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
Dir (clan)
Summary
The Dir (Dir) is one of the largest and most prominent Somali clans in the Horn of Africa. They are also considered to be the oldest Somali stock to have inhabited the region. Its members inhabit Djibouti, Somalia, Ethiopia (Somali, Harar, Dire Dawa, Oromia and Afar regions), and northeastern Kenya (North Eastern Province).
Like the great majority of Somali clans, the Dir trace their ancestry to Aqil ibn Abi Talib (580 – 670 or 683), a cousin of the prophet Muhammad (570 – 632) and an older brother of Ali ibn Abi Talib (600 – 661) and Ja'far ibn Abi Talib (590 – 629). They trace their lineage to Aqil through Samaale (the source of the name 'Somali'), the purported forefather of the northern pastoralist clans such as the Dir, the Hawiye, and –matrilineally through the Dir– the Isaaq and the Darod. Although these genealogical claims are historically untenable, they do reflect the longstanding cultural contacts between Somalia (especially, though not exclusively, its most northern part Somaliland) and Southern Arabia.
The history of Islam being practised by the Dir clan goes back 1400 years. In Zeila, a Dir city, a mosque called Masjid al-Qiblatayn is known as the site of where early companions of the Prophet established a mosque shortly after the first Migration to Abyssinia By the 7th century, a large-scale conversion to Islam was taking place in the Somali peninsula, first spread by the Dir clan family, to the rest of the nation.
The early Adal Kingdom (9th century to 13th century) was an exclusive Dir Kingdom with its capital being Zeila. In the 10th century, the Jarso clan a sub-division of Dir established the Dawaro Sultanate centred in Hararghe Highlands.
Dir is one of the oldest clans in the Horn of Africa. According to the Muslim chronicles, two of the oldest monarchies in the northern region, the Ifat and Adal sultanates, were led by Dir.
The Dir, along with the Akisho, Gurgura, Issa and Gadabuursi subclans of the Dir represent the most native and indigenous Somali clan tree in Harar.
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.