Twitter thread on the origin of hararis

[Midas]

This thread by horn aristocrat brings everything together to talk about the orgin of Hararis as east gurage people fleeing the oromo migrations around the time of emir nur ibn muhajid.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Harari people also called Adare are an Ethio-Semitic ethnic group who are today considered native to the city of Harar in eastern Ethiopia, a perception that overshadows the history of the city’s original Somali founders and past inhabitants.<br><br>In my previous thread, I… <a href="https://t.co/p8SQDtUaYH">pic.twitter.com/p8SQDtUaYH</a></p>&mdash; HA (@hornaristocrat) <a href="">March 23, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[Midas]

My favorite part of the thread is the oart where he explained the old harari arabi grammar book called kitab al faraid.


<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Cerulli and more recently Banti have concluded that the two oldest copies of the Kitāb al-Farā’id (E/Z) are not the original source from which all versions of the KalF manuscript evolved. Instead, they suggest that an earlier source must have existed from which these versions… <a href="https://t.co/0HbnggBcd2">pic.twitter.com/0HbnggBcd2</a></p>&mdash; HA (@hornaristocrat) <a href="">March 23, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>








<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This is shown in most copies of the KalF, where the Harari copyist makes it clear that the Adare and their language were still viewed as a foreign Habesha element.<br><br>&quot;.. the Kitab al Farayid in the language of the Habash (Abyssinians) has ended&quot;<br><br>However, by the 19th century,… <a href="https://t.co/aWfdZD1zf1">pic.twitter.com/aWfdZD1zf1</a></p>&mdash; HA (@hornaristocrat) <a href="">March 23, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[Midas]

This is honestly to me more evidence for this idea of mine that I've thinking for while that before the 19th century. There was basically 2 high culutres in the horn of africa. A ethio-semetic orthodox Christian high culture. And a somali islamic high culture.
@Idilinaa

 

[Shimbiris]

Migrating this over:

Harar is named after a Somali tree

I think MSA would also be a West-Semitic subbranch. I recall a linguist saying as much. But, overall, Midas' point is that the substra in MSA and Ethiosemitic, whether they're specially connected or not, points to the possibility of Yemen originally being very Cushitic inhabited which...

www.somalispot.com

 

[Shimbiris]

This is honestly to me more evidence for this idea of mine that I've thinking for while that before the 19th century. There was basically 2 high culutres in the horn of africa. A ethio-semetic orthodox Christian high culture. And a somali islamic high culture.
@Idilinaa

Tbh, I always found the Southern Ethiosemitic Muslims a bit of a break element that felt a little out of nowhere. Studying the Horn over the years it always felt like the two polar points were Muslims Somalis and Christian Habeshas. These were the two dominant cultural forces of the Horn, even in the classical period before Islam, if you think about it. The Horn was even back then divided between Aksumite/Abyssinian domains and the "free" Barbaria to its east beyond the Bab al-Mandab in terms of historical accounts of the region.

 

[Rayaale]

This harari sample is closer to Eritrean Tigrayans a

https://www.reddit.com/r/HornAfricanAncestry/s/D3Un9tZHsi

 

[Midas]

Tbh, I always found the Southern Ethiosemitic Muslims a bit of a break element that felt a little out of nowhere. Studying the Horn over the years it always felt like the two polar points were Muslims Somalis and Christian Habeshas. These were the two dominant cultural forces of the Horn, even in the classical period before Islam, if you think about it. The Horn was even back then divided between Aksumite/Abyssinian domains and the "free" Barbaria to its east beyond the Bab al-Mandab in terms of historical accounts of the region.

Exactly. I'm also willing to bet in the classical period before islam that we also had some written language like how ge'ez was for aksum.

 

[Midas]

It's honestly crazy how every attempt at somalis trying to unify and create a future for themselves from the late 19th to the mid 20th century was stopped by the British. These dudes were really our cadows and they did all of this to teach us a lesson





<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The British colonial officers, fearing the rise of another religious movement similar to that of the Sayyid and the potential loss of their control in the region, supported the massacre of the Somalis. <a href="https://t.co/kmJOI8WkYE">pic.twitter.com/kmJOI8WkYE</a></p>&mdash; HA (@hornaristocrat) <a href="">March 23, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[Idilinaa]

That thread was eye opening!!! Amazing stuff.

Aside from skillfully demonstrating that the self-identified ''Harari's'' were actually an East-Gurage refugee community connected from a portion of the Hadiyah region to southwest called Adare that sought protection from Somalis during the Oromo invasion and onslaught. They were referred to by their name Adare until they tried to distance themselves from the name in the 19th century and identify themselves as Harari. But the evidence he showed is overwhelming it would take a long time to describe it all.

He dropped a Harar court document from the 19th century and Arabic sources that just confirm that Emir Abdullahi was Somali, and his army and political circle was Somali

The names of the Malaq's administrators governing each neighborhood stick out to me aside from the nisba al-Somali.

al-Habar Awali (A member of Isaaq clan?). Every individual listed has a Somali name or nisbah, Hiraab, Bare, Bure, Ciqaal, etc

The Emir's army being composed of Somalis.

Emir of Harar is described as the Sultan of Somalis by a European explorer. I have actually shared this in another thread

But this one being an Arabic document recording an eyewitness who stayed in Harar and met the Emir. Clearly describe him as a Somali.

 

[Shimbiris]

Exactly. I'm also willing to bet in the classical period before islam that we also had some written language like how ge'ez was for aksum.

I've talked about this in length before, as you know. It's 100% inconceivable that they had urbanism, global trade, some seafaring that at minimum took them to Arabia and then during the Islamic period were writing using Arabic and developing Ajami scripts, as we know, but somehow during the classical era they didn't write in some language? I wouldn't be shocked if they wrote using some OSA language.

But you know what's funny for me is something that same linguist I mentioned in that thread pointed out to me about how historical patterns generally remain for thousands of years to centuries. For example, how the Eastern Mediterranean and South-Central Asia have long been the two "polar points" of the MENA region. Rome Vs. Parthia; Byzatium Vs. The Sassanians; The Ummayads and their shifting of the Muslim world's gravity toward the Mediterranean then the Abbasids pulling it more toward South-Central Asia; The Ottomans and the Safavids.

Then to this day you have Turkey and Iran as still regional influencers and powers in the Middle-East with the Arabs (Khaleej) being relevant as well thanks to the foundation set by the Caliphates and oil wealth, then Israel as an insert.

I bring this up because the Horn is a good example of this continuing historical pattern. The Aksumites and Barbaria; Bilad al-Xabash and Bilad al-Barbar; Abyssinia and the Somalis; and now we have 4 modern Horn-African states where Somalis are the ruling elite of two 2 (Somalia/Somaliland and Djibouti) and Habeshas are the ruling elite of the other two (Ethiopia and Eritrea). To be fair, Oromos have gotten themselves into the elite of Ethiopia but you can almost see them as the Horn's equivalent to the Arabs, whose position was set up by their Early Modern expansions and it must be noted that the language and style they rule Ethiopia in is still plainly a Habesha one. These are truly the two polar groups of the Horn.

 

[Idilinaa]

Migrating this over:

Harar is named after a Somali tree

I think MSA would also be a West-Semitic subbranch. I recall a linguist saying as much. But, overall, Midas' point is that the substra in MSA and Ethiosemitic, whether they're specially connected or not, points to the possibility of Yemen originally being very Cushitic inhabited which...

www.somalispot.com

He adds another source in the thread

 

[Shimbiris]

He adds another source in the thread
View attachment 357727

View attachment 357729

What is very interesting about Harar that you and others many years ago noted to me is that before the Oromo expansions, it had no walls, and the walls were raised to keep out the Oromos. In fact, when Burton visits in the 1850s he notes that Harar has a population of 3,000 Bedouins (larger in number than 2,500 settled Somalis and 2,500 settled Hararis) who come and go, showing that they didn't see the Somali nomads/bedouins as any threat. In fact, as you know, they maintained marriage alliances with them for Harar to remain prosperous.

This is characteristic of all the archaeological sites/towns found in the interior of northwest and northwest Somali territories during the Middle-Ages; no walls. It makes it very plain that the inhabitants did not at all feel threatened by the surrounding pastoralist herdsmen because those were their kin who plainly moved amongst them and most likely intermarried with them.

 

[Idilinaa]

This is honestly to me more evidence for this idea of mine that I've thinking for while that before the 19th century. There was basically 2 high culutres in the horn of africa. A ethio-semetic orthodox Christian high culture. And a somali islamic high culture.
@Idilinaa

The civilization culture in the region was divided two dominant halves. The highland and Lowland axis.

 

[Shimbiris]

This harari sample is closer to Eritrean Tigrayans a

https://www.reddit.com/r/HornAfricanAncestry/s/D3Un9tZHsi

Yeah, I have a Harari relative, funnily enough. They vary from looking plainly Habesha (funnily more Tigrinya than Amhara or anything southern Ethiopian) to looking mixed (Somali admixed with maybe some Desi or Arab). They look to me like a Habesha insert, to be honest. A Habesha insert that practiced some metropolitanism from time to time, mixing with Somalis, Desis and Arabs in the town.

 

[Midas]

I've talked about this in length before, as you know. It's 100% inconceivable that they had urbanism, global trade, some seafaring that at minimum took them to Arabia and then during the Islamic period were writing using Arabic and developing Ajami scripts, as we know, but somehow during the classical era they didn't write in some language? I wouldn't be shocked if they wrote using some OSA language.

But you know what's funny for me is something that same linguist I mentioned in that thread pointed out to me about how historical patterns generally remain for thousands of years to centuries. For example, how the Eastern Mediterranean and South-Central Asia have long been the two "polar points" of the MENA region. Rome Vs. Parthia; Byzatium Vs. The Sassanians; The Ummayads and their shifting of the Muslim world's gravity toward the Mediterranean then the Abbasids pulling it more toward South-Central Asia; The Ottomans and the Safavids.

Then to this day you have Turkey and Iran as still regional influencers and powers in the Middle-East with the Arabs (Khaleej) being relevant as well thanks to the foundation set by the Caliphates and oil wealth, then Israel as an insert.

I bring this up because the Horn is a good example of this continuing historical pattern. The Aksumites and Barbaria; Bilad al-Xabash and Bilad al-Barbar; Abyssinia and the Somalis; and now we have 4 modern Horn-African states where Somalis are the ruling elite of two 2 (Somalia/Somaliland and Djibouti) and Habeshas are the ruling elite of the other two (Ethiopia and Eritrea). To be fair, Oromos have gotten themselves into the elite of Ethiopia but you can almost see them as the Horn's equivalent to the Arabs, whose position was set up by their Early Modern expansions and it must be noted that the language and style they rule Ethiopia in is still plainly a Habesha one. These are truly the two polar groups of the Horn.

Fascinating i didn't realize that about the middle east.

It just occurred to me that if you look at zeila and wonder why it's a ghost town it's because the French basically moved those guys and created djbouti. Imagine if these French and brtish fuckers hadn't done that. We would have a zeila with almost a million people (which is all those somalis in djbouti who basically all live in 3 cities) it would have been a somali civilization center with a pouplation on par with hargeisa. Instead they destroyed the anicnet zeila somali urban culture.

 

[Idilinaa]

What is very interesting about Harar that you and others many years ago noted to me is that before the Oromo expansions, it had no walls, and the walls were raised to keep out the Oromos. In fact, when Burton visits in the 1850s he notes that Harar has a population of 3,000 Bedouins (larger in number than 2,500 settled Somalis and 2,500 settled Hararis) who come and go, showing that they didn't see the Somali nomads/bedouins as any threat. In fact, as you know, they maintained marriage alliances with them for Harar to remain prosperous.

This is characteristic of all the all archaeological sites/towns found in the interior of northwest and northwest Somali territories during the Middle-Ages; no walls. It makes it very plain that the inhabitants did not at all feel threatened by the surrounding pastoralist herdsmen because those were their kin who plainly moved amongst them and most likely intermarried with them.

In the thread he pointed out that the Bedouins he was referring to was Somalis and it was Somalis in the area that would have seasonal secondary homes in Harar.

This explanation makes soo much sense to me.

But this actually goes to show how farce this nomad label really is, like i said in another thread. It doesn't accurately capture the complexity.

It comes from false lazy colonial discursive framing. The term "nomadic" implies a lack of fixed settlements, random movement, and absence of territorial or economic structure, which does not accurately describe Somali society. Instead, Somalis had organized, seasonal mobility within defined territories and a diverse economic system beyond herding.

Somalis were never nomads in the strict sense of the word. They were more accurately mobile-pastoralists, agro-pastoralists, town dwellers, sailors and small groups of them were fishermen on the coast

 

[Idilinaa]

Fascinating i didn't realize that about the middle east.

It just occurred to me that if you look at zeila and wonder why it's a ghost town it's because the French basically moved those guys and created djbouti. Imagine if these French and brtish fuckers hadn't done that. We would have a zeila with almost a million people (which is all those somalis in djbouti who basically all live in 3 cities) it would have been a somali civilization center with a pouplation on par with hargeisa. Instead they destroyed the anicnet zeila somali urban culture.

We would also probably have valuable Zayla qadi record books and court documents among other things, i am just hoping some Reer Zayla in Djibouti or Galbeed still have them in private.

Right before the French did that, the Italians bombed Zayla in competition for it with the British. I remember there was archive thread on twitter from a while back.

Most of the 1800s was revival period for Somalis and they tried to dismantle it all, all for strategic and ideological reasons.

 

[Shimbiris]

Fascinating i didn't realize that about the middle east.

It just occurred to me that if you look at zeila and wonder why it's a ghost town it's because the French basically moved those guys and created djbouti. Imagine if these French and brtish fuckers hadn't done that. We would have a zeila with almost a million people (which is all those somalis in djbouti who basically all live in 3 cities) it would have been a somali civilization center with a pouplation on par with hargeisa. Instead they destroyed the anicnet zeila somali urban culture.

Yeah, it hit me a while ago that Jabuuti is essentially the successor of Avalites/Saylac. And yes, it's very funny by the way how it feels like the genetics of the region (MENA) also follows this sort of pattern. The Anatolian-HG Vs. Zagros-HG continuum. How Iran/Greater Khorasan is the Middle-East's gateway into East-Eurasia with its ANE, East-Asian and AASI admixtures over the millennia (ANE is ~30% East-Eurasian). Then you have how Anatolia/Levant is the Middle-East's gateway into SSA genetic elements like ANA, AEA and more recently West-African admixture.

Anatolia (+ Greater East Med) and Iran (+Greater Khorasan and the Indus Valley) really are the two historical and genetic polars points of MENA. And it's very fitting how a region intermediate between the two, Mesopotamia, is where the earliest form of civilization burgeoned in the region. And when you pay attention to the Horn on a more recent basis, you do get the sense that Christian Habeshas and Somalis are the two centers of gravity of the Horn, following the Highland-Lowland axis @Idilinaa rightly points out as well.

It really does often come down to who controls the best land along that axis. If you look at the Ethiopian Highlands, the original political and cultural center was in the north—around Aksum—but as the land there degraded from overuse, the center gradually shifted southward, toward Shewa. In the Lowlands, you have the Danakil Triangle, which—outside a few areas around the Awash—is one of the most barren and inhospitable regions not just in the Horn but on Earth. So it makes perfect sense that Somalis, who held more fertile areas like the zones from Harar to Jigjiga, the northwest interior, the Hawd, the Nugaal Valley, a once more fertile north, and of course the riverine south, rather than our Saho-Afar cousins would be the people from whom any lasting cultural or political dominance in the Lowlands would emerge.

 

[Midas]

We would also probably have valuable Zayla qadi record books and court documents among other things, i am just hoping some Reer Zayla in Djibouti or Galbeed still have them in private.

Right before the French did that, the Italians bombed Zayla in competition for it with the British. I remember there was archive thread on twitter from a while back.

Most of the 1800s was revival period for Somalis and they tried to dismantle it all, all for strategic and ideological reasons.

The damage these europsans did to us really is mind boggling when you think about it. They also if i remember correctly dismantled a bunch of stuff to build the djbouti railway right?

 

[Midas]

Yeah, it hit me a while ago that Jabuuti is essentially the successor of Avalites/Saylac. And yes, it's very funny by the way how it feels like the genetics of the region (MENA) also follows this sort of pattern. The Anatolian-HG Vs. Zagros-HG continuum. How Iran/Greater Khorasan is the Middle-East's gateway into East-Eurasia with its ANE, East-Asian and AASI admixtures over the millennia (ANE is ~30% East-Eurasian). Then you have how Anatolia/Levant is the Middle-East's gateway into SSA genetic elements like ANA, AEA and more recently West-African admixture.

Anatolia (+ Greater East Med) and Iran (+Greater Khorasan and the Indus Valley) really are the two historical and genetic polars points of MENA. And it's very fitting how a region intermediate between the two, Mesopotamia, is where the earliest form of civilization burgeoned in the region. And when you pay attention to the Horn on a more recent basis, you do get the sense that Christian Habeshas and Somalis are the two centers of gravity of the Horn, following the Highland-Lowland axis @Idilinaa rightly points out as well.

It really does often come down to who controls the best land along that axis. If you look at the Ethiopian Highlands, the original political and cultural center was in the north—around Aksum—but as the land there degraded from overuse, the center gradually shifted southward, toward Shewa. In the Lowlands, you have the Danakil Triangle, which—outside a few areas around the Awash—is one of the most barren and inhospitable regions not just in the Horn but on Earth. So it makes perfect sense that Somalis, who held more fertile areas like the zones from Harar to Jigjiga, the northwest interior, the Hawd, the Nugaal Valley, a once more fertile north, and of course the riverine south, rather than our Saho-Afar cousins would be the people from whom any lasting cultural or political dominance in the Lowlands would emerge.

You know its ironic how much djbouti contributed to owrsevsseving somali culture wether uts inviting the poets to gather recording dances and all sorts of performances . It all makes sense as they were the remnant somali urban class of zeila.

Maybe hundres of years ago when zeila waa at its peak the leaders of the city would also hold these types of culutral performances and stuff.