Harari people

The Harla people, an extinct Afroasiatic-speaking people native to Hararghe, are considered by most scholars to be the precursors to the Harari people. The ancestors of the Hararis moved across the Bab-el-Mandeb, settling in the shores of Somalia and later expanding into the interior producing a Semitic-speaking population among Cushitic and non-Afroasiatic-speaking peoples in what would become Harar. These early Semitic settlers in the region were believed to be of Hadhrami stock. Sheikh Abadir, the legendary patriarch of the Harari, is said to have arrived in the Harar plateau in the early thirteenth century, where he was met by the Harla, Gaturi and Argobba people. In the Middle Ages Hararis led by Abadir supposedly came into conflict with the Shirazi people who had occupied Somalia's coast. By the thirteenth century, the Hararis were among the administrators of the Ifat Sultanate. In the fourteenth century raids on the Harari town of Get (Gey) by Abyssinian Emperor Amda Seyon I, Hararis are referred to as Harlas. Ifat state under Haqq ad-Din II relocated their base to the Harari plateau (Adal) in the fourteenth century. An alliance kingdom ensued between Argobba and Harari people designated the Adal Sultanate which later included Afar and Somali people. In the sixteenth century under Ahmed ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi, the Harari state stretched to large parts of the Horn of Africa. During the Ethiopian–Adal war, some Harari militia (malassay) settled in Gurage territory, forming the Siltʼe people. Hararis once represented the largest concentration of agriculturalists in East Africa. In the sixteenth century, walls built around the city of Harar during the reign of Emir Nur ibn Mujahid helped preserve Harari identity from being assimilated by the Oromo. Harari colonies in the middle of the seaboard and Harar were also assimilated by Somalis putting the Sultanate of Adal under duress. Hararis confined in the walled city became the last remnants of a once large ethnic group that inhabited the region. According to Ulrich Braukämper, the Harla-Harari were most likely active in the region prior to the Adal Sultanate's Islamic invasion of Ethiopia. The sixteenth century saw Oromos invading regions of the Horn of Africa from the northern areas of Hargeisa to its southern portions such as Lower Juba, incorporating the Harari people. Hararis were furious when Muhammad Gasa decided to move the Adal Sultanate's capital from Harar to Aussa in 1577 in response to Oromo threats. In less than a year after its relocation Adal would collapse. Harari imams continued to have a presence in the southern Afar Region in the Imamate of Aussa until they were overthrown in the eighteenth century by the Mudaito dynasty, who later established the Sultanate of Aussa. Among the assimilated peoples were Arab Muslims that arrived during the start of the Islamic period, as well as Argobba and other migrants that were drawn to Harar's well-developed culture. Statistics prove that a Semitic-speaking people akin to the Harari may have inhabited a stretch of land between the Karkaar Mountains, the middle Awash and Jijiga. Oromo migrations have effectively split this putative ethnolinguistic block to the Lake Zway islands, Gurage territory, and Harar. Following the decline of the Adal Sultanate's ascendancy in the area, a large number of the Harari were in turn reportedly absorbed into the Oromo community. The loss of the crucial Battle of Chelenqo marked the end of Harar's independence in 1887. Opposition to Emperor Menelik II's forces persisted into the late 1890s, notably spearheaded by Talha Jafar, who received assistance from Hararis as well as other Muslim groups in the region. Hararis supported the designated but uncrowned Emperor of Ethiopia Lij Iyasu, and his presumed efforts to make Harar the capital of an African Islamic empire. Iyasu was however overthrown in 1916, and many of his Harari followers were jailed. Chafing under imperial Ethiopian rule, Hararis made several attempts to cut ties with Ethiopia and unify Hararghe with Somalia, among them launching the nationalist Kulub movement which was linked to the Somali Youth League. These events led to the Haile Selassie government's ethnic cleansing efforts on Hararis. A Harar Oromo proverb alludes to this occasion: "On that day Hararis were eliminated from earth." Former Mayor of Harar Bereket Selassie reported that both the Amhara and Oromo viewed Hararis with contempt. Haile Selassie's overthrow by the Derg communist regime made minor differences for the Harari; they describe it as "little more than a transition from the frying pan into the fire". The 1975 rural act disenfranchised Hararis from their farm land, forcing many to emigrate. The surviving Harari relatives of Kulub movement members would join the Somali Armed Forces; and some, having been promoted as high-ranking military officers, fought in the Ogaden War to free Harari and Somali territory from Ethiopian rule. Hararis were also involved in the WSLF. After Ethiopians won the war in Ogaden, Derg soldiers began massacring civilians in Harari areas of Addis Ababa for collaborating with Somalis. The aftermath of the Ogaden war resulted in 200,000 Hararis being held at southern Somalia's refuge camps in 1979. Today Hararis are outnumbered in their own state by the Amhara and Oromo peoples. Under the Meles Zenawi administration, Hararis had been favored tremendously. They acquired control of their Harari Region again, and have been given special rights not offered to other groups in the region. According to academic Sarah Vaughan, the Harari People's National Regional State was created to overturn the historically bad relationship between Harar and the Ethiopian government. Some Hararis as well as the Somali Sheekhal and Hadiya Halaba clans assert descent from Abadir Umar ar-Rida, also known as Fiqi Umar, who traced his lineage to the first caliph, Abu Bakr. According to the explorer Richard Francis Burton, "Fiqi Umar" crossed over from the Arabian Peninsula to the Horn of Africa ten generations prior to 1854, with his six sons: Umar the Greater, Umar the Lesser, the two Abdillahs, Ahmad and Siddiq. According to Hararis, they also consist of seven Harla subclans: Abogn, Adish, Awari’, Gidaya, Gatur, Hargaya, and Wargar. The Harari were previously known as "Adere", although this term is now considered derogatory. Arsi Oromo state an intermarriage took place between their ancestors and the previous inhabitants Adere (Harari) whom they call the Hadiya. Hadiya clans claim their forefathers were Harari however they later became influenced by Sidama. Moreover, the Habar Habusheed, a major branch of the Somali Isaaq clan family consisting of the Habr Je'lo, Sanbur, Ibran and Tol Je'lo clans in Somaliland and Ethiopia, hold the tradition that they originate from an intermarriage between a Harari woman and their forefather Sheikh Ishaaq. ==Language==