Editing Somaliland (section)

=== Birth of Islam and the Middle Ages ===
{{Main|Somali aristocratic and court titles|Ifat Sultanate|Adal Sultanate|Isaaq migrations}}
[[File:YagbeaSionBattlingAdaSultan.JPG|thumb|A 15th-century French artist's rendering of a battle between troops of the [[Adal Sultanate|Sultan of Adal]] (right) and King [[Yagbe'u Seyon of Ethiopia|Yagbea-Sion]] and his men (left). From ''Le livre des Merveilles''.]]
The Isaaq people traditionally claim to have descended from [[Ishaaq bin Ahmed|Sheikh Ishaaq bin Ahmed]], an [[Ulama|Islamic scholar]] who purportedly traveled to Somaliland in the 12th or 13th century and married two women; one from the local [[Dir (clan)|Dir clan]] and the other from the neighboring [[Harari people]].<ref name="Lewis3">I.M. Lewis, ''A Modern History of the Somali'', fourth edition (Oxford: James Currey, 2002), pp. 31 & 42</ref> He is said to have sired eight sons who are the common ancestors of the clans of the Isaaq clan-family. He remained in [[Maydh]] until his death.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Adam |first=Hussein M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a1gMAQAAIAAJ&q=%22sheikh+isaaq%22 |title=Somalia and the World: Proceedings of the International Symposium Held in Mogadishu on the Tenth Anniversary of the Somali Revolution, October 15–21, 1979 |date=1980 |publisher=Halgan |language=en}}</ref>

As the [[Isaaq]] clan-family grew in size and numbers during the 12th century, the clan-family migrated and spread from their core area in [[Maydh|Mait]] (Maydh) and the wider [[Sanaag]] region in a southwestward expansion over a wide portion of present-day Somaliland by the 15th and 16th centuries.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Abdi |first=Mohameddeq Ali |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=erprEAAAQBAJ&dq=isaaq+clan+expansion&pg=PA25 |title=Why Somalia does not get the right direction |date=2022-04-19 |publisher=BoD – Books on Demand |isbn=978-3-7543-5218-2 |pages=25 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=The invention of Somalia |date=1995 |publisher=Red Sea Press |isbn=978-0-932415-99-8 |editor-last=Ahmed |editor-first=Ali J. |edition=1. print |location=Lawrenceville, NJ |pages=251}}</ref><ref name="The great Somali migrations">{{Cite web |title=The great Somali migrations |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Somalia/The-great-Somali-migrations |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240225232716/https://www.britannica.com/place/Somalia/The-great-Somali-migrations |archive-date=25 February 2024 |access-date=2024-02-29 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Lewis |first=I. M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P5AZyEhMtbkC&dq=isaaq+clan+expansion&pg=PA94 |title=Saints and Somalis: Popular Islam in a Clan-based Society |date=1998 |publisher=The Red Sea Press |isbn=978-1-56902-103-3 |pages=94 |language=en}}</ref> As the Isaaq expanded the earlier Dir communities of Mait and the wider Sanaag region were driven westwards and to the south towards their present positions.<ref name=":3">{{cite journal |last=Lewis |first=I. M. |date=1959 |title=The Galla in Northern Somaliland |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41299539 |url-status=live |journal=Rassegna di Studi Etiopici |publisher=Istituto per l'Oriente C. A. Nallino |volume=15 |pages=21–38 |jstor=41299539 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210428082817/https://www.jstor.org/stable/41299539 |archive-date=28 April 2021 |access-date=28 April 2021}}</ref> In this general expansion the Isaaq split up into their present component segments, however one fraction of the Habar Yunis clan, the Muse 'Arre, remains behind in Mait as the custodians of the tomb of Sheikh Ishaaq.<ref name=":3" /> By the 1300s the Isaaq clans united to defend their inhabited territories and resources during clan conflicts against migrating clans.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Minahan |first1=James B. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uwTHEAAAQBAJ |title=Encyclopedia of Stateless Nations: Ethnic and National Groups around the World |date=August 2016 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing USA |isbn=979-8-216-14892-0 |pages=184–185 |accessdate=2025-01-11}}</ref>

After the war, the Isaaq clans (along with other tribes like the [[Daarood]]) grew in numbers and territory in the northeast, causing them to began to vie with their [[Oromo people|Oromo]] neighbours, who were expanding northwards themselves after the [[Oromo expansion|Great Oromo Migrations]], thus creating a general thrust toward the southwest. The Isaaq, along with Darood subclans pushed westwards into the plains of [[Jijiga|Jigjiga]] and further, beyond where they played a important role in the [[Adal Sultanate]]'s campaigns against Christian [[Ethiopian Empire|Abyssinia]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Asiwaju |first=A. I. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0Wr6GUxdelcC&dq=isaaq+migration&pg=PA159 |title=Partitioned Africans: Ethnic Relations Across Africa's International Boundaries, 1884-1984 |date=1985 |publisher=C. Hurst |isbn=978-0-905838-91-5 |language=en}}</ref> By the 16th to 17th century the movements that followed seem to have established the Isaaqs on coastal Somaliland.<ref name="The great Somali migrations2">{{Cite web |title=The great Somali migrations |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Somalia/The-great-Somali-migrations |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240225232716/https://www.britannica.com/place/Somalia/The-great-Somali-migrations |archive-date=25 February 2024 |access-date=2024-02-29 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref>

Various Somali Muslim kingdoms were established in the area in the early Islamic period.<ref name="Lewispohoa">{{cite book|last=Lewis|first=I.M.|title=Peoples of the Horn of Africa: Somali, Afar and Saho|year=1955|publisher=International African Institute|page=140|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Cd0mAQAAMAAJ}}</ref> In the 14th century, the [[Zeila]]-based [[Adal Sultanate]] battled the forces of the Ethiopian emperor [[Amda Seyon I]].<ref name="qGEXu">{{cite book|last=Pankhurst|first=Richard|title=The Ethiopian Borderlands: Essays in Regional History from Ancient Times to the End of the 18th Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zpYBD3bzW1wC&pg=PA45|year=1997|publisher=The Red Sea Press|isbn=978-0-932415-19-6}}, page 45</ref> The [[Ottoman Empire]] later occupied [[Berbera]] and environs in the 1500s. [[Muhammad Ali of Egypt|Muhammad Ali]], [[Pasha]] of [[Egypt]], subsequently established a foothold in the area between 1821 and 1841.<ref name="Clifford">{{cite journal |last=Clifford |first=E.H.M. |date=1936 |title=The British Somaliland-Ethiopia Boundary |journal=Geographical Journal |volume=87 |issue=4 |pages=289–302 |doi=10.2307/1785556 |jstor=1785556|bibcode=1936GeogJ..87..289C }}</ref>

The Sanaag region is home to the ruined Islamic city of [[Maduna]] near [[El Afweyn]], which is considered the most substantial and accessible ruin of its type in Somaliland.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Dev |first=Bradt Guides |title=Maduna ruins |url=https://www.bradtguides.com/destinations/africa/somaliland/madana-ruins/ |access-date=4 March 2022 |website=Bradt Guides |date=16 March 2020 |language=en-GB |archive-date=4 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220304224300/https://www.bradtguides.com/destinations/africa/somaliland/madana-ruins/ |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="Addis Ababa">{{Cite book |last=Briggs |first=Philip |title=Somaliland: with Addis Ababa & Eastern Ethiopia |date=2012 |publisher=Bradt Travel Guides |isbn=978-1-84162-371-9 |location=Chalfont St. Peter, Bucks, England |pages=128–129 |oclc=766336307}}</ref> The main feature of the ruined city is a large rectangular mosque, its 3-metre high walls still standing, which include a mihrab and possibly several smaller arched niches.<ref name="Addis Ababa" /> Swedish-Somali archaeologist [[Sada Mire]] dates the ruined city to the 15th–17th centuries.<ref name=":13">{{Cite web |title=Somaliland: archaeology in a breakaway state {{!}} Sada Mire |url=https://www.sadamire.com/somaliland-archaeology-in-a-breakaway-state/ |access-date=4 March 2022 |language=en-US}}</ref>