Zeila
| Saylac زيلع Zeila |
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| Coordinates | 11 ° 21 ′ N , 43 ° 28 ′ E | ||
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| Country | Somalia | ||
also claimed by Somaliland
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| Awdal | |||
| ISO 3166-2 | SO-AW | ||
| Residents | 4500 (calculated 2012) | ||
 Ruins in Zeila
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Zeila (Somali spelling: Saylac ) is a town in the north of Somalia , near the border with Djibouti in the region Awdal , It lies on the Gulf of Aden and has about 4500 inhabitants.
Zeila is known for the islands ( Zeila Islands ), coral reefs and mangroves off its coast. On land it is surrounded by desert. The limited availability of drinking water historically prevented a stronger growth of the place.
history
In ancient times , Zeila was associated with the "city of the Alawites". It appears under his own name for the first time in 891 in the work of the Arab geographer al-Yaʿqūbī . Also, Al-Masudi and Ibn Hawqal mention the location. The latter describes it as a port where you can embark from Ethiopia to Yemen and the Hejaz . The importance of Zeila as a trading center is confirmed by al-Idrisi and Ibn Said, who describe it as a slave trading center under Ethiopian control. The traveler Ibn Battūta visited Zeila in 1329, but was not taken with the place.
Zeila was the capital of the Sultanate of Adal .
In the 16th century, Zeila was attacked by the Portuguese in 1517 and 1528 . Raids by Somali nomads caused the ruler Garad Lado to have a wall built around it. It later lost its importance and became the property of the Yemeni city of Mocha . In 1875, Egypt acquired the city from the Ottoman Empire , but in 1885, together with Berbera further east, it became part of the colony of British Somaliland , which united with Italian Somaliland to form what is now Somalia in 1960 .
The civil war that lasted in the region until 1996 resulted in the destruction of numerous buildings in Zeila and the flight of many of its residents to neighboring Djibouti. Since the de facto autonomous Somaliland proclaimed its - internationally not recognized - independence in 1991, the situation has become more stable, so that many have returned. With the help of money transfers from Somalis living abroad, Zeila was rebuilt. There are also plans to restore the historical sites in Zeila and use them for tourism.
sons and daughters of the town
- Hassan Sheikh Mumin (1931–2008), poet and playwright
literature
- Richard Pankhurst, History of Ethiopian Towns. From the Middle Ages to the Early Nineteenth Century , Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden, 1982, ISBN 3-515-03204-5
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ bevölkerungsstatistik.de (2012 calculation)