Etymology and Genesis of the Hawiye
The Hawiye is the first Somali clan mentioned in recorded history. Going as far back as 1150AD or the 12th century, they were said to be an important Muslim Population that inhabit from Merca to Ras Hafun and along the “Nile of Mogadishu” (Webi Shabelle). Merca is particularly pointed out as the “Capital of Hawiye country” with over 50 settlements. Over the course of each and every century since 1150AD, the Hawiye are mentioned sporadically by famous travellers, cartographers and geographers such as Al Idrisi, Ibn Said, Al Dimashqi, Shams Al Din and Yaqut Al Hamawi. Until the advent of Adal and the peak of the Ajuran in the 16th century, figures like Al Dimashqi and Ibn Said would confirm and corroborate what had been written in 1150AD, giving strength to a case of long term settlement pattern and minimal migration or change in political scope.
In the 13th century
And Zaidite soldiers to live in and work in refuge
According to some traditions - Hawiye, the first son of Irir, the son of Samaale - was a revered saint named “Ahmed” and buried in Qundhudo/Qundhuro (Mount Kundudo) of the Harar region in Ethiopia. These same traditions mention a “Xaawiyal culuum” meaning the master of islamic sciences as the nickname of this saint. Hawiye and Samaale are linguistic changes from its arabic version using what is considered ‘old Somali’ where maay and maxaatiri converge -i.e Gaaljecel, Abgaal, Isaaq, Gaalkacyo, Hawiye, Samaale etc. Hawiye is said to be the older brother of Aji Irir whose descendants, the Dir, settle together in many parts of the country, converging in Ethiopia their ancestral grounds.
Mount Kundudo, Ethiopia
Their grandfather Samaale, who first arrived on the Red Sea, had left them in Ethiopia and migrated further south to be buried in Yurkud, Luuq district of Gedo, where other Samaale clans had started to develop economy, grow and expand east and west of the Juba river to thus which all became known as the Somali peninsula.
Of a more populised geopolitical, linguistic and scientific tradition, W. W. Müller, in the 1992 Anchor Bible Dictionary, holds that the "Havilah" of Genesis must refer to a region in southwest Arabia. He locates the reference to a "Havilah" in Genesis 25:18 as referring to a southern Arabian location.
The Havilah, or the Avalite sons of Eber or Cush in Genesis 10:7, represent an early community of Afro Arabian Cushites who had once colonized Arabia. The Somali DNA is therefore said to be Semitic in origin and Afro Asiatic in speech. Their progeny, the Macrobians, were also the proto-Somali Hawiye cultural ancestors in the Horn of Africa, known for their meat with milk diet, nomadic athleticism and maritime trade history. After establishing the first port named after the Avalites in the odern day Djibouti-Zeila area the Macrobians went on to establish the famous Barbaroi city states of Malao, Mundus, Mosylon, Opone, Serapion, Essina and Toniki. They had formed several kingdoms throughout history such as the kingdoms of Barbaristan (Barbaria) and Punt. The Gulf of Barbar (Gulf of Aden) and the Sinus Barbaricus (Barbarian Sea i.e the Indian Ocean) which appear in historical writings and maps are a strong indication of the regional make-up. According to some historians, Barbaria was a local name the Somalis went by, as oppose to being a Greek/Arab or Western/Eastern term. “Barbaarta” in Somali meaning “Men of Age” to signify one reaching puberty with fully responsible male priviledges.
The Somali Hawiye had long been protected by God in their presence in the Horn by the strong ocean currents against Aryan races of the Far North and by the highlands of the Rift Valley starting from the Danakil Depression (Djibouti-Eritrea zone) where the Valley ends in Kenya and it’s shores against ancient Hamitic Nilote races beyond the mountains in the Deep South or Central/South West.
It is by God’s will and intellect granted to Somali Hawiye that they be protected as a civilisation to survive and gain protection away from the conquerors from the high seas of the East and the high mountains of the West that they had also survived onslaughts of many ancient world powers including the Greeks under Alexander the Great and the Persians under Cyrus the Elder largely thanks to an inconquerable and dangerous Indian Ocean. It is believed here the etymology and linguistic meaning of Hawiye in the Somali language dates back to the Avalites their ancient relatives 5000 years before present. As neighbours of the Axumites (the Amhara-Tigray Habesha) and Adulis (Anfar), they went to become the medieval Moors who dominated the Indian Ocean and Red Sea including Madagascar (Malagasay/Temur), Mozambique (Sofala), the Maldives and beyond to the far lands beyond Burma, establishing ancient towns in Yemen such as Al Luhayyah. Centuries later they would go on to establish or support Ifat, Adel, Magadazo, Bale, Dawaro, Harar and Opone (Ras Hafun). Somalia, the homeland of Hawiye, is often called the “Centre of World Trade”. It is therefore important to note that Hawiye and the Somalis in general have affinities with many regional historical empires due to the silk trade route and being closer to the “Centre of the World” or the “Known World” of antiquity, such as Macrobia, Land of Punt, the Sabeans and the Kingdom of Kush.
This is correlated by facts from the historical Tafsir Ibn Kathir and Tabari. Two of the most reputable scholarly works on historical Islam and the synopsis of Messengers and Kings. It goes without saying we follow the Islamic text where it conflicts with earlier books that had long been corrupted and mismanaged by deviant rabbis or priests who dispute some of the geneaologies of the sons of Noah. The Sons of Sem — a bronze coloured lineage of scriptures, nomads and Messengers, had settled in the Middle of the Earth and long faced danger of persecution from “gentiles” such as the Romans and Persians. It was also prophecised these Japeth line of empires would dominate much of the “civilised world” towards the end of times, a notation that can be seen from their origin as fishermen and metal workers who had conquered the high seas. It had also been the practice for Prophets and Messengers to be sent to tyrants and rulers from their fellow lineages — masking off the need for future critics to discredit these men as bigots, racists or conquerors. This has been the case for Abraham and Nimrod as well as Moses and Pharoah. The further evidence is the deep narrative of these events which shows an evident lack of classism/racism against these Messengers who preached to them. See below.
According to a collection of field reports gathered by the Italian Geographical Society in 1893, these many legends are told in folklore such as below¹.
The Somalis of the South, like those of the North, belong to the cross-Semitic type, resulting from the very ancient mixture of Semitic blood with Aryan, a dark-colored and non-black race, and indeed have notable anthropological affinities with the brown European types of the Mediterranean basin . Oval face, slightly wavy or straight hair, never woolly, long and arched nose, vertical teeth, thin lips, large and wide open eyes, slender figure, delicate extremities, a combination of statuesque elegance and harmonious majesty. In the interior and on the Uebi they form a very intricate ethnic mixture from black to their copper-red color, sometimes pushed to the color of rhubarb. I will not relate here their different traditions and the many contradictions in the legends regarding their origin.
In general however, belief prevails among them, and indeed they are keen to call themselves descendants of a certain Samale (Hauija) and to have come from the East, that is, from Arabia. And such they show themselves anthropologically, being able to be considered as a graft of Arabs from Yemen, especially mixed with the Galla (Oromo), or more precisely as the perennial hybridism of these peoples and of the red type represented by the ancient Himiarites of the Strait of Bab - el - Mandeb and the ancient Egyptians.
Bibliography
- Bollettino della Società geografica italiana. 1893. p. 370
