Somalia Research Paper

The Somali Republic is the easternmost extension of the African continent and is bordered by Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. The Somali are one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa. More than eight million Somalis live in a territory stretching north from northern Kenya to Djibouti and west from the Indian Ocean to the Ogaden in Ethiopia. Although Somalis are often seen as one of the few ethnic groups that define a nation, the country of Somalia does contain small enclaves of other groups. The Somalis speak the Somali language and are Sunni Muslims. By the end of the 19th century years of treaties had partitioned the Somali home territory into the British Somaliland Protectorate, French Somaliland, Italian
Most contemporary scholars however argue that the ancestors of the Somaal came not from Arabia but from an area between southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya and linguists trace Somali to the Cushitic language group. Based on a hybrid of archaeological, anthropological and historical linguistic evidence, it is now widely asserted that the Somaal originated in the lake regions of current day southern Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Malawi, as a sub-group of the Cushitic peoples. In the decades BC, it is believed that the sub-group known as the Omo-Tana moved northwards from the lake highland areas until reaching the Tana river and the Indian Ocean. Some settled along the Lamu peninsula, situated near the northern Kenya and southern Somalia border, while others continued to move northwards into southern Somalia. In southern Somalia patterns of farming and pastoralism provided a mixed economy for the Omo-Tana group that continued to move from the Lamu peninsula into the Somali peninsula. It is here that the initial references to Somaal were asserted. It is believed that by the 1 st Century AD the Somaal, who had continued to migrate northwards, had reached the Red Sea and occupied most of the Horn of Africa. During the 8 th to 10 th Century the movement of Somaal brought them into contact with coastal
Coffee came from the Abyssinian highlands to supply a large local market. Saylac later became the centre of the Islamic culture of the northern region; the capital of the medieval state of Adal. On the whole urban commerce and Islam was more developed in the south. There, coastal towns came into contact with Swahili trading settlements and ships sailing from the Indian subcontinent, China and southwest Asia. By the 9th century Mogadishu was the most prosperous of these towns. Between the 11 th and 13 th centuries many Somali converted to Islam. During this time, many of the Prophet’s earliest followers fled the Arabian Peninsula to seek refuge in Africa, where the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia often afforded them protection. This penetration from the peninsula sparked another population shift, this time from the coastal areas into the interior. The political unit that developed in the interior from the 13 th century onward that forms a prototype for contemporary political structures was the diya-paying group. In this system groups belonging to the same clan have a contractual alliance that joins them together in payment and receipt of damages to or from