Editing Mogadishu (section)

===Foundation and origins===
The founding ethnicity of Mogadishu and its subsequent sultanate has been a topic of intrigue in [[Somali Studies]]. [[Ioan Lewis]] and [[Enrico Cerulli]] believed that the city was founded and ruled by a council of Arab and Persian families.<ref name="LewisPeoples">I.M. Lewis, ''Peoples of the Horn of Africa: Somali, Afar, and Saho, Issue 1'', (International African Institute: 1955), p. 47.</ref><ref name="LewisModern">I.M. Lewis, ''The modern history of Somaliland: from nation to state'', (Weidenfeld & Nicolson: 1965), p. 37</ref><ref>Renewers of the Age Holy Men and Social Discourse in Colonial Benaadir - Page 44</ref> However, the reference I.M Lewis and Cerulli received traces back to one 19th century text called the Kitab Al-Zunuj, which has been discredited by modern scholars as unreliable and unhistorical.<ref>H. Neville Chittick, "The East Coast, Madagascar and the Indian Ocean", in [[John Fage|J. D. Fage]] and R. Oliver (eds.), ''The Cambridge History of Africa, Volume 3: From c.1050 to c. 1600'' (Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 183–231, at 194–195 and 198. ''The account in the [[Book of the Zanj]] of pre-Islamic immigration of Arabs from Himyar in southern Arabia, their founding of most of the more important towns of the coast from Mogadishu to Mombasa, and also Kilwa, together with their subsequent conversion to Islam, is uncorroborated by other sources and unsupported by the archaeological evidence and must be dismissed as unhistorical. The suggestion that these families must have come from Siraf to the Somali coast before the eleventh century must therefore be regarded as unproven''.</ref><ref>The Cambridge History of Africa, Volum 3 – Page 198</ref><ref>The Archaeology of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa By Timothy Insoll – Page 62</ref><ref>Gervase Mathew, "The East African Coast until the Coming of the Portuguese", in R. Oliver and G. Mathew (eds.), ''History of East Africa'', Volume 1 (Clarendon Press, 1963), pp. 94–127, at 102.</ref> More importantly, it contradicts oral, ancient written sources and archaeological evidence on the pre-existing civilizations and communities that flourished on the Somali coast, and to which were the forefathers of Mogadishu and other coastal cities. Thus, the Persian and Arab founding "myths" are regarded as an outdated false colonialist reflection on Africans ability to create their own sophisticated states.<ref name="Jama">{{cite book |last=Jama |first=Ahmed |title=The Origins and Development of Mogadishu AD 1000 to 1850: A Study of the Urban Growth Along the Benadir Coast of Southern Somalia |year=1996 |publisher=Uppsala University |page=33 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AJsSAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA33 |volume=12 |series=Studies in African archaeology |issn=0284-5040 |isbn=9789150611236 |access-date=28 September 2023 |archive-date=28 September 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230928111614/https://books.google.com/books?id=AJsSAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA33 |url-status=live }}</ref> It has now been widely accepted that there were already communities on the Somali coast with ethnic Somali leadership, to whom the Arab and Persian families had to ask for permission to settle in their cities. It also seems the local Somalis retained their political and numerical superiority on the coast while the Muslim immigrants would go through an assimilation process by adopting the local language and culture.<ref>Cities of the Middle East and North Africa: A Historical Encyclopedia edited by Michael Dumper, Bruce E. Stanley Page 252</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Janzen |first1=Jörg |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DZJPm2j2iz4C&dq=mogadishu+benadiri+people&pg=PA13 |title=What are Somalia's Development Perspectives?: Science Between Resignation and Hope? : Proceedings of the 6th SSIA Congress, Berlin 6-9 December 1996 |last2=Vitzthum |first2=Stella von |date=2001 |publisher=Verlag Hans Schiler |isbn=978-3-86093-230-8 |pages=13 |language=en |access-date=26 April 2024 |archive-date=22 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240522134747/https://books.google.com/books?id=DZJPm2j2iz4C&dq=mogadishu+benadiri+people&pg=PA13#v=onepage&q=mogadishu%20benadiri%20people&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref>

Mogadishu along with [[Zeila]] and other Somali coastal cities was founded upon an indigenous network involving hinterland trade and that happened even before significant Arab migrations or trade with the Somali coast. That goes back approximately four thousand years and are supported by archaeological and textual evidences.<ref>{{Cite book|series=University College London Institute of Archaeology Publications|last=Mire|first=Sada|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J6nODwAAQBAJ&pg=PA129|title=Divine Fertility: The Continuity in Transformation of an Ideology of Sacred Kinship in Northeast Africa|date=2020|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-429-76924-5|page=129|access-date=6 June 2023|archive-date=6 June 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230606063336/https://books.google.com/books?id=J6nODwAAQBAJ&pg=PA129|url-status=live}}</ref>

This is corroborated by the first century AD Greek document the [[Periplus of the Erythraean Sea]], detailing multiple prosperous port cities in ancient Somalia, as well as the identification of ancient [[Sarapion]] with the city that would later be known as Mogadishu.<ref>Making Sense of Somali History: Volume 1 – Page 48</ref> When [[Ibn Battuta]] visited the Sultanate in the 14th century, he identified the Sultan as being of [[Barbaria (East Africa)|Barbara]] origin,<ref>The Travels of Ibn Battuta, A.D. 1325–1354: Volume II Page 375</ref> an ancient term to describe the ancestors of the [[Somali people]]. According to Ross E. Dunn neither Mogadishu, or any other city on the coast could be considered alien enclaves of Arabs or Persians, but were in-fact African towns.<ref>The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveller of the Fourteenth Century Page 124</ref>

[[Yaqut al-Hamawi]], a Muslim medieval geographer in the year 1220 describes Mogadishu as the most prominent town on the coast. Yaqut also mentioned Mogadishu as being a town inhabited by Berbers, described as "dark-skinned" and considered ancestors of modern Somalis.<ref>The History of Somalia – Page 36 by Raphael Chijioke Njoku · 2013</ref> By the thirteenth century, [[Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi|Ibn Sa'id]] described Mogadishu, [[Merca]] and [[Barawa]] located in the Benadir coast had become Islamic and commercial centers in the [[Indian Ocean]]. He said the local people in the Benadir coast and the interior were predominantly inhabited by [[Somalis]] with a minority of Arab, Persian and Indian merchants living in the coastal towns.<ref name="Fage et al 139">{{cite book |last=Fage |first=J.D |title=The Cambridge History of Africa |year=1977 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=139 |isbn=9780521209816 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GWjxR61xAe0C&pg=PA139 |access-date=28 September 2023 |archive-date=28 September 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230928111615/https://books.google.com/books?id=GWjxR61xAe0C&pg=PA139 |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Ibn al-Mujawir]] mentions the Banu Majid who fled the Mundhiriya region in Yemen in the year 1159 and settled in Mogadishu and also traders from the port towns of Abyan and Haram.<ref>{{cite book |last=Fage |first=J.D |title=The Cambridge History of Africa |year=1977 |publisher=Cambridge University Press  |isbn=9780521209816 }}</ref>

Mogadishu is traditionally inhabited by four clans. These are the Moorshe, Iskashato, DhabarWeyne, and the Bandawow.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Reese |first=Scott Steven |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fb4UYAPUhYoC&q=Ajuran+morshow |title=Renewers of the Age: Holy Men and Social Discourse in Colonial Benaadir |date=2008 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-16729-2 |pages=65 |language=en}}</ref> Moorshe is regarded the oldest group in Mogadishu and is considered to be a sub-clan of [[Ajuran (clan)|Ajuran]] who established one of the most powerful medieval kingdoms in Africa,  the [[Ajuran Sultanate]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Reese |first=Scott Steven |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UeuwAAAAIAAJ&q=Amin+journey |title=Patricians of the Benaadir: Islamic Learning, Commerce and Somali Urban Identity in the Nineteenth Century |date=1996 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania |pages=176 |language=en}}</ref> The Gibil Madow (Dark Skins) faction of the Benadiri are said to hail from the Somali clan groups from inland which make up the majority of Benadiris with a small minority being Gibil Cads (Light Skins) which descend from Muslim immigrants.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=idcVAQAAIAAJ&q=gibil+madow |title=Understanding Somalia and Somaliland: Culture, History, Society By I'M Lewis |isbn=9781850658986 |access-date=5 November 2020 |archive-date=9 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220309215434/https://books.google.nl/books?hl=no&id=idcVAQAAIAAJ&dq=morshe+mogadishu+oldest&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=gibil+madow |url-status=live |last1=Lewis |first1=I. M. |year=2008 |publisher=Hurst }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.landinfo.no/asset/1091/1/1091_1.pdf |title=Reer Xamar |access-date=5 November 2020 |archive-date=23 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210923194540/https://www.landinfo.no/asset/1091/1/1091_1.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>