How nation-states are formed.

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

You are really comparing apples to oranges the Sassanid Empire was not entirely a Persian Empire it was an Zoroastrian Empire with different ethnic groups including Assyrians, Egyptians, Himyarites and Persians.

Fair point but again the timing was different the Sassanid Empire exited more than 400 years while Adal Empire existed only fore 150 years. So they had more time to develop their political identity.

 

Arab contribution was mainly scholars, and traders.

Not true they had both Somali and Arab Sultans some times of both ancestries and mixed

 

The Barkhadle Alliance tied the Mogadishu ruled South with the Zeila ruled North.

I dont disagree with this but they still exist as two separate empires

 

 

Adal didn't have to expand into the South, because that area ruled by a different dynasty was already allied to it. In such a scenario, a simple wedding between a Prince of Zeila with a Princess of Mogadishu could have tied together the north and the south.

 

To be honest, our literary history has been abysmal attention, and such alliances of convenience most likely did happen.

You misunderstood me here i meant if Adal won the war against the Abyssinians, they would have moved into the center of Ethiopia and conquer other groups and let other groups assimilate into the Somali culture.

 

 

I disagree, I think it would have been even stronger, similar to the Turks.

I agree it would have been different it would have been stronger because Somalis would have been ruling other groups and would have a more richer culture

 

 

I disagree, the Somali people expanded through much of East Africa and turned other ethnic groups into Somalis, whom adopted the dominant language, the same would happened in this case.

Somalis haven't turned many Ethnic groups into Somalis only small galla groups and bantu groups and smaller rendile groups and Arab communities around the coast if they were exposed to other groups and conquered them it would have have influenced our language if the Somalis won the war in the 16 century this would have been totally different.

 

 

Italy and Germany were given birth to two decades before the Dervish, it was the perfect time for the establishment of a strong independent state

The state mostly operated as a movement although it had a capital and resources and revenues but it was during its existence at war with Britain Italy and Menelik forces.

 

Shared history is shared history

You are right shared history is shared history but it was a short period of time if we are talking about forming a political identity in a country the short lived dervish state hasn't really shaped the Somali political identity, it was more an Islamic Somali uprise against the colonialists

 

Most countries in the world never existed in the first place, there comes a process before it actually exists in the first place.

Problem is we Somalis never really ruled each other with the exception of the Adal and A.juran Empire the latter had some Arab vassal states under its control. But after their demise. We basically became Somalis who ruled each other in a clannish way adopting the Somali Xeer.

 

 

LOL, that's actually what Somalis did, however in a ironic twist of fate the Somalization campaign of our ancestors was far more successful than the latter day colonialism practiced by the Europeans, because we actually turned other groups into Somalis, as we expanded further and further in the region.

 

What would have been better is if we emulated the shaky European nation-states by importing a German prince or princess and made them monarchs of our country. The Kingdom of Somalia ruled by an Afar monarchy would bypass the clan-system, and prevent the zero-sum politics so common when a specific individual from clan A or clan B becomes President or PM. At the same time the Afars in their own homeland are not a threat, economically or politically, while they are phenotypically the closest in looks to Somalis in Africa, so it would be easier to create a bond between them and their Somali citizens.

If Somalis had created a kingdom and a proper structure of state in much of the Somali peninsula and expanded into other territories and ruled those people. Somalis have Somalisized many groups indigenous people to the Somali peninsula and others but they never ruled the place as a Somali empire , we were more like Somali nomads fighting other shisheeye people and when we defeated them they became basically Somalis. Your last point would have been great the afars are close to Somalis

[Chimera]

Xaaji Xunjuf;955242 wrote:

Fair point but again the timing was different the Sassanid Empire exited more than 400 years while Adal Empire existed only fore 150 years. So they had more time to develop their political identity.

Most empires don't make it past 50 years, the Mongol Empire, the Hunnic Empire and the Macedonian Empire are good examples. Also, Sassanian culture in modern Iran is very limited, the Iranians use Arabic to write Farsi instead of Avestan. Their religion is Shia Islam instead of Zoroastrian. Therefore regardless of that empire and its duration, small significant periods like the Qajaris and the Pahlavis are truly responsible for Iran's survival as a country.

 

Not true they had both Somali and Arab Sultans some times of both ancestries and mixed

They might have claimed such pedigrees, but there is little evidence of actual origins.

 

I dont disagree with this but they still exist as two separate empires

Through which all major clans known to us at one point in time migrated to and from, and intermingled.

 

You misunderstood me here i meant if Adal won the war against the Abyssinians, they would have moved into the center of Ethiopia and conquer other groups and let other groups assimilate into the Somali culture.

Yes, it would have been very nice to see what their overall plan had been if the Portuguese had not intervened, but Adal's armies consisted of all the major clan families of the time, and they contributed to the current Somali culture and identity, and would have done so even if they permanently subjugated Abyssinia and expanded further into Sudan from their base in Suakin.

 

I agree it would have been different it would have been stronger because Somalis would have been ruling other groups and would have a more richer culture

Or we might have had a bad reputation in the region, much like the Amharas of today.

 

Somalis haven't turned many Ethnic groups into Somalis only small galla groups and bantu groups and smaller rendile groups and Arab communities around the coast if they were exposed to other groups and conquered them it would have have influenced our language if the Somalis won the war in the 16 century this would have been totally different.

Somalis drove other groups into new lands, while those that remained were absorbed as clients.

 

The state mostly operated as a movement although it had a capital and resources and revenues but it was during its existence at war with Britain Italy and Menelik forces.

It had a capital, a standing army, and maintained foreign relations, as well as achieved recognition as a polity by the Central powers, while at the same fought a war on multiple fronts.

 

You are right shared history is shared history but it was a short period of time if we are talking about forming a political identity in a country the short lived dervish state hasn't really shaped the Somali political identity, it was more an Islamic Somali uprise against the colonialists

Come on Xaaji, the Dervishes were used as a vehicle for Somali nationalism by the SYL, the democratic governments and the socialist state, and continues to be considered as such by the vast majority of Somalis. They enriched our heritage with fortresses, and poems in a time-period when 99% of Africa was under European domination.

 

Problem is we Somalis never really ruled each other with the exception of the Adal and A.juran Empire the latter had some Arab vassal states under its control. But after their demise. We basically became Somalis who ruled each other in a clannish way adopting the Somali Xeer.

Somalis are similar to the Phoenicians of ancient times, or the Venetians of the Middle Ages, or the Germans of the early modern period. I don't deny that we are a people used to a fragmented civilizational network, I'm just highlighting that there are more than enough ingredientsi in the Somali cauldron to justify the existance of the current Somali political identity.

 

If Somalis had created a kingdom and a proper structure of state in much of the Somali peninsula and expanded into other territories and ruled those people. Somalis have Somalisized many groups indigenous people to the Somali peninsula and others but they never ruled the place as a Somali King , we were more like Somali nomads fighting other shisheeye people and when we defeated them they became basically Somalis. Your last point would have been great the afars are close to Somalis

For these reasons those African ethnic groups that were linked to a literate high culture through conversion to a world religion, Islam or Christianity, were better equipped to develop an effective nationalism than the others. The region in which the struggle between these two faiths had traditionally gone on without a decisive victory for either, the Horn of Africa, is also the area with the best examples of what may be called classical nationalisms. It has been said of the Boers that the only things which really distinguished them from their Bantu enemies, when both were entering South Africa from different directions, was the possession of the Book, the wheel and the gun. In the Horn of Africa both the Amharas and the Somalis possessed both gun and Book (not the same Book, but rival and different editions), and neither bothered greatly with the wheel.

 

Both the Somalis and the Amharas were aided by these bits of equipment in state-formation. The Somalis created a few of those characteristic Muslim formations based on urban trade and tribal pastoral cohesion brought together by a religious personage; the Amharas in Ethiopia created the only convincing African specimen of a feudalism, a loose empire with local territorial power-holders, linked to a national Church.The gun and the Book, with their centralizing potential, enabled these two ethnic groups to dominate the political history of this large region, though neither of them was numerically predominant. --- Nations and nationalism Pg 81 and 82 By Ernest Gellner