The republic of Muqadawishukugu

[Riftvalley]

Around 27 minutes he says Muqdisho is a Swahili word. He goes onto say coastal cities were developed by the “civilised” and “free” not “desert people”. Claims Batuta did not encounter any Somalis in muqdishu and Somali arrived on the coast and Somalis arrived after the Italian came.

Barawa guy nervously laughing along even though his community have lived with Somalis in Barawa for a long time and their language is also heavily infused with Somali, as are all other dialects spoken along the coast in Marka and Muqdisho, etc.

Doesn’t challenge the Hindi guy nor does he ask him to explain why Swahili has left no traces in Muqdisho dialects?

 

[New World]

Send them back.

 

[Aurelian]

Around 27 minutes he says Muqdisho is a Swahili word. He goes onto say coastal cities were developed by the “civilised” and “free” not “desert people”. Claims Batuta did not encounter any Somalis in muqdishu and Somali arrived on the coast and Somalis arrived after the Italian came.

Barawa guy nervously laughing along even though his community have lived with Somalis in Barawa for a long time and their language is also heavily infused with Somali, as are all other dialects spoken along the coast in Marka and Muqdisho, etc.

Doesn’t challenge the Hindi guy nor does he ask him to explain why Swahili has left no traces in Muqdisho dialects?

This indians or arabs establishing Muqdisho is stupid and overused. He explained it to be the Somali way of pronouncing the swahili "the city in the eye" while in Somali, Muqdishu can be pronounced as Muuq-disho, which means "blinding beauty". Which makes more sense than a city in the eye. His batuta not meeting any Somali made his nose grow meters.

Furthermore he just claimed that Hawiyes use Ogaden name to refer to their homeland.

 

[Midas]

This indians or arabs establishing Muqdisho is stupid and overused. He explained it to be the Somali way of pronouncing the swahili "the city in the eye" while in Somali, Muqdishu can be pronounced as Muuq-disho, which means "blinding beauty". Which makes more sense than a city in the eye. His batuta not meeting any Somali made his nose grow meters.

Furthermore he just claimed that Hawiyes use Ogaden name to refer to their homeland.

I honestly find how they pedal this pseudohistory so funny. Consider that we have arabic insciriptons in mogadihsu from the 700s . And swahili is said to formed over a period from 800-1100. Yet somehow mogadishu is named after a swahili word? They also for some reason never acknowledge the fact that you have 1000 km of coast from zeila to mogadihsu with a bunch of coastal settlements


But what's funnier than all of this is that we have an entire scholarly tradition of somali ulema that we can date back to the 1200s. And we have the hagiography and biographical info of these guys from the 1300s onward and were even aware of medieval seminaries in somalia. For the swahili coast were not aware of any ulema before the 19th century.

 

[Idilinaa]

Around 27 minutes he says Muqdisho is a Swahili word. He goes onto say coastal cities were developed by the “civilised” and “free” not “desert people”.

The swahili theories are outdated bunk pseudo history. There was already Somalis living on the Southern coast all the way down to the Lamu Archipelago by the time they met Swahili speakers in Northern Kenya that was moving north and Swahili speakers didn't reach mainland Somalia.

There is updated linguistic evidence that shows this:
When Northern Swahili met Southern Somali

Then we have the perpilus historical trading document and archeological evidence that show the whole coast was settled by natives more than 2 thousands years back that carried out a similar agro-pastoral lifestyle and trading.


Funny he says the coastal cities were not developed by desert people when you consider the fact that the coast of Mogadishu and Barawa is a literal desert covered in sand dunes and no real immediate zero resources and it's immediate surroundings are unsuitable for cultivation.

The interior is actually fertile with forests, grassland and woodland and rivers.

The coastal villages, towns and cities were developed as a commercial outlet for the interior and it's the interior agro-pastoral population that would develop it and open up for trade .

The earliest mentions of Mogadishu/Merca in medieval sources paints the same picture, connecting it to it's hinterland and describing the 50 farming villages along the banks of the river.

Claims Batuta did not encounter any Somalis in muqdishu and Somali arrived on the coast and Somalis arrived after the Italian came.

Ibn Batuta's own writings actually supports early Somali settlements on the coast. He not only says the Sultan in Mogadishu is a Barbar and but also says that the citizens have many camels and sheep (indicating pastoral orientation), it actually gives the town a localized native picture.

His name is Abu Bakr son of shaikh 'Umar. He is in origin from the Barbara, and his speech is Maqdishi [Somali?], but he knows the Arabic tongue.

[to Mogadishu] a town endless in its size. Its people have many camels, of which they slaughter hundreds every day and they have many sheep. Its people are powerful merchants. In it are manufactured cloths named after it which have no rival, and are transported as far as Egypt and elsewhere.

He also gives a definition to what he means by ''Barbar'' and says that they are black people that inhabit the coast all the way down from Zeila and ends in Mogadishu and they have many camels and sheep. Same as how he describes mogadishu the city, so you can see it's just connected to a native cultural landscape. It's never described as an enclave by people from elsewhere

I arrived at the city of Zeila, the city of the Barbar, who are a people of the blacks; Shafi'i [following Sunni Muslim laws] by rite. Their country is a desert which extends for two months' journey, its beginning is at Zeila and its ending is at Mogadishu. Their livestock are camels and their sheep are famed for their fatness. The inhabitants are black in color and the majority are Rejecters

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He also provides linguistic evidence that Mogadishu population spoke Somali, when , mentions their words for certain fruits in the Maqdisihi language.

As well as describes Mogadishu organized under the Somali ''abaan'' institution which is a local commericial practice that is used from north to south.

Barawa guy nervously laughing along even though his community have lived with Somalis in Barawa for a long time and their language is also heavily infused with Somali, as are all other dialects spoken along the coast in Marka and Muqdisho, etc.

Doesn’t challenge the Hindi guy nor does he ask him to explain why Swahili has left no traces in Muqdisho dialects?

The southern coastal Somali dialects are big proof they that they were majority inhabited by Somalis at a very early date.

Also there is zero evidence of any substratum. If Somalis came to a coastal area that was already inhabited by a seperate group of people later on. We would essentially be placing ourselves on top of them, like how Habeshas are influenced by South Arabian immigrants and now speak a semetic addstrate but with a cushitic substatum that points to Agaw and others were there before. Non of that is evidenced in the Southern Somali Dialects

 

[Idilinaa]

They also for some reason never acknowledge the fact that you have 1000 km of coast from zeila to mogadihsu with a bunch of coastal settlements

Also the southern coastal cities have smaller native villages intervening them, communities such as Gezeira, Nimow, Aw Make, Danane, Gendershe, and Gelib-Merca.

Think about it further with all the foreign engagements Somalia received in the 1800s the Omani/Zanzibari, Ottoman/Egypt Khedive, Europeans etc and yet it was only Somalis who established new coastal ports and settlements that some later grew to become prominent towns and cities.

It's intellectually dishonest to think that this would be any different back in 1300s, despite the clear evidence that point to the contrary. There is key geographical reasons i stated in the other post that makes the coast just an outlet for the production of the interior.

 

[Midas]

The swahili theories are outdated bunk pseudo history. There was already Somalis living on the Southern coast all the way down to the Lamu Archipelago by the time they met Swahili speakers in Northern Kenya that was moving north and Swahili speakers didn't reach mainland Somalia.

There is updated linguistic evidence that shows this:
When Northern Swahili met Southern Somali
View attachment 353256

Then we have the perpilus historical trading document and archeological evidence that show the whole coast was settled by natives more than 2 thousands years back that carried out a similar agro-pastoral lifestyle and trading.


Funny he says the coastal cities were not developed by desert people when you consider the fact that the coast of Mogadishu and Barawa is a literal desert covered in sand dunes and no real immediate zero resources and it's immediate surroundings are unsuitable for cultivation.

The interior is actually fertile with forests, grassland and woodland and rivers.

The coastal villages, towns and cities were developed as a commercial outlet for the interior and it's the interior agro-pastoral population that would develop it and open up for trade .
View attachment 353251

View attachment 353252


The earliest mentions of Mogadishu/Merca in medieval sources paints the same picture, connecting it to it's hinterland and describing the 50 farming villages along the banks of the river.
View attachment 353254





Ibn Batuta's own writings actually supports early Somali settlements on the coast. He not only says the Sultan in Mogadishu is a Barbar and but also says that the citizens have many camels and sheep (indicating pastoral orientation), it actually gives the town a localized native picture.

His name is Abu Bakr son of shaikh 'Umar. He is in origin from the Barbara, and his speech is Maqdishi [Somali?], but he knows the Arabic tongue.

[to Mogadishu] a town endless in its size. Its people have many camels, of which they slaughter hundreds every day and they have many sheep. Its people are powerful merchants. In it are manufactured cloths named after it which have no rival, and are transported as far as Egypt and elsewhere.

He also gives a definition to what he means by ''Barbar'' and says that they are black people that inhabit the coast all the way down from Zeila and ends in Mogadishu and they have many camels and sheep. Same as how he describes mogadishu the city, so you can see it's just connected to a native cultural landscape. It's never described as an enclave by people from elsewhere

I arrived at the city of Zeila, the city of the Barbar, who are a people of the blacks; Shafi'i [following Sunni Muslim laws] by rite. Their country is a desert which extends for two months' journey, its beginning is at Zeila and its ending is at Mogadishu. Their livestock are camels and their sheep are famed for their fatness. The inhabitants are black in color and the majority are Rejecters

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He also provides linguistic evidence that Mogadishu population spoke Somali, when , mentions their words for certain fruits in the Maqdisihi language.
View attachment 353248


As well as describes Mogadishu organized under the Somali ''abaan'' institution which is a local commericial practice that is used from north to south.
View attachment 353249




The southern coastal Somali dialects are big proof they that they were majority inhabited by Somalis at a very early date.
View attachment 353255


Also there is zero evidence of any substratum. If Somalis came to a coastal area that was already inhabited by a seperate group of people later on. We would essentially be placing ourselves on top of them, like how Habeshas are influenced by South Arabian immigrants and now speak a semetic addstrate but with a cushitic substatum that points to Agaw and others were there before. Non of that is evidenced in the Southern Somali Dialects


View attachment 353258

Imagine how large a medieval city would have to be for hundreds of camels (the most expense livestock) to be slaughtered daily? The pouplation must have been in the tens of thousands. The decline of mogadishu and aden are honestly mind boggling. Aden went From 80,000 people at the peak of the rasulid dynasty. To a tiny village of 600 people in the early 1800s.

 

[Varriris]

He also provides linguistic evidence that Mogadishu population spoke Somali, when , mentions their words for certain fruits in the Maqdisihi language.
View attachment 353248


As well as describes Mogadishu organized under the Somali ''abaan'' institution which is a local commericial practice that is used from north to south.
View attachment 353249




The southern coastal Somali dialects are big proof they that they were majority inhabited by Somalis at a very early date.
View attachment 353255


Also there is zero evidence of any substratum. If Somalis came to a coastal area that was already inhabited by a seperate group of people later on. We would essentially be placing ourselves on top of them, like how Habeshas are influenced by South Arabian immigrants and now speak a semetic addstrate but with a cushitic substatum that points to Agaw and others were there before. Non of that is evidenced in the Southern Somali Dialects


View attachment 353258

More linguistic evidence that the language of Muqdisho was af-somali:

”An Indian traveler, roughly a century before Ibn Battuta, mentions the word for the 'Caracal' animal in the language of Mogadishu, and it matches the modern Somali word for the animal. He notes that in the Barbar language, the caracal is called Kaduud or Gaduud. In Somali, it is referred to as Gaduudane. This is clear evidence that Ibn Battuta's "Maqdishi" language was indeed Somali, highlighting the continuity between Medieval and Modern Af Soomaali.”

x.com

x.com

 

[Idilinaa]

More linguistic evidence that the language of Muqdisho was af-somali:

”An Indian traveler, roughly a century before Ibn Battuta, mentions the word for the 'Caracal' animal in the language of Mogadishu, and it matches the modern Somali word for the animal. He notes that in the Barbar language, the caracal is called Kaduud or Gaduud. In Somali, it is referred to as Gaduudane. This is clear evidence that Ibn Battuta's "Maqdishi" language was indeed Somali, highlighting the continuity between Medieval and Modern Af Soomaali.”

x.com

x.com

I shared it in my thread in this thread: https://www.somalispot.com/threads/somali-agricultural-revolution-900-1600s.172550/
One thing you will notice is how much Muslim medieval writers would talk about Mogadishu being supplied with abundant native agricultural produce and it's exotic wild life.

There is also epigraphic evidence the fact that there are local Mogadishu tombs, those without a nisba(al-etc) specifically with Somali calendar names written on them dating back to the 1300s

And Somali calendar names are seen on medieval tomb inscriptions in Mogadishu that date from year 1365

It is something pointed out by an Italian writer named Enrico Cerulli:

On another tomb of this group we read The weak hopeful servant and forgiveness of his gracious Lord, the Hagg Yusuf Ibn Abu Bakr Ibn Hagg Da'ud, died on the fourth Monday of the month of du al-higgah of the year Saturday after seven hundred and sixty-six years from the Hegira of the Prophet. God's blessings be on the Prophet. Corresponds to! 22 August 1365.

The inscription is particularly important, as it counts the first mention of the Somali year in use alongside the Muslim year also in the coastal centers. With <the year Saturday> we mean the first year of the Somali seven-year cycle. of the inscription and from referring to meaning by the Prophet, as in the inscription n. X. It should be noted that a similar expression can also be found in an Arabic text from East Africa, published by Becker who says verbatim speaking of a Muslim saint

 

[Riftvalley]

This indians or arabs establishing Muqdisho is stupid and overused. He explained it to be the Somali way of pronouncing the swahili "the city in the eye" while in Somali, Muqdishu can be pronounced as Muuq-disho, which means "blinding beauty". Which makes more sense than a city in the eye. His batuta not meeting any Somali made his nose grow meters.

Furthermore he just claimed that Hawiyes use Ogaden name to refer to their homeland.

lQUOTE="Aurelian, post: 4244519, member: 7097"]
This indians or arabs establishing Muqdisho is stupid and overused. He explained it to be the Somali way of pronouncing the swahili "the city in the eye" while in Somali, Muqdishu can be pronounced as Muuq-disho, which means "blinding beauty". Which makes more sense than a city in the eye. His batuta not meeting any Somali made his nose grow meters.

Furthermore he just claimed that Hawiyes use Ogaden name to refer to their homeland.
[/QUOTE]

No one can really say for certain what the etymology of Muqdisho is. Aside from the theory you mentioned and the Maqcad shah one, there is another theory which says it comes from “muq” and disho referencing the abundance of meat slaughtered in the town.

The colonials mainly relied on the likes of Shariff Ayadarus who seem to have passed on these claims about the seat of the Shah etc which he collected from local oral history and some “manuscripts” with no academic citations given. From Maqcad Shah>Muqdisho is a big jump linguistic and we don’t really have any evidence of a Shah controlling Muqdisho. And a Persian descent ruler at one point in time is very different from the Shah having a royal seat/tributary in Muqdisho. The city was controlled by council of elders and then later by local Sultans.

As for Xamar, again the idea that it came from the Arabic word for the colour Red was passed onto to western academics by Shariff Aydarus et al. The story is about a man and woman travelling on some camel, discovering the town and calling it “Axmar”. These stories are no different to other Somali oral stories and the use of camels is another interesting reference, just as Ibn Batuta finding large numbers of camels being slaughtered are. This would tell you how integrated the people from the interior and coastal cities were.

There are localities btw called “Geed Xamar”in the Somali peninsula , one of them being in Puntland. We also found the word as a Somali name “Xamare Somali”, one of the sons of Samaale. Since both Barawa and Marka have Somali etymologies,
I don’t understand why some think it is impossible for Xamar to have been a name given to the site by the locals centuries prior to any migrants arriving. Even if one says the Arabs/Persians contributed to the development of the town, one can not rule out a local etymology for Xamar, as the site was most likely used as a trading point since antiquity like other coastal town around southern Somalia.

We can definitely rule out a Swahili origin though. Only presence of Swahili in Somalia is in the small area of Barawa. The Bajunis he cited were also a small community and some of their clans cite a Somali origin. I am astounded a professor of Bantu linguistics such as Mr Lodhi would make these laughable claims. I am more disappointed in the Barawani brother for sitting there and not interjecting when the prof. claimed Somalis weren’t on the coast until the Italians came.

 

[Idilinaa]

This indians or arabs establishing Muqdisho is stupid and overused. He explained it to be the Somali way of pronouncing the swahili "the city in the eye" while in Somali, Muqdishu can be pronounced as Muuq-disho, which means "blinding beauty". Which makes more sense than a city in the eye. His batuta not meeting any Somali made his nose grow meters.

Furthermore he just claimed that Hawiyes use Ogaden name to refer to their homeland.
No one can really say for certain what the etymology of Muqdisho is. Aside from the theory you mentioned and the Maqcad shah one, there is another theory which says it comes from “muq” and disho referencing the abundance of meat slaughtered in the town.The colonials mainly relied on the likes of Shariff Ayadarus who seem to have passed on these claims about the seat of the Shah etc which he collected from local oral history and some “manuscripts” with no academic citations given. From Maqcad Shah>Muqdisho is a big jump linguistic and we don’t really have any evidence of a Shah controlling Muqdisho. And a Persian descent ruler at one point in time is very different from the Shah having a royal seat/tributary in Muqdisho. The city was controlled by council of elders and then later by local Sultans.As for Xamar, again the idea that it came from the Arabic word for the colour Red was passed onto to western academics by Shariff Aydarus et al. The story is about a man and woman travelling on some camel, discovering the town and calling it “Axmar”. These stories are no different to other Somali oral stories and the use of camels is another interesting reference, just as Ibn Batuta finding large numbers of camels being slaughtered are. This would tell you how integrated the people from the interior and coastal cities were.There are localities btw called “Geed Xamar”in the Somali peninsula , one of them being in Puntland. We also found the word as a Somali name “Xamare Somali”, one of the sons of Samaale. Since both Barawa and Marka have Somali etymologies,I don’t understand why some think it is impossible for Xamar to have been a name given to the site by the locals centuries prior to any migrants arriving. Even if one says the Arabs/Persians contributed to the development of the town, one can not rule out a local etymology for Xamar, as the site was most likely used as a trading point since antiquity like other coastal town around southern Somalia.We can definitely rule out a Swahili origin though. Only presence of Swahili in Somalia is in the small area of Barawa. The Bajunis he cited were also a small community and some of their clans cite a Somali origin. I am astounded a professor of Bantu linguistics such as Mr Lodhi would make these laughable claims. I am more disappointed in the Barawani brother for sitting there and not interjecting when the prof. claimed Somalis weren’t on the coast until the Italians came.

This is the conclusion i have come to looking into the city name of ''Mogadishu''

Tbh i think it would be far more accurate to say that we don't know what the etyomology is. It might just be an archaic name part of some ancient linguistic strata .

But thats a loan word through Arabic not directly from Persians. Bandar is commonly used by Arabs to refer to a port or port city. Another example is Somalis use of ''Ras'' , which is Arabic name for cape.

Plus at the same time it's worth considering that a lot of towns can change either in name or have different names and in the Majerteen coast for example there is local formal names for towns like Bandar Qasim as Bosaso, Bandar Kor as Qandala, Bandar Siyada as Qaw etc etc. The former it's mostly popularized by foreign merchants.

Similar to how the original formal name for Mogadishu was Xamar but the name Mogadishu was mostly popularized by Muslim Immigrants and visitors.

So the name don't really give away anything tbh, except for the local name Xamar which apparently is in reference to the red sandy hill to surrounds the town and makes more sense.

This is similar to how the local name for Zayla is Awdal.

Barawa on the other hand i believe the existence of the Swahili speech Chimini is a product of the trans local communication, they picked up to communicate with their clients and business/religious contacts south of them as they moved back and forth. Which sounds more likely the case. Reer Barawe Hatimi/Bida descend from immigrants who married into local coastal people/clans and coastal Tunni descend from Somali clans from the interior who extended across the coast down all over Lamu Archipelago. So the city didn't have a bantu/swahilli segment.

The town itself was actually billingual and Chiminii was not restricted to a small isolated Bravanese community, it was adopted and spoken by the Somali Tunni clan who lived inside the town and was kept alive by them and they also spoke Tunni dialect.

Most of the people that spoke Chimwini and the ones that adopted the language were the Urban Tunni people. They not only spoke the language inside the city but also composed a lot of the literature within it and the Tunni were the large bulk of the urban inhabitants, were politically, religiously and economically dominant.

Some excerpts from the research book that uses information from the Barawi Qadi town records from the 1800's: Translocal Connections across the Indian Ocean: Swahili Speaking Networks

The towns and It's inhabitants.
In the last decade of the nineteenth century Barava hosted within its walls a mixed population divided into different groups and clans. The Somali presence in town was conspicuous: out of the 5000 inhabitants, over 2000 belonged to the five sub-clans of the Tunni (called the Shan gamas). These lived in Brava togerther with two other main groups of city dwellers, the Hatimi and Bida, both claiming Arab ancestry, who collectively called themselves ''Waantu wa Miini or ''People of Brava'' and formed the waungwana urban class

These Tunnis, who lived permanently in the town, had been fully urbanized for several generations, acquiring in the course of time the typical outlook, garb and pursuits of city dwellers.

By the nineteenth century Brava was governed internally by a council of seven elders (called Toddoba Tol, i.e. “seven lineages” in Somali), five representing the groups of the Tunni and the other two the Hatimi and the Bida. The preponderance of Somali members in the governing council reflected not so much the number of Tunni living in the town


Most important part:

Two factors, in particular, highlight the urbanized Tunni's sense of belonging to Brava: before the Italian authorities ordered the judges to record the clan and sub-clan of the parties of each legal case, in some acts the parties described themselves simply as ''Somalis of Brava''.The second factor was that most urbanized Tunni learnt to speak the local Bantu dialect, so much so that in the early twentieth century Nurbin Haji Abdulqadir bin Abdio Hassan (popularly known as Mallim Nuri) of the Tunni Dafaradhi clan, became one of the most prolific writers of poetry chimiini

This is why the Chimwini language is just riddled with Somali influences, large borrowings from phonetics, grammar and vocabulary because it was mostly spoken by Somalis living inside the city:

More interesting still is the influence of Somali,69 which can be seen at different levels.

About the towns bilingualism and Somali influences in Chimiini:

Some examples of Somali influences from the same book i showed earlier:

Aside from this, the town and Brawa society itself is organized and divided into Somali clan structure of qabil and lineages ''reer'' they call it ''reeri'' and Guurti(council of clan elders), which can be seen in Todobo Tol ''Seven Lineages'' that govern the town.

 

[Idilinaa]

Imagine how large a medieval city would have to be for hundreds of camels (the most expense livestock) to be slaughtered daily? The pouplation must have been in the tens of thousands. The decline of mogadishu and aden are honestly mind boggling. Aden went From 80,000 people at the peak of the rasulid dynasty. To a tiny village of 600 people in the early 1800s.

The ruins of Xamar Jajab which is a single quarter stretched 5km2 , so my best guess is the population was in the hundreds of thousands if it had high density.

Another example you can infer from the amount of food how large the population might have been is the city of Berbera.

We have a manuscript that talks about a flood that hit it, that sunk 20 ships from the port that was loaded with 2 thousand tons of food and a large amount of grains.

That amount of food would have sustained a population of 40,000–60,000 people.

''The great flood of Berbera 1494AD Quoting from بغية المستفيد في أخبار مدينة زبيد & و ذيله الفضل المزيد في تاريخ زبيد لي written by ibn al-Dayba’ al-Shaibani in the year

811AH/1408AD "On the fifth day of Jumada al-Awwal, a great flood struck the island of Berbera, causing twenty-six ships to sink in its port, loaded with over two thousand tons of food and a considerable amount of flour. There is no power or strength except with God.''

www.x.com/hornaristocrat/status/1866762774367355054

 

[Riftvalley]

This is the conclusion i have come to looking into the city name of ''Mogadishu''





So the name don't really give away anything tbh, except for the local name Xamar which apparently is in reference to the red sandy hill to surrounds the town and makes more sense.
View attachment 353326

This is similar to how the local name for Zayla is Awdal.
View attachment 353327


Barawa on the other hand i believe the existence of the Swahili speech Chimini is a product of the trans local communication, they picked up to communicate with their clients and business/religious contacts south of them as they moved back and forth. Which sounds more likely the case. Reer Barawe Hatimi/Bida descend from immigrants who married into local coastal people/clans and coastal Tunni descend from Somali clans from the interior who extended across the coast down all over Lamu Archipelago. So the city didn't have a bantu/swahilli segment.

The town itself was actually billingual and Chiminii was not restricted to a small isolated Bravanese community, it was adopted and spoken by the Somali Tunni clan who lived inside the town and was kept alive by them and they also spoke Tunni dialect.

Good spot about the possible Somali etymology of Xamar and horse name.

A similar word is also used to describe Tamarind and it would make sense if it was the local name for the sandy beaches of Muqdisho. We also have it as a name for a Somali patriarch Xamare Somali (most likely due to his skin tone). This word also seems to describe a slightly different colour than Casaan or Gaduud (Red). I have also found at least three towns or locations in the Somali peninsula with the name Geed Xamar.
Western academics just ran with what Shariff Aydarus told them, stuff he got from local oral history, in a highly politicised time where different groups were trying create narratives for themselves in relation to Benadir history.

 

[Riftvalley]

As for Muqdisho, all the people who wrote about the town in the early medieval era called it a similar name to what is referred to as today. The claims about the Maqcad Shah only really turn up in the 19th/20th century.
If the Original name was Maqcad Shah why didn’t the Arab writers call it that and instead wrote a similar name the one used today? Should one assume the name was already changed by this date, it would be a self defeating one, because it still means a significant Somali influence from an early stage.