Mogadishu, Somalia

Mogadishu, Somalia

Mogadishu is the capital and most populous city of Somalia. It is located in the coastal Banadir region on the Indian Ocean. Unlike other Somali regions, it is considered a municipality rather than a maamulgoboleed. The city is the nearest foreign mainland city to Seychelles, at a distance of 835mi over the Indian ocean.

About Mogadishu, Somalia in brief

Summary Mogadishu, SomaliaMogadishu is the capital and most populous city of Somalia. It is located in the coastal Banadir region on the Indian Ocean. Unlike other Somali regions, it is considered a municipality rather than a maamulgoboleed. The city has served as an important port connecting with traders for millennia. It was the capital of an influential Sultanate in the 9th century. It came under the Ajuran Empire in the 13th century, which was an important player in the medieval Silk Road maritime trade. During the early modern period it was considered the richest city on the East African coast, as well as the center of a thriving textile industry. The origins of the name Mogadishu has many theories but it is most likely derived from a morphology of the Somali words ‘Muuq’ and ‘Disho’, which literally means ‘Blinder’ or ‘Sight Killer’ The city is the nearest foreign mainland city to Seychelles, at a distance of 835 mi over the Indian ocean. The ancient city of Sarapion is believed to have been the predecessor state of Mog Somalia. The founding ethnicity of its sultanate has been a topic of serious intrigue in Somali Studies. It has been known that the city was ruled by a council of Arab and Persian families called Mabun-Zabuj, which has been discredited by Lewis I. I. Lewis, who wrote a book on Somali history in the 19th century called Al-Zunuj, has been called the ‘Mabun Mabuj’s Muntar’ or ‘Muntar the Great’ The city was once ruled by the Somali Sultanate of the Geledi, which for centuries controlled the IndianOcean gold trade.

In the 17th century it fell under the Hiraab Imamate and then under the direct rule of the Somalian Sultanate. The onset of Italian colonialism occurred in incremental stages, with Italian treaties in the 1880s followed by economic engagement between various Somali clans. This was followed by independence in 1960, the Hantiwadaag era during Barre’s presidency, a three-decade civil war afterward, and as of the late 2010s and 2020s a period of reconstruction. It is mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a Greek travel document dating from the first century AD, as one of a series of commercial ports on the Somali littoral. During ancient times, the Mog Somalia city-states engaged in a lucrative maritime trade network connecting Somali merchants with other communities along the Somali Sea coast. During Phoenicia, Egypt, Greece, Nabataea Saba Saba and the Roman Empire, the Somali Somali sailors used the beden to transport their cargo as the ancient Somali ship, the Muuq-Muq, to transport cargo to and from the Red Sea. The Somali people are of Khoisan descent and are known as the Wa-Boni.