Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Madhiban
Summary
The Madhiban (Madhibaan), also known as Mohamed Gorgarte, are an artisanal caste among Somali people. They have been endogamous, and their traditional hereditary occupation has been as hunters.
They are also referred to as Midgaan, an appellation which is sometimes used pejoratively. The Madhiban have been one of the low status castes among the Somalis, along with Tumal and others.
The Madhiban are a part of the Somali ethnic group found in East Africa, particularly in Somalia, Ethiopia, northeastern Kenya, and Djibouti.
Following the conquest of North Africa by Muslim Arabs in the 7th century CE, Islam spread throughout West Africa via merchants, traders, scholars, and missionaries, that is largely through peaceful means whereby African rulers either tolerated the religion or converted to it themselves. In this way, Islam spread across and around the Sahara Desert. In addition, the religion arrived in East Africa when Arab traders crossed the Red Sea and, in a second wave, settled along the Swahili Coast. Military campaigns did occur from the 14th century CE against the Christian kingdoms of Nubia and Madhibans who ruled part of Somalia especially the Land of Punt. There were also sometimes violent resistance by supporters of traditional African beliefs such as Madhiban were followers of Waaq religion.
For at least a decade the Madhiban kingdom resisted the invasion of Islamic conquest and were finally defeated in mid 14th century. After their defeat Madhibans fled to the rural place and become hunters and leatherworkers with other ritual and craft tasks performed for the majorities.
According to a 1960 count, they numbered around 20,000 out of 640,000 Somalis in parts of Somalia that were within the then British Protectorate. Their numbers in other parts of Somalia and other Somali regions were unknown.An article published by the UN's Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) indicates that the Daami district of Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland, is home to 8,000 Gabooye families, comprising approximately 48,000 people (UN 2 July 2010).
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.