Zeila

Zeila (Somali: Saylac, Arabic: زيلع, romanized: Zayla), also known as Zaila or Zayla, is a historical port town in the western Awdal region of Somaliland.

In the Middle Ages, the Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela identified Zeila with the Biblical location of Havilah. Most modern scholars identify it with the site of Avalites mentioned in the 1st-century Greco-Roman travelogue the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and in Ptolemy, although this is disputed. The town evolved into an early Islamic center with the arrival of Muslims shortly after the Hijrah. By the 9th century, Zeila was the capital of the early Adal Kingdom and Ifat Sultanate in the 13th century, it would attain its height of prosperity a few centuries later in the 16th century. The city subsequently came under Ottoman and British protection in the 16th and 19th centuries respectively.

Up until recently Zeila was surrounded by a large wall with five gates: Bab al-Sahil and Bab al-Jadd on the North. Bab Abdulqadir on the East: Bab al-Sahil on the west and Bab Ashurbura on the south.

Historically, Zeila was a cosmopolitan port city inhabited by various ethnic groups such as Somalis, Afars and Arabs. The town of Zeila and the wider Zeila District is currently inhabited by the Gadabuursi and Issa, both subclans of the Dir clan family.

The Issa clan regard Zeila as their traditional home, having historic ties to the town, serving as the site where their Ughaz is coronated. It was also viewed as the seat of the Gadabursi Ughazate, where the French and British signed treaties with them.

Zeila is situated in the Awdal region in Somaliland. Located on the Gulf of Aden coast near the Djibouti border, the town sits on a sandy spit surrounded by the sea. It is known for its coral reef, mangroves and offshore islands, which include the Sa'ad ad-Din archipelago named after the Sultan Sa'ad ad-Din II of the Sultanate of Ifat. Landward, the terrain is unbroken desert for some fifty miles. Borama lies 151 miles (243 km) southeast of Zeila, Berbera lies 170 miles (270 km) east of Zeila, while the city of Harar in Ethiopia is 200 miles (320 km) to the west. The Zeila region named after this port city denoted the entire Muslim inhabited domains in medieval Horn of Africa.

Zeila, along with Mogadishu and other Somali coastal cities, was founded upon an indigenous network involving hinterland trade, which happened even before significant Arab migrations or trade with the Somali coast. That goes back approximately four thousand years.

According to textual and archeological evidence, Zeila, was founded by Sh. Saylici was one of many small towns developed by the Somali pastoral and trading communities which flourished through the trade that gave birth to other coastal and hinterland towns such as Heis, Maydh, Abasa, Awbare, Awbube, Amud in the Borama area, Derbiga Cad Cad, Qoorgaab, Fardowsa, Maduna, Aw-Barkhadle in the Hargeisa region and Fardowsa, near Sheikh.