What happened to Somalis with the collapse of the Awdal/Bar Sa'Adin Empire and the Gareen led Confederacy/Kingdom of Mareeg-Qalafo-Merca and Mogadishu was a region wide devestation of epidemic proportions, in a way that is very comparable to the collapse of the Roman empire. They also fell to invasions, trade disruptions and defeats as well.
Watch how he describes the collapse of the Roman Empire in @2:09
Transcripts:
Thus , the 27 years of war, the famine and the plague, had utterly reduced the population of Italy, entire cities were abandoned, Mediolanum for example was completely razed in 539, even Rome stood almost empty at some point in the 550s after being sacked numerous times in that lenghty war, the old roman infrastructure that was still perfectly intact in the Ostrogothic Kingdom now was given price to unchecked decay, street networks cumbled.... Aqueducts were falling into disuse left and right, many cities had to rely on frech water from rivers and wells such as in Rome for example, where the population was henceforth concentrated near the Tiber river and all other parts of the humongous city were left completely abandoned.
A similar picture would occur in the whole of Italy. The population now being so utterly reduced compared to only some decaded earlier, would now retreat to small cores in the once big cities or to the countryside. Small dwellings would now have to do , the living standards fell dramatically. Where stoned housing with bricks and mortar had been standard, now small wooden shakcks .....such as for example nicely visible theater of Marcellus in Rome , where people had built their dwellings into this once mighty amphiteater , now replaced the previous domus and insula structures. Wood construction had in many parts completely replaced stone and mortar housing, especially for private dwellings. Churches were now the only structures that were still built out of solid stone, but even here we can witness how much smaller they had become in those times , as archeological evidence from Italy shows.
Life became more rural, the old urbanized society had started to vanish. Trade would collapse in many parts, so that food had to be produced locally. Peasants would often start sowing their feilds amids the old towering decaying buildings of the old imperial times.
Its almost exact same thing that happened to the Somali region. This period of invasions , disruptions of trade and wars was described in the 15th century chronicles that survived , with plague outbreak, famine and horrors etc happening. And you can also see it from the archeological records which i have qouted and the external medieval descriptions.
As much as i studied that period, i wouldn't wish to live in that time.
In much the same way as in Europe where imperial state collapse led to the rise of the Catholic Church and feudalism/decentralization, for Somalis it was similar with the rise of Sufi Religious Orders/Tariqas and also decentralization. With the Eastern vassal imperial state only surviving semi-intact aka Bari/Majerteen.
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