The Hiraab Imamate (), also known as the Yacquubi Dynasty, was a Somali kingdom that ruled parts of the Horn of Africa during the 16th century till the 19th century until it was incorporated into Italian Somaliland. The Imamate was governed by the Hiraab Yacquub Dynasty. It was founded by Imam Omar who successfully rebelled against and defeated the Ajuran Sultanate, later establishing an independent kingdom.
History Establishment
The Hiraab Imamate was the successor state of the Ajuran Sultanate. The reason for their rebellion was the Ajuran rulers, in the end, became extremely prideful, neglected the sharia and imposed a heavy taxation on their subjects which was the main reason for the rebellion.
The first clan to ever challenge the Ajuuraan rulers was the Darandoolle clan a section of Hiraab. The Ajuuraan had decreed: “At the wells in our territory, the people known as Darandoolle and the other Hiraab cannot water their herds by day, but only at night.” … Then all the Darandoolle gathered in one place. The leaders decided to make war on the Ajuuraan. They found the imam of the Ajuuraan seated on a rock near a well called Ceel Cawl. They killed him with a sword. As they struck him with the sword, they split his body together with the rock on which he was seated. He died immediately and the Ajuuraan migrated out of the country. In another variation of the story, a young Darandoolle warrior was born with a gold ring on his finger, a sign of his future preeminence. The Darandoolle then rallied around their young leader, who eventually assumed the title of Imam of the Hiraab and took up residence in Muqdisho.
After the successful rebellion of the Darandoolle, other clans began to challenge the Ajuuraan hegemony. Along the upper and middle reaches of the Shabelle valley, the pastoral Gaaljecel, Baadicade and Xawaadle waged several unsuccessful campaigns before they eventually united to drive the Ajuuraan out of the area. The Habar Gidir and Duduble also drove the Ajuuraan out of Galgaduud and Mudug provinces after a hard-fought battle.
By 1700, the Hiraab and other clans occupied a large territory stretching the interior from the Shabelle valley to the arid lands of Mudug and to the coastal areas of Mogadishu towards Hobyo. After the immediate fall of the Ajuuraan, the Hiraab established an independent rule for at least two centuries.
Called Regno di Magadozo or the Kingdom of Magadoxo in official medieval bulletins, at their peak the Yacquub Imams would go on to dominate what became Greater Benadir.
"Magadoxa extends from Cape Bassas to the equator; its limits inland have not been ascertained. The prince having succeeded in maintaining his independence, and repelled all European intercourse, allows the country to be very little unknown."
European incursion
One of its first tests of strength was to defend Mogadishu in 1701 against a French Incursion of Mogadishu which saw seven ships dock at a nearby harbour and stay for 11 days. They had planned to take the city but they were successfully repulsed. The quarters of Hamarweyn and Shingani united in the face of this threat. This was reported by Sharif Aydurus in his 20th-century book the Bughyat Al-Amal Fi Tarikh Al-Sumal.
According to the Encyclopedia of Geography, in the year 1707, the British Royal Naval Warship H.M.S. Albemarle sent an armed boat on shore, but it was detained and never recovered; and a party from Captain W. Owen's vessel were imprisoned. This would mark almost two centuries until the Imperial forces return to East Africa.
Decline and civil war
By 1870, the Imamate had declined internally which was the main reason for decentralization. In a detailed event recorded by Italy, after the death of the 9th Imam Mohamed Ahmed in 1843, the succession to become the next Imam caused a serious dispute and a near full-scale civil war. The Imam had left seven sons, which saw one of them, Ali Mohamed, usurp the remaining six and kill the senior Mahmud Mohamed in his house in the Hamaruein quarter of the city. They would eventually split the rulership with a coastal power headquartered in Adale from the first line of descent (Sultan Abikar or Abubaker) and an inland power based at the Mahaday river (Sultan Otoman) with the elder Imam family (Imam Mahmud) in Mogadishu both from the second line of descent. "Ali Mohamed's sons, Sciaeb, Abdurahman, Mahmud and Mahadalle waged war against their cousins Abdurahman, Achmed, and Ali. Abdurahman and Mahmud remained dead and left behind three sons, Hamir, Ali, and Omar. Following these massacres, the Somali people seriously consulted for the appointment of the Imam. Two parties were in antagonism: those wanting as Imam the sons of Ali Mohamed, those for the sons of Mahmud Mohamed. The dispute was very fierce, so much so that for this election there was a great war between the tribes, where, it is said, about five hundred people were killed on both sides"
"It was finally entrusted to the Abgal tribe, called Omar Egalle, to propose peace, offering to settle the deal for the election of the Imam. In fact, they worked hard to quell the tumultuous parties, failing to quell them in part if not within the definitive division of the territory: assigning the stretch of the coast from Ras Elhur to the environs of Merka under the protection of the sons of Ali Mohamed, and starting from Uarsciek for the interior, under the protection of the sons of Mahmud Mohamed. These thus came to occupy a territory parallel to the former, but more inland"
The Imamate also began to face challenges from increasing European design, the Sultan of Zanzibar from the coast, the Geledi Sultanate and the Hobyo Sultanate from both directions.
Colonial era Since the British-sponsored bombing of Mogadishu Port in 1828 by Oman for refusing protection, the Hiraab Imamate fought for decades to maintain a sphere of influence impending the arrival of European Powers and their regional allies in Zanzibar and Egypt.
In exchange for support over conflict in Kismayo, Barawa and Merca against Hiraab clans of the hinterland such as the Abgaal, Wacdaan and Sheekhaal, Sultan Barghash of Zanzibar, who had been greatly indebted to Britain, had requested the Sultanate of Geledi in the early 1870s to interpose his good offices and marriage ties with one of the factions of the Imamate for a trade garrison between them all, though initially rejected by the other Imamate faction but faced with a trade injunction in Afgoye and Bulo Marerto, acquiesed with setting up an office near the Old City while some of the tribute went to the Imamate such as Malaakh Hassan Geedi Abtow the Malaakh of Xamar and Xamar daye who surrounded the numerous roads into the city.
The decline of the Hiraab Imamate saw many clans begin to break off from the state and establish their own states, leading to its fragmentation and the most prominent one being the Hawadle ruling the Hiran region. The Hiraab Imamate, by the time of the Berlin Conference, was now a traditional polity that exclusively governed parts of the Hiraab clan territories, mainly the capital Mogadishu.Somali Sultanate: The Geledi City-state Over 150 Years - Virginia Luling (2002) Page 94
Soon after Britain set up a colony in Aden (South Yemen) in 1839, the Imamate's northern border areas of Hobyo were targeted in British and French ambitions to control the Somali coast closer to Aden and more directly rather than using the nominal offices of Zanzibar.
As one of the very first acts signifying the start of foreign Colonialism in Somalia in 1884 with British patronage, they used the chief of Alula in the Bari region, Yusuf Ali Kenadid, to their advantage who, at the time of the 1884 Berlin Conference earlier in the year, was in conflict with his cousin-ruler over Alula, so a case was made to set up a new base in Hobyo with the help of British Colonial Yemeni musketeer fighters enlisted to satisfy all the parties.
"With Britain's backing, Yusuf obtained Barghash's approval to create a new port near the mouth of the Wadi Nugaal. Under pressure from Britain, Barghash agreed to acquiesce in Yusuf's proposals to establish a rival Majeerteen state to the south of Cape Guardafui. Barghash, for his part, asserted that he would retain all the income and duties derived from his expanded coastline, stating that Yusuf was 'leasing' the coast to 'watch over' Zanzibari interests. In the few feverish weeks of international scheming in Aden with the British, French and Sultan Barghash, this had been predicated not out of a mutual interest but on power politics, aggression and British imperial control."
An early European traveller, Elisée Reclus at the Consulate in Zanzibar, describes the German political events of Hobyo - where the British first planned to govern North East Somalia from, until the German offices in Zanzibar entered negotiations at the time on the conflict-prone historical clan boundaries of the Hiraab Imamate and the Majerteen Sultanate - in several French, German and English scientific journals. The Germans similarly sought a treaty to govern Berbera to Hobyo.
Some treaty concludes with the sultan of Opia, an obscure princelet now put forward as the "chief of all of the Somali people", his very existence is unknown to the vast majority of the nation, as is theirs to him. This village, or rather camping-ground of Opia, which has thus been suddenly promoted to the dignity of capital, is situated on a headland between the territory of the Hawiyas and that of the Mijertin tribe. But even diplomatists will never be able to make it the center of any large population, for the surrounding country is a waterless steppe, while the neighbouring seaboard is absolutely destitute of harbours
Hiraab-Italy relations and Sultan Abiker
The Horn of Africa had been partitioned following the Berlin Conference in 1884, and after up to five years of local Hiraab clans blockading Merca to Ras Elhur and Hobyo in repelling the European influence, the Italians in observation of other powers had made several attempts to trail warships along the coast of Banadir, in early 1889 lifting the sieges through negotiations to re-open trade, lobbying voting bids against other European powers and by the dedicated offices of the Italian Consul General in Zanzibar and Fervent Imperial Explorer of East Africa, Antonio Cecchi who was later killed in Lafole in 1896 after seeking potential allies amongst the 1889-Italian possessions retitled the "Afgoi territory", "Obbia territory" and "Migiurtinia region" against the Ethiopian Empire fighting in Adwa before some of the local chiefs were later pensioned off in 1908 and 1925–1927, respectively. Though some of the several chiefs of those regions or territories had long conspired or requested Italian protection several months or years earlier, Sultan Abiker Ali Jacub, representing the Imamate's coastal faction and descendants of Imam Ali Mohamed, ruled the lands from Jazeera to Ceel Huur with his capital in Cadale. Sultan Abiker signed the first Somali-Italian treaty of friendship and commerce on 7 January 1889. Attempting to achieve a favourable recognition with the new Colonial Power under its first Governor Captain Vincenzo Filonardi, Italy endeavored to make Cadale the first Capital of its Colony.
While Sultan Abiker was returning to Cadale he was killed shortly thereafter by his own clan, for what was deemed betrayal. He was replaced politically by Sheikh Daud Abgaal of the principality of Mareeg.
Questi riferiva che Abubaker, Sultano di Itala e a buon amico dell'Italia, era stato ucciso a tradimento ai primi di marzo da alcuni somali della sua stessa tribù (Abgal) a poche ore di distanza dalla stazione di Itala.
"He reported that Abubaker, Sultan of Itala and a good friend of Italy, had been killed treasonously in early March by some Somalis of his own tribe (Abgal) a few hours away from the Itala station"
Massacre of Warsheikh