Richard Burton on Gadabuursi Issas Isaaq and Daarood origins

The old and pagan genealogies still known to the Somal, are Dirr, Aydur, Darud, and, according to some, Hawiyah. Dirr and Aydur, of whom nothing is certainly known but the name10, are the progenitors of the northern Somal, the Eesa, Gudabirsi, Ishak, and Bursuk tribes. Darud Jabarti 11 bin Ismail bin Akil (or Ukayl) is supposed by his descendants to have been a noble Arab from El Hejaz, who, obliged to flee his country, was wrecked on the north-east coast of Africa, where he married a daughter of the Hawiyah tribe: rival races declare him to have been a Galla slave, who, stealing the Prophet’s slippers12, was dismissed with the words, Inna-tarad-na-hu (verily we have rejected him): hence his name Tarud ([Arabic]) or Darud, the Rejected.13 The etymological part of the story is, doubtless, fabulous; it expresses, however, the popular belief that the founder of the eastward or windward tribes, now extending over the seaboard from Bunder Jedid to Ras Hafun, and southward from the sea to the Webbes14, was a man of ignoble origin. The children of Darud are now divided into two great bodies: “Harti” is the family name of the Dulbahanta, Ogadayn, Warsangali and Mijjarthayn, who call themselves sons of Harti bin Kombo bin Kabl Ullah bin Darud: the other Darud tribes not included under that appellation are the Girhi, Berteri, Marayhan, and Bahabr Ali. The Hawiyah are doubtless of ancient and pagan origin; they call all Somal except themselves Hashiyah, and thus claim to be equivalent to the rest of the nation. Some attempt, as usual, to establish a holy origin, deriving themselves like the Shaykhash from the Caliph Abubekr: the antiquity, and consequently the Pagan origin of the Hawiyah are proved by its present widely scattered state; it is a powerful tribe in the Mijjarthayn country, and yet is found in the hills of Harar.

The Somal, therefore, by their own traditions, as well as their strongly marked physical peculiarities, their customs, and their geographical position, may be determined to be a half-caste tribe, an offshoot of the great Galla race, approximated, like the originally Negro-Egyptian, to the Caucasian type by a steady influx of pure Asiatic blood.


10 Lieut. Cruttenden applies the term Edoor (Aydur) to the descendants of Ishak, the children of Gerhajis, Awal, and Jailah. His informants and mine differ, therefore, toto coelo. According to some, Dirr was the father of Aydur; others make Dirr (it has been written Tir and Durr) to have been the name of the Galla family into which Shaykh Ishak married.


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• At the beginning of August, the Habar Yonis selected a fifteen member committee dominated by Abdi
Hamud lineage to start negotiations with the Gaheyle at Yubbe. A Warsangeli emissary was sent toconvey the move to Gaheyle who

"adaree" or hadaari in arabic means simply "city people".


Baha Samaron is composed of Baha which means amalgamated groups, and Samaron which corresponds to the clan name of the Gadabursi people in the north-west. Although the etymology of the word Gadabursi is uncertain, Samaron is the name of the ancestor of the Gadabursi clan whose tomb is located at Gudma Biyaas in Erigavo. Thus, the Baha Samaron alliance is constituted of lineages descended from the major Gadabursi sub-clans. They are:
Bahabar Aden and Bahabar Abokor lineages (both are Mahad Ase sub-clan), Bahabar Abdalla (Makahil sub-clan) and Dhagaweyne (Habar Afan




Le sang et le lait
By Christian Bader