HISTORY Saudi Minister of Somali origin

[Idilinaa]

@Shimbiris I've read that many reer Xamar families meel written genealogies in their homes, are you aware of any ethnic somali families who do the same? It's really sad that people keep this ancient heritage and keep it to themselves. We probably have so much history that is just waiting to be discovered

They keep it to themselves because it is personal to people , they hold them dear. I remember reading how much of the Arabic manuscript material IM Lewis could locate in Somaliland was in the private libraries of Sheikhs and it could not be directly acquired or photocopied. The few of whom that he was able to persuade other somalis to copy by hand did contain family genealogies.

I wouldn't exaggerate anything by saying we have ''soo much ancient heritage'' from the possible availability of a few dozen manuscripts. But it does stand to reason that whatever additional material we find could contain important new evidence for understanding Somali Islam and will contribute to a fuller documentation of this vital aspect of Somali culture and history.

 

[OGx3]

Wallahi, I'd have to do more research but I find that hard to fathom. Literacy was fairly normal among the minority Somali elites and merchants. Pretty much all the Suldaans in the 1800s and several merchants, learned men and of course the Wadaado knew how to read and write. We even have several examples of their letters and other texts either in Arabic or some few in Far Wadaad. Even as early as 1331 when Battuta visited Xamar he mentions that the Barbara (Somali) Sultan present knows how to read and write and writes messages in Arabic. We even have surviving texts by Somali qadis from as early as the late 1600s:

Migration, Digitization, and Preservation - A Case Study of a Somali Manuscript​

The oday who wrote that was of the Leelkase and this is his descendant. There will probably be even older ones once more families like this come forward with the manuscripts they're holding and private collectors return or reveal what looters in places like Xamar sold them during the civil war as there were supposedly hundreds of manuscripts stored in the city before the looting that were lost like what this guy mentions in the comments:

Ancient Manuscript Review 32 : Antique Somali Quran ( 250 years old)

These are 7 volumes of full Quran from Somalia!! I used to have similar set but was confiscated by Abu Dhabi custom. Alhamdulillah these...

abudervish.blogspot.com

When people like Revoil were in Xamar they note that a lot of the "oral traditions" and tribal genealogies are actually written down and several of the people who tell them about these traditions would routinely stop to consult manuscripts (clearly literate):

Tradition to Text: Writing Local Somali History in the Travel Narrative of Charles Guillain (1846-48) on JSTOR

Lee Cassanelli, Tradition to Text: Writing Local Somali History in the Travel Narrative of Charles Guillain (1846-48), Journal of African Cultural Studies, Vol. 18, No. 1, Language, Power and Society: Orality and Literacy in the Horn of Africa (Jun., 2006), pp. 57-71

www.jstor.org

Excerpt from a letter written by Majeerteen elites to the British in the late 1800s:

View attachment 217754

Literacy was nothing amazing to come by among Somalis during the Early Modern era and Late Middle Ages. Particularly in Arabic. By at least the 1800s and first half of the 1900s we know some amount of even the reer miyi were literate in Arabic as well, having been taught to read via these wooden boards:



Unlike the more educated elite these people would have been functionally illiterate, though. Being able to read a language they mostly could not understand. But you telling me Saudis, actual Arabs, would have known to read their own language less than this? Hard to fathom, saaxiib. I call BS. Though I did once see some weird stuff about Ibn Saud's aabo being illiterate. Need to look into this.

Thanks for sharing never seen this document. I am Leelkase and often hear trolls say Leelkase is made up and was random tribe that was daroodized recently but documents like this prove our historical existence.

My older relatives also spoke about a place in bari called lafo tanade where supposedly hundreds of years ago we were massacred. This gives me hope maybe there is some documentation out there that can verify if this really happened and details on why.