Everything about Zaila totally explained
Zeila (
Somali:
Saylac) is a port city on the
Gulf of Aden coast and is located in the
Awdal region of the
Somali Republic.
It is located at, surrounded on three sides by the sea; landward the country is unbroken desert for some fifty miles.
Berbera is 170 miles southeast of Zeila, while the
Ethiopian city of
Harar is 200 miles to the west.
The town is known for its offshore islands,
coral reef and
mangroves. Its lack of a sufficient supply of good drinking water has historically hobbled its commercial value, pointed out as late as
1698, (in this instance in a
Dutch East India Company report).
History
Zeila has been identified with what was called in
Classical Antiquity the city of the
Avalitae. According to Richard Pankhurst, the city first appears under its own name at least as early as 891, when the geographer
al-Ya'qubi mentions Zeila in his
Kitab al-Balden ("Book of the countries"). Zeila is described by successive geographers who include
al-Mas'udi, who wrote his
Murugal al-Dahab wa-Ma'adin al-Guwahir ("Meadows of Gold and Mines of Precious Stones")
c. 935; and
Ibn Hawqal who described it as the port of embarkation from Ethiopia for
Hijaz and
Yemen in his
Kitab Surat al-'Ard ("Configuration of the Earth"), which he completed in 988.
Its importance as a trading port is further confirmed by
al-Idrisi and
ibn Said, who describe Zeila as a considerable town, a center of the
slave trade, and under Ethiopian control. Pankhurst, amongst other writers, thought
Marco Polo was referring to Zeila (then the capital of
Adal) when he recounts how the "
sultan of
Aden" seized a bishop of Ethiopia travelling through his realm, attempted to convert the man by force, then had him
circumcised according to
Islamic practice. This outrage provoked the Emperor into raising an army and capturing the Sultan's capital.
The traveller
Ibn Battuta visited Zeila in 1329, but wasn't impressed at the city, writing that it was "the dirtiest, most disagreeable, and most stinking town in the world", which he blamed on the fish and the blood from the
camels that they slaughtered in the streets. He claimed to have found the town so revolting that he spent the night aboard ship, despite the rough seas.
By this time, Zeila was subject to the
Walashma dynasty, who also ruled over
Ifat. Although later in the 14th century Zeila came under the sway of the rulers of Yemen, by the reign of Sultan
Sa'ad ad-Din II the Walashma family had sufficient control of the town for that sultan to take refuge there in 1403 (other sources say
1415) from Emperor
Dawit I. The Ethiopian Emperor besieged the sultan there for several days, depriving sultan Sa'ad ad-Din of water, until at last the Ethiopians entered the city and killed the unfortunate ruler. Following his death, the sultan came to be considered a
saint, and his tomb was venerated for the next several centuries.
Travellers' reports in the 16th century show that Zeila had become an important marketplace, despite being ravaged by the
Portuguese in 1517 and 1528. Later that century, destructive raids by nearby Somali
nomads caused the ruler of the port, Garad Lado, to have a strong wall built around Zeila.
Although, with
Tadjoura, Zeila was one of the principal ports for the city of Harar and the regions of
Aussa and
Shewa, the town declined in importance over the next centuries. Beginning in
1630, the port city became a dependency of the ruler of
Mocha, who farmed out for a small sum the African port to one of the office-holders of Mocha, who in return collected a toll on its trade. Zeila was ruled on the spot by an Emir, whom Mordechai Abir describes "has some vague claim to authority over all of the
sahil, but whose real authority didn't extend very far beyond the walls of the town. With the help of a small troop of mercenary matchlockmen and a number of canon, the governor defended the town against the disunited Somali nomads who roamed in the area, and against pirates who operated in the
Gulf of Aden. By the first half of the nineteenth century, Zeila was a mere shadow of its former self, "a large village surrounded by a low mud wall, with a population that varied according to the season from 1,000 to 3,000 people." Zeila retained what little importance as the port of
Harar, and beyond it Shewa, but as a new route was opened between Tadjoura and Shewa, Zeila declined further.
From about 1821 to 1841,
Muhammad Ali, Pasha of
Egypt came to control Yemen and the
sahil with Zeila included. Local merchants like
Haj Ali Shermerki and Abu Bakr were made rulers of Zeila by the Egyptians in return for a small tribute, but in 1885 Zeila and its eastern neighbor
Berbera were annexed into
British Somaliland.
The construction of a railway from
Djibouti to
Addis Ababa in the late 19th century continued the decline of Zeila. At the beginning of the next century Zeila was described in the
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica as having a "good sheltered
anchorage much frequented by
Arab sailing craft." However, heavy draught steamers are obliged to anchor a mile and a half from the shore. Small coasting boats lie off the pier and there's no difficulty in loading or discharging cargo. The water supply of the town is drawn from the wells of
Takosha, about three miles distant; every morning camels, in charge of old Somali women and bearing goatskins filled with water, come into the town in picturesque procession. ... [Zeila's] imports, which reach Zaila chiefly via Aden, are mainly
cotton goods,
rice,
jowaree,
dates and
silk; the exports, 90% of which are from Abyssinia, are principally
coffee, skins,
ivory,
cattle,
ghee and
mother-of-pearl.
Modern times
Since the war, Zeila has been bombed frequently and nearly all the buildings were either demolished or semi-demolished. Residents fled the town and emigrated to neighbouring countries such as
Djibouti. Remittance money sent from overseas relatives contributed tremendously in the reconstruction of the town as well as the trade and fishing industry.
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