're an integral part of what kept historical Somalis' culture as related and cohesive as it was across a wide area.

Since people didn't have access to a lot of wadaads, i highly doubt they were aware of certain fiqh issues ect. In this generation, we can simply go to our local imaam. Go on islamweb, islamqa, take Alim courses ect. Our ancestors had to make do with travelling wadaads who would leave and maybe come back in a few months or so.

It also explains why proper hijab was non-existent in certain parts especially the miiy and why drinking blood, asking sooth-sayers questions was normal. We don't do this anymore as we now have a lot of knowledge and understand that was haram.

 

[Shimbiris]

Since people didn't have access to a lot of wadaads, i highly doubt they were aware of certain fiqh issues ect. In this generation, we can simply go to our local imaam. Go on islamweb, islamqa, take Alim courses ect. Our ancestors had to make do with travelling wadaads who would leave and maybe come back in a few months or so.

It also explains why proper hijab was non-existent in certain parts especially the miiy and why drinking blood, asking sooth-sayers questions was normal. We don't do this anymore as we now have a lot of knowledge and understand that was categorically haram.

You make plausible points, abayo but I find it hard to believe that random nomads could know about a war in Russia or an incident in Bombay that happened a few weeks ago but not be aware of Islamic conduct like not committing shirk. I think news and knowledge seemed to travel fairly fast among them for the time, especially thanks to the nomadic nature of much of society. And like I pointed out earlier, Islam was not spread through conquest and force to our ancestors (at least certainly not initially) so a lot of mixing with the local pre-Islamic culture seems to have happened like with Indonesia.

Mind you, even conquered Islamic lands like Egypt displayed such issues where soothsaying, wild superstitions and even turning to the old Pharaonic Gods was commonplace among the Egyptian Fellahin so it's not far-fetched to say many rural people back then all over the Islamic world were just ignorant and doing many un-Islamic things as a result.

 

[QueenofKings]

So my grandmother has a tattoo on her face , she’s in her 80s I asked my mum why does she have a tattoo on her cheekbone area , apparently it was fashion or the thing to do back in the day , obviously I don’t believe this .

View attachment 165198

Similar to what this women has underneath her eye

Is there any chance that your ayeeyo is ethnically afar or some other Ethiopian

I’m half kidding but 23 and me has shown Ethiopians are hiding amongst us in plain sight.

 

[salma saluuni]

Is there any chance that your ayeeyo is ethnically afar or some other Ethiopian

I’m half kidding but 23 and me has shown Ethiopians are hiding amongst us in plain sight.

Ma aragti why is it nearly every somali that takes that test has a sprinkle of xabashi in them?

 

[Amirah]

Common Cushitic nomad practice. They like to mix it in with the milk then drink it. They even passed it onto the Maasai.

I heard it’s get iron, their practices all had some type of purpose.

 

[Boogie]

Ma aragti why is it nearly every somali that takes that test has a sprinkle of xabashi in them?

I DON'T HAVE XABASHI BLOOD!

 

[Amirah]

Is there any chance that your ayeeyo is ethnically afar or some other Ethiopian

I’m half kidding but 23 and me has shown Ethiopians are hiding amongst us in plain sight.

how did it show that? You mean people who thought they were Somali took the test and came back as Ethiopian?

 

[hannah54321]

Is there any chance that your ayeeyo is ethnically afar or some other Ethiopian

I’m half kidding but 23 and me has shown Ethiopians are hiding amongst us in plain sight.

A tribe of bantus that live in hirshabelle

No my grandmother is gaaljecel

 

[QueenofKings]

how did it show that? You mean people who thought they were Somali took the test and came back as Ethiopian?

Yeah. Lots of Somali have a sprinkling of Ethiopian - which is old ancestory. But there are also cases of people finding they’re 1/4 or 1/2 Ethiopian and the parent they got this from didn’t know themselves. They were just raised to believe they’re somali.

 

[Angelina]

You make plausible points, abayo but I find it hard to believe that random nomads could know about a war in Russia or an incident in Bombay that happened a few weeks ago but not be aware of Islamic conduct like not committing shirk. I think news and knowledge seemed to travel fairly fast among them for the time, especially thanks to the nomadic nature of much of society. And like I pointed out earlier, Islam was not spread through conquest and force to our ancestors (at least certainly not initially) so a lot of mixing with the local pre-Islamic culture seems to have happened like with Indonesia.

Mind you, even conquered Islamic lands like Egypt displayed such issues where soothsaying, wild superstitions and even turning to the old Pharaonic Gods was commonplace among the Egyptian Fellahin so it's not far-fetched to say many rural people back then all over the Islamic world were just ignorant and doing many un-Islamic things as a result.

You're getting your source from Burton. Somalis that lived in the miiy and the ones that lived in the city are different. Also, some of the people that Burton interacted with where Somalis who were used to foreigners. I know in the first chapter, the young man he is around was a man that ran away to Yemen and worked as a sailor, so obviously he along with a few others would be very clued up on current issues ect. But i'm talking about the majority and not the minorities.

Also, what other plausible reason is there for Somalis to commit blatant shirk? Do you really think that if our ancestors knew some of things they did was not only a major sin, but could take them out of the fold of Islam, they would still do it? Its an interesting theory.

 

[486th President]

I think it was common in her days

 

[Boogie]

Yeah. Lots of Somali have a sprinkling of Ethiopian - which is old ancestory. But there are also cases of people finding they’re 1/4 or 1/2 Ethiopian and the parent they got this from didn’t know themselves. They were just raised to believe they’re somali.

U usually take W but right now I will say I don't have xabashi

 

[Dooyo]

Weird. I’ve never seen an elderly Somali person with a facial tattoo. The only time I’ve seen these facial tattoos was on two Afar old ladies from Djibouti that visited Hargeisa for some shopping. They spoke decent Somali.

Perhaps your grandmother is an assimilated Somali?

 

[QueenofKings]

U usually take W but right now I will say I don't have xabashi

Lol cool that you’re a Somali Xariir, but some people haven’t been so lucky.

 

[Som]

So my grandmother has a tattoo on her face , she’s in her 80s I asked my mum why does she have a tattoo on her cheekbone area , apparently it was fashion or the thing to do back in the day , obviously I don’t believe this .

View attachment 165198

Similar to what this women has underneath her eye

What part of Somalia is your ayeeyo from? Take this with a grain of salt.
In her book Divine fertility , Sada Mire mentioned tattoos among some very old northern somali ladies. There are also crosses and pre islamic burials that may indicate that present day somaliland was Christian before Islam. Habeshas also have a tradition of face tattoos especially crosses. This may be an ancient christian practice at least this is what Sada Mire suggests.

 

[Angelina]

What part of Somalia is your ayeeyo from? Take this with a grain of salt.
In her book Divine fertility , Sada Mire mentioned tattoos among some very old northern somali ladies. There are also crosses and pre islamic burials that may indicate that present day somaliland was Christian before Islam. Habeshas also have a tradition of face tattoos especially crosses. This may be an ancient christian practice at least this is what Sada Mire suggests.View attachment 165483

I think this is insane and fascinating. Is Mire claiming that our ancient Christian history (if true) influenced us to such an extent that some Muslim Somalis were tattooing crosses on their foreheads?

Its shame that we were just an oral society and not one that wrote. Once archeological findings become more advanced, we will find out very interesting and strange things about our history. We are very much in the dark. Also, sometimes I feel that our parents and grandparents generation are not that much interested in the past. Sometimes my mother would confirm certain things I've read about the past which I would think is crazy. She would even tell me of an old relative who did such and such and I would look at her and think, how come you never bothered to tell us?