Dakar, the lost capital of the Barr Saʿd ad-Din (Adal), 1415–1520

In short

After wars with the Christian kingdom in the early 15th century, the Walashma sultans, who had ruled Ifat, moved east to the lands between Harar and today's Somali border. For about a century their capital was a town called Dakar. In 1520 the sultan moved to Harar, and Dakar was forgotten. Its site is still unknown. This page follows the French historian Amélie Chekroun, "Dakar, capitale du sultanat éthiopien du Barr Saʿd ad-dīn (1415–1520)", Cahiers d'études africaines 219 (2015): 569–586 (OpenEdition), cited by paragraph (§).

The move east

• From Ifat. By al-Maqrizi's account, the town of Ifat was given up under Sultan Haqq ad-Din II (ruled 1376–1386), who moved to Wahal in Shewa. After the death of Saʿd ad-Din (ruled from about 1386; Chekroun's 2015 article gives 1415 as the end of his reign, while her 2022 article on Harar dates his death at Zeila to 1408 or 1409), his sons took refuge in Arabia. On his return, his son Sabr ad-Din moved the centre of power east, to the old region of "Adal" (§3–5). For the earlier period, see The Sultanate of Shewa and the founding of Ifat.
• The name of the land. Chekroun writes that the Muslim writers of the region never call their country "Adal". They call it the Barr Saʿd ad-Din, "the land of Saʿd ad-Din". "Adal" is the name used by Christian Ethiopian sources (§9).

The sources that name Dakar

• Al-Maqrizi. His Kitāb al-Ilmām, finished in 1438 from interviews with Ethiopian Muslims in Mecca in 1435–1436, says that Sultan Badlay (ruled 1433–1445) had his capital at Dakar (§4, §7).
• The chronicle of King Eskender. It names Dakar as the main town of the land of Adal and says the king destroyed "all the houses and the temples" there in the second year of his reign. Chekroun dates the attack to 1480, under Sultan Shams ad-Din (ruled 1472–1487) (§8).
• The Futūḥ al-Ḥabasha, written in the mid-16th century, says the sultans lived at Dakar at least until Sultan Muhammad (ruled 1488 to the early 1500s) and that Dakar was not far from Harar (§8, §12). See Futuh al-Habasha.
• Two Harar chronicles, the History of the Walashma and the Tārīkh al-mulūk, say Dakar was the capital until 1520 (§8).

The move to Harar, 1520

Both Harar chronicles date the move from Dakar to Harar to the month of Shaʿban 926 AH, July–August 1520. The History of the Walashma, which favours the sultans, credits Sultan Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad, who moved the people and the army. The Tārīkh al-mulūk, which favours their opponents, credits him together with the garad Abun. The Futūḥ also treats Harar as the capital in the time of Imam Ahmad (§10). For the Imam's wars, see Imam Ahmad and Adal, 1527–1543.

Chekroun writes that the reason for the move is unknown. It may reflect the struggles after Sultan Muhammad's death (between 1517 and 1519). She notes that each chronicle's version suits its own side (§11, §31).

Why Dakar was forgotten

Harar's lists of emirs trace the town back to the 10th or 12th century and to the legendary Sheikh Abadir, and fold all the Muslim rulers of the east into Harar's history. Chekroun writes that Harar was the seat of sultans only from the early 16th century, and that Harari identity, shaped after the Oromo arrived in the late 16th century and again after Menelik II took the city in the late 19th century, covered over Dakar's memory (§1).

Three proposed sites

1. Dakar Gobana, a village 3 km from Harar on the Jigjiga road. Travellers in the late 19th century saw some ruins there. Local Harari, Oromo, Amhara and Somali traditions say Sheikh Abadir first settled there before moving to Harar for its water. The 19th-century Arabic legend of Abadir calls Dakar a village in 1234–1235. Chekroun could not find the ruins in 2014, and residents had no memory of them (§13, §17).
2. Fiyambiro, at the foot of Mount Kundudo, about 20 km north-east of Harar. Enrico Cerulli proposed it in 1931 from a margin note in a manuscript of the Futūḥ, and later doubted it. No archaeological remains have been recorded there, which Chekroun reads as ruling it out (§15, §17).
3. Ch'ina Hasen, about 25 km north-west of Jigjiga. The British scholar G. Huntingford proposed it. Local tradition he recorded called it the birthplace of Imam Ahmad (§16).

Chekroun also notes that the French explorer Antoine d'Abbadie wrote that Baarentuu, one of the two founding fathers of the Oromo, occupied "Dakar among the present Barsub, who are Somali". She writes that the story appears nowhere else and that d'Abbadie gave no source (§14).

The ruins near Ch'ina Hasen

In 1922 the Capuchin missionary Azaïs found three sites near Ch'ina Hasen: a ruined citadel with "cyclopean" walls, a ruined Muslim town, and a lone ruined mosque. In 1950 Huntingford described a large enclosure wall, old terraces and dolmen-like stone cists on the hill. Chekroun could not find the citadel in 2009 (§18–20).

Derbiga. Azaïs described Derbiga, an hour's walk north-west of the town, with stone enclosures, graves, the ruins of houses, and a mosque with three rows of stone columns. Local tradition said it was destroyed by "Gragn" (Imam Ahmad). In 2009 Chekroun found the mosque rebuilt, with its pillars replaced. She found ruined buildings near it, a ruined mausoleum and a probable old Qur'an school, and a cemetery of hundreds of graves, which she takes as a sign of a large settlement. Two pits like the storage pits at medieval sites in the Chercher and at Nora in Ifat lie nearby. Villagers had picked up coins with worn Arabic writing, rock-crystal beads, and part of a goldsmith's mould like those found at Harlaa (§21–25). Chekroun writes that the stonework matches 14th–15th-century Islamic sites of the Chercher and Ifat, and that the site, on the last slopes of the Harar hills above the road down to Zeila, is well placed to control the caravan route. She concludes that no evidence yet allows Derbiga to be either accepted or ruled out as Dakar, and that it was an important Islamic town either way (§23, §26).

Nur Abdoche. Azaïs also described a ruined mosque 15 km north-west of Ch'ina Hasen, with two round columns and an Arabic inscription over the mihrab. It was rebuilt about 40 years before Chekroun's visit. She dates it after the 16th century, finds no house ruins and only a small cemetery, and excludes it as a site for Dakar (§27–30).

Related pages

• The Harla and Harlaa
• Nomads, towns and the state in Ifat and Adal
• Ruined towns of the Somali interior
• Medieval and early modern polities, 1300s–1700s
• Medieval mosques of Somaliland
• Awfat, capital of the Ifat sultanate, and the tombs of the Walashma
• Harar becomes the capital of Adal, 1520–1577
• The death of Sultan Saʿd ad-Din at Zeila and his sons in Yemen