“Notabili Indigeni”

Dated 1938, but could have been taken earlier, and used as a postcard in 1938

Who are the people present? Leave a comment below, if you can help

Hobyo / Obbia

“La casa del Sultano di Obbia“

From “Cesare Maria de Vecchi di Val Cismon. Orizzonti D’Impero. Cinque Anni di Somalia. A Mondadori – Milano”
[ Horizons of Empire: Five Years in Somalia / Cesare Maria De Vecchi di Val Cismon.  Milano. 1935]

Cesare Maria De Vecchi was Governor from 1923-1928

“Il sultano Ali Jusuf“

Son of Yusuf Ali Kenadid

“Obbia: la garessa occupata“

“Obbia in attessa del Governatore“

Obbia (Hobyo) location as found via Google Maps

Other photos of Hobyo, elsewhere on the web

• Buildings covered by moving sands
• An old lighthouse

Hafun

“La garesa di Hafun”

Other photos of the Hafun area on the internet

Estimated location on Google Maps

Dhikr / Dikri in Waaberi in 1988/89

These are two audio tape recordings I made  in 1988, in the neighbourhood behind Tre Biano, in Waaberi

• Tape 1 Side A HR Mp3 Recorded 29 March 1988 Tape note says “Rashidiya – Salahiya”
• Tape 1 Side B HR Mp3 As above
• Tape 2 Side A HR Mp3 Recorded 29 March 1988 Tape note says “Rashidiya – Salahiya”
• Tape 2 Side B HR Mp3 As above. But one third of the tape was not used, and what remains is an earlier recording of Somali music of the same period

For information on the History of Somali Sufism see this blog: http://somalisufisam.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/history-of-somali-sufisam/

On that site I read this with interest: “Local leaders of brotherhoods customarily asked lineage heads in the areas where they wished to settle for permission to build their mosques and communities. A piece of land was usually freely given; often it was an area between two clans or one in which nomads had access to a river” In 1991, while travelling in the area, I heard about a tariiqa that was established in the then non-mans land between the Dulbahante in the Las Anod area and the Isaaq further westward on the rod to Burco.

See also video recordings of dhikr on this website

See also this page on the use of coffee (bun) in relation to dhikr: http://xawaash.com/?p=6148#sthash.XLoyAzBz.dpbs

Here is a photo of a kur, the wooden vessel in which bun is traditionally served

Comments on dhikr and sufism in Somalia are welcome. Please use the Comment facility below

Zaila / Zelya / Zeila / Seylac

“The Town and People of Zaila, Somali Coast, Africa”

Photos and text from The Graphic, May 7, 1887, page 473

The game referred to in the text above may be one called “shax”. Here is a guide to the game, which I wrote in the 1980s

Photos of Zeyla on the internet

• Ottoman built Saylac (Zeila) governor house, 1850s. (Probably more likely to be British-era building)

Google Maps view of Zeyla