Harar
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Harar ሐረር |
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 Harar Yugol |
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| State : |
 Ethiopia
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| Region : | Harar | ||
| Founded : | 1007 | ||
| Coordinates : | 9 ° 19 ′ N , 42 ° 8 ′ E | ||
| Height : | 1,885 meters above sea level | ||
| Residents : | 133,000 (2016) | ||
| Time zone : | EAT (UTC + 3) | ||
| Telephone code : | (+251) 25 | ||
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Harar (also Harrar ; Amharic ሐረር Hāreri ) is a city in eastern Ethiopia . Since 1995 it has been the capital of the ethnically defined Harar region of the same name ; before that, since its incorporation into the Ethiopian Empire in 1887, it was the capital of Harerge province for most of the time .
The city is located at an altitude of about 1850 meters in the Ahmar Mountains, an eastern branch of the Ethiopian highlands, 45 kilometers south of the city of Dire Dawa . A road leads in many serpentines up from there to Harar and further east via Jijiga (80 kilometers from Harar) towards Somaliland or into the southern part of the Somali region of Ethiopia. The nearest airports are in Dire Dawa and Jijiga.
The 1994 census indicated 76,378 inhabitants. According to official estimates for 2016, there are 133,000 inhabitants in the city of Harar and 240,000 in the Harar region.
The Islamic city, the fourth holiest for Ethiopian Muslims - after Mecca , Medina and Jerusalem - was nicknamed " Timbuktu of the East" by earlier European travelers . In 2006 the old town, surrounded by a fortress wall, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In 2007 the city celebrated its 1000th anniversary.
history
A city that has produced so many saints who are still venerated today can be founded according to a legend: Between the 7th and 9th centuries, seven settlements in the vicinity ended their disputes and founded a new center called Harar.
Even before the actual hijra , according to Ethiopian sources, the first followers of Muhammad arrived in 615 as refugees from Mecca with the ruler of the Aksumite empire and received the right to stay. In general, Islam spread to the hinterland through Arab traders on the East African coast from the 9th and 10th centuries. The first Islamic Sultanate of Shewa was founded in 896, its center was, according to recent localizations, halfway up the eastern edge of the central highlands of Ethiopia, from where it controlled at least the trade routes in the lowlands to the ports on the Red Sea . From the 11th century, other sultanates established themselves in the Horn of Africa . Although they were able to expand their power along the Somali coast, they were not always able to defend it in the numerous bitter battles with the Ethiopian highlands in the west.
The oldest historical princes of the Harari clans from 1285 belonged to the Walashma dynasty , which Shewa militarily conquered and united the entire area up to the port of Zeila to the Sultanate Ifat . Since this time and for the following Sultanate of Adal from 1364 with its (at least regional) capital Dakar near Harar, a ruler's chronology has existed. Some of these rulers had to retreat to the Arabian Peninsula during Christian domination, since the conquests of the Amharic Negus Amda Seyon I (1314-1344). The 15th century was marked by wars to regain power - Dakar was burned down once - and campaigns of conquest as far as the Amharic highlands. Eventually a civil war broke out between two rival clans at the beginning of the 16th century. Sultan Abu Bakr of the ruling Walashma dynasty moved the capital from Dakar to Harar in 1520 while the unrest continued.
Five years later he was murdered by a youth insurgent named Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghasi . He managed to unite the peoples of the Sultanate of Adal behind him and in 1527 to start an unprecedented jihad (holy war) against the Christian emperors of Ethiopia. As Ahmed Grañ (the "left-handed", 1525-1543) he was able to bring the entire Abyssinian heartland under his rule until 1535. Only with Portuguese help was Emperor Gelawdewos (1540–1559) able to defeat Grañ and his troops on the battlefield . After Grañ's death, the weakened city was attacked from several sides, by Gelawdewos and regularly by Oromo , which is why Nur ibn al-Wazir Mujahid (1551–1567), the nephew and successor of Ahmed Grañ, the city of a four Meter high wall.
After the end of the Walashma dynasty, Harar remained a small, strictly Islamic city-state during the Dawudi dynasty from 1647 to 1875 and was able to maintain its independence as an important trading center. The library of the last Dawud Emir Muhumed bin Ali (ruled 1856–1875) consisted mostly of texts from the Shāfiʿite school of law (Koran comments, hadith collections and verses in praise of the Prophet). Harar remained closed to Europeans during this time and cemented its reputation as a holy city. Only Egyptians who wanted to found an East African state ruled the city from 1875 for the following ten years and ended the dynasty and isolation. After 1885, Emir Abdullahi ruled the city for two years.
Harar as part of Ethiopia
In 1887, Emir Abdullahi was defeated by Menelik of Shewa before his coronation as emperor. This made Harar part of Ethiopia. Ras Makonnen , Menelik's cousin and father of the future emperor Haile Selassie , became the province's first governor. In the following decades, the lowland areas to the east of the city, inhabited by Somali nomads , were also subdued and incorporated into the new province of Harerge (Hararghe).
Italy, which was pursuing colonial interests in the Horn of Africa at the end of the 19th century, was initially prevented from conquering Ethiopia by two severe defeats in 1887 and 1896 . It was not until the Italian-Ethiopian War from 1935 that the country was conquered by Mussolini's troops. The offensive on Harar took place in April 1936. During the brief Italian occupation , Arabic became the official language of Harar, the pilgrimage to Mecca was made easier for collaborating Muslims and they were allowed to proselytize Christian Oromo. In the spring of 1941, the Italian fascists were driven out by an offensive led by British troops.
Somalia and Somali nationalists claimed Harar as part of the Ogaden region and greater Somalia, respectively . In the Ogaden War (1977–1978), the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF) and the Somali Army (SNA) were about to conquer Harar, which was defended with Soviet and Cuban help. In November 1977 the Somali fighters had advanced to the outskirts and remained there until the counter-offensive in February 1978, in which they were defeated after fierce fighting in the mountains south of the Marda Pass (between Harar and Jijiga). The Somali commander in charge had received orders to destroy the city as much as possible when retreating, but refused to do so as a devout Muslim.
After the fall of the Mengistu regime and the rise of the EPRDF to power in 1991, the administrative structure of Ethiopia was reorganized according to ethnic criteria, and instead of the historical provinces, the largest ethnic groups were given their own regions or states. The new regions of Oromia and Somali both claimed Harar. However, the city initially received the status of an independent city , in 1995 it became, together with its surrounding area, a regional state with the Harari as the titular nation .
society
To put it simply, Harari (Aderi) traditionally live in the old town within the city walls , who trade with Oromo outside of the city . Attitudes towards Europeans have changed: while Richard Burton was the first western foreigner to enter the city through the Erer Gate in 1856 only thanks to Arabic clothing and language skills, the reputation as a forbidden holy city is now used aggressively to promote tourism.
The long- established Harari speak the Ethio-Semitic language Harari . They thus form a Semitic language island within an otherwise Kushitic-speaking area. Today they are a minority compared to Amharen , Oromo , Somali , Gurage and the few Afar . According to the Central Statistics Agency of Ethiopia for 2007, of the 99,321 city dwellers in the Harar region, 40.55% are Amharen, 28.13% Oromo, 11.83% Harari, 7.49% Gurage and 6.82% Somali.
With the exception of Orthodox Amhars and a few Catholics, the inhabitants are predominantly Muslim. Many of the Oromo who settled in the area were Islamized during the ten years of Egyptian rule. Islam found dissemination in Harar in a mystical form through Sufi brotherhoods. At the end of the 15th century, Sheikh Abu Bakr ibn `Abd Allah al-`Aidarous († 1509) introduced the Qadiriyya order and won - at the same time as in the East African port cities - most of the supporters. The numerous shrines of local saints are a visible sign of the Sufi orders in the cityscape. Nevertheless, a purist Islam was also spread in North Africa from the Middle Ages. The disputes between the two directions were reflected in Harar in the 20th century in a dispute between two religious leaders: The Wahhabi businessman and politician Yusuf Abdulrahman came into confrontation with the mystically oriented counter-movement of Sheikh Abdullah al-Harari . The former fled to Saudi Arabia when the Derg came to power in 1974 and from there exercised political influence on Harar. Sheikh Abdullah was expelled in 1948 and founded the missionary group of Habashiyya ("Ethiopians") in Lebanon .
Cityscape
| Fortified old town of Harar Jugol | |
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UNESCO world heritage 
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| city wall |
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| National territory: |
Ethiopia
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| Type: | Culture |
| Criteria : | ii, iii, iv, v |
| Surface: | 48 ha |
| Reference No .: | 1189 |
| UNESCO region : | Africa |
| History of enrollment | |
| Enrollment: | 2006 (session 30) |
From a nearby hill you can see how the 3300 meter long medieval city wall surrounds the old town. Inside lies an area of 48 hectares with dense buildings and narrow streets. Originally there were five city gates, from which streets led to the central square, the horse market (Faraz Megala) . Two more gates were added at the end of the 19th century. The main street from the new town through the Shoah Gate reaches the circular square, today named after Ras Makonnen, with the octagonal Orthodox Medhane Alam church from the end of the 19th century and the military academy founded by Haile Selassie opposite.
The number of mosques is given with the same determination as 82, 87 or 99. There are also numerous shrines, also outside the city walls. Inside are and should be mentioned: the Friday mosque with two white minarets from the 17th century, the Roman Catholic Church around 1900, at the central market the house of the first governor Ras Makonnen and at the same time the birthplace of Haile Selassie. A little above in a restored wooden house from the end of the 19th century is the museum for Arthur Rimbaud , who lived in the city for some time from 1881 to 1890.
The shrines (Arabic Qubbas ) can usually be recognized by a white dome, a fence or a tree. Most of them are looked after , but only once a year on a pilgrimage (birthday celebration: Mawlid, Mausim ), which replaces the pilgrimage to Mecca for the majority of the population , with hymns of praise, meat eating and ritual demonstrations. If supplication is to be helpful, it requires small offerings.
When the city was included in the list as a World Heritage Site , UNESCO recognized not only the monuments but also the unique quality of the residential buildings, which emerged from a mixture of traditional Muslim structures and the houses of Indian immigrants from the late 19th century.
About 20 km southeast of the city is the village of Bisidimo , a development aid project (leprosy treatment center), which consists of the hospital with additional buildings and apartments for the employees.
economy
On the fertile red-earth soils of the highlands, coffee , kath and bananas are grown for export, sometimes on irrigated terraced crops. More than half of Ethiopia's export income comes from coffee; Harar is one of the country's three main growing regions.
The city lost its status as an important trading center for caravans when the first section of the French railway line from the port city of Djibouti to Addis Ababa to Dire Dawa was completed in 1902 , and foreign trade no longer, as before, via Harar and the ports of Zeila or Berbera was settled.
The markets are economically relevant, including a large cattle market outside the city, a beer factory from 1984 and, in the beginning, tourism. Harar is famous for its silversmiths and the elaborate basket weaving work done by women.
literature
- Richard Burton : Burton's travels to Medina and Mecca and Somaliland and Härrär in East Africa. Modifications made by Karl Andree . Costenoble, Leipzig 1861, digitized .
- Patrick Desplat: Muslims in Harar - The veneration of saints in Harar in conflict with Islamic reform currents. In: Afrika Spectrum, Vol. 37, No. 2, 2002, pp. 141-157
- Abdurahman Garad: Harar. Economic history of an emirate in the Horn of Africa (1825–75) (= European university publications . Series 3: History and its auxiliary sciences. Vol. 426). Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1990, ISBN 3-631-42492-2 (dissertation, University of Gießen, 1989).
- Elisabeth-Dorothea Hecht: The traditional women’s associations (Afōča) of the Harari in Harar and in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (= Marburg studies on African and Asian studies. Series A: Africa. Vol. 30). Reimer, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-496-02499-2 .
- Philippe Revault, Serge Santelli (Ed.): Harar. A Muslim City of Ethiopia. = Une cité musulmane d'Ethiopie (= Collection Architecture et société. ). Maisonneuve & Larose, Paris 2004, ISBN 2-7068-1875-1 .
- Fritz Stuber : Harar in Ethiopia - hopelessness and chances of preserving the city. In: The old city. Quarterly magazine for urban history, urban sociology, monument preservation and urban development. Vol. 28, No. 4, 2001, ISSN 0170-9364 , pp. 324-343.
- Ewald Wagner: Harar. Annotated bibliography on the literature about the city and Islam in Southeast Ethiopia (= Ethiopian research. Vol. 61). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2003, ISBN 3-447-04742-9 .
Web links
- Entry on the UNESCO World Heritage Center website ( English and French ).
- Ferhan Idres: Kings and Queens of Harar. memphishararicommunity.org
- digilander.libero.it Plan for the urban redesign of Harar by the Italian occupying forces in 1936
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Population Projection of Ethiopia from all Regions at Wereda Level for 2014-2017. ( Memento of October 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Central Statistics Agency of Ethiopia, August 2013
- ^ Ethiopia: Archeologists discover three medieval towns . Center nationale de la recherche scientifique, 23 March 2007
- ↑ About one kilometer southeast of Harar, according to: Ulrich Braukämper : Islamic History and Culture in Southern Ethiopia. Collected Essays (= Göttingen Studies on Ethnology. Volume 9). 2nd Edition. Lit, Münster u. a. 2004, ISBN 3-8258-5671-2 , p. 114.
- ↑ Alex De Waal: Evil Days. 30 Years of War and Famine in Ethiopia. Human Rights Watch, New York NY et al. a. 1991, ISBN 1-56432-038-3 , p. 76.
- ↑ The holy city opens its thick walls.
- ↑ Summary and Statistical Report of the 2007 Population and Housing Census Results . ( Memento of March 5, 2009 in the Internet Archive ; PDF; 4.7 MB) Central Statistics Agency , pp. 102-104
- ↑ Patrick Desplat:Ethiopia - Diaspora in the Horn of Africa. In: Information Project Near and Middle East. INAMO. Reports & analyzes on politics and society in the Near and Middle East. Volume 11, No. 41, 2005, pp. 4–8, Chapter: Case study Harar , ISSN 0946-0721 .
Cultural heritage: rock-hewn churches of Lalibela (1978) | Fasil Ghebbi in the Gondar region (1979) | Lower Awash Valley (1980) | Tiya (1980) | Aksum (1980) | Lower Omo Valley (1980) | Harar Jugol (2006) | Cultural landscape of the Konso (2011)
Natural heritage: Simien National Park (1978)