Medieval mosques of Somaliland: Abasa, Amud, Dameraqad, Maduuna and Zeila, 1300s–1500s

In short

This page follows the first full study of the medieval mosques of Somaliland (Cornax-Gómez and de Torres Rodríguez, "Urban mosques in the Horn of Africa during the medieval period", Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée 153, 2023, pp. 37–64, open access). It draws on seven years of fieldwork by the Spanish National Research Council (Incipit-CSIC), older reports and archive photographs. It covers mosques built in permanent towns and villages, not the open-air prayer places marked with stones that are common in nomad country (p. 40).

How many, and where

The authors count 15 medieval mosques in Somaliland's old settlements, of very uneven documentation (p. 42):

• West, near the Ethiopian border: 11, at sites such as Abasa, Amud, Hasadinle, Iskudarka Dayeergalka Kifiile, Aroqolab and Dameraqad. The authors think, as A. T. Curle did in 1937, that probably every medieval town here had a mosque.
• Central Somaliland: none found yet, at Bagan, Gidheys, Qubuurale, Fardowsa or Biyo Gure. The authors put this down to the mosques not having been identified, since the region "was significantly Islamicized from the 14th century onwards".
• The coast: Zeila, where two mosques may be medieval. The Portuguese priest Francisco Álvares described Maydh in the early 16th century as having two mosques and a madrasa, the only mention of a school building in the region (pp. 43, 47).
• The east: Maduuna, near Ceel Afweyn, where two mosques were recorded in the 1980s (p. 43).

The western towns date mostly to the 14th–16th centuries, with their peak under the sultanate of Barr Sa'd al-Din (Adal), about 1415 to the 1570s. None of the sites seems to have lasted past the 16th century (pp. 43–44).

The inland plan

The authors describe a "remarkable uniformity" among the inland mosques (pp. 44–51):

• Layout. Usually one prayer hall, sometimes inside an outer wall (Abasa, Hasadinle). Side rooms are rare: at Amud, where Curle thought a plastered basin was for washing before prayer, and at Dameraqad, where the side rooms hold graves.
• Building. Medium and large stones in rough rows, bound with earth and faced with flatter dressed stones. Doors and windows are small, and Curle noted that the halls must have been dark.
• Size. From 27.7 square metres (the small mosque at Abasa) to 308 square metres (the large one at Abasa). Half are under 66 square metres.
• Pillars. Larger mosques have stone pillars, round, square or cross-shaped, sometimes mixed in one building, often with wooden beams set into them. Curle thought the beams held hangings; the authors note the custom lasted in Somaliland until recently.
• Mihrab. The prayer niche usually sticks out from the back (qibla) wall with a square back. At Abasa, Curle photographed one of four stepped round arches before it fell.
• No minarets have been found inland. The authors suggest the call to prayer may have been made from the roof. No minbar survives, though one may have been of wood.
• Position. The main mosque usually stands in the middle of the settlement. Abasa is an exception, which the authors link to the town growing outward. See Abasa (Darbiyah Kola).

Which way they face

From Somaliland, Mecca lies to the north-west. Only four of the mosques face that way: both at Maduuna, the one at Iskudarka and one at Dameraqad. Most face north, and two face north-east. The authors call the reasons "unknown" given "the Somalis' excellent knowledge of astronomy", and suggest that the western mosques may have copied the orientation of the older mosques of Ethiopia, a practice known elsewhere in the Muslim world. They connect this with the story of Zeila's mosque of the two qiblas, which Fauvelle-Aymar and his colleagues have suggested may come from a rebuilding to correct its direction (p. 51). See Early Zeila and the Qiblatayn mosque.

Dameraqad: a religious centre

Dameraqad, about 35 km north-east of Borama at a mountain pass, has only about 30 buildings but six mosques, a large cemetery and many nomad cairns and open-air mosques, spread over some 24 hectares. The authors suggest it was a tariqa, a religious community, serving "urban residents and nomads alike" (p. 45).

Zeila and Maduuna

• Zeila. Its mosques were built of cut and plastered limestone, with front courtyards. The Sahari (Shahari) mosque has a round minaret on a square base, a many-lobed pointed arch over its mihrab and two carved floral motifs, the only decoration known in Somaliland's medieval mosques. The authors compare Zeila's mosques with those of Mogadishu and the Red Sea, and note mentions of rooms set aside for students from Zeila at the Umayyad mosque in Damascus and at al-Azhar in Cairo (pp. 47, 49–51, 57–59).
• Maduuna. An inland town in the east with a central Friday mosque, courtyards and arched windows and niches of flat stones. The authors describe it as a place where Islam probably developed "in a fully nomadic environment" through missionaries active from the 13th century (pp. 47, 59).

Compared with Ethiopia and Djibouti

• Ethiopia. The authors had detailed plans for nine medieval mosques there, eight in the Ifat region and one at Harlaa. These share building methods with western Somaliland but usually have the mihrab set inside the wall, sometimes built of cut stone, and some carry inscriptions, which Somaliland's inland mosques lack (pp. 54–55). See The Harla and Harlaa.
• The Ogaden. Curle recorded a mosque at Rugayi with an arcaded inner court and a tiled walk. A site called Derbi Belanbel was found in the Somali Region of Ethiopia in 2018 (p. 54).
• Djibouti. At Handoga two large mosques recorded in 2022 have protruding square mihrabs like those of western Somaliland, but with front courtyards (p. 56).
• Puntland. Three inland towns with round houses were reported in 2021, but no mosque has been identified there yet (p. 57).

The authors conclude that Somaliland's medieval mosques reflect "at least three different traditions": the western inland style linked to Ethiopian Islam and the sultanates, the coastal style of Zeila, and the separate case of Maduuna (pp. 57–59).

Related pages

• Ruined towns of the Somali interior
• From cairns to cemeteries: medieval Muslim graves
• The sultanate of Shewa and the founding of Ifat