A Brief History of Mogadishu

Mogadishu’s first written mention dates back to the second century CE when Ptolemy mentions the port city of Sarapion in Geographica. While small, organized settlements and proto-Somali city-states likely date back to these early years, Mogadishu’s growth accelerated with the rise of Islam from the seventh century onward.

Because of the favorable trade winds around the Indian Ocean, Mogadishu developed quickly. As noted from last week, the explorer Ibn Battuta wrote that, “[Mogadishu] is a town endless in its size. Its people have many camels, of which they slaughter hundreds every day and they have many sheep. Its people are powerful merchants. In it are manufactured the cloths named after it which have no rival, and are transported as far as Egypt and elsewhere” (Ibn Battuta in Black Africa, 16). By the fourteenth century Mogadishu had risen to prominence by importing cotton from Gujarat and processing it before selling it inland in Ethiopia.

The area around Mogadishu was not known for producing much agriculturally, but from the fourteenth century onward, Mogadishu built wealth through its strategic location and consolidation into the Ajuran Empire. The Ajuran Empire controlled both the Shebelle and Jubba Rivers. The Empire built dams and control systems and enacted taxation schemes to build the empire. Mogadishu’s strategic location relatively close to the Shebelle River’s edge helped create and concentrate exchange for the Empire. Members of the Ajuran family would rule the city for the next 350 years despite the Empire’s collapse elsewhere in the region.

By the time Vasco Da Gama would pass through Mogadishu in the fifteenth century, the city had become a place with houses of four or five stories with big palaces and mosques. Ships from the Cambaya Kingdom (present day Gujarat) came with cloth and cotton and spice, which were exchanged for gold, wax and ivory.  

Following the collapse of the Ajuran Empire, the Hiraab Imamate ruled large parts of the Kingdom until the late nineteenth century. However, the Hiraab oversaw a long period of chaos and decline, as other sultanates, including the powerful Sultanate of Geledi and Omani Empire concentrated control over the northern Indian Ocean. The Hiraabs and the Omanis controlled different parts of the city—Shingaani and Hamar Weyne respectively—until the Omanis were deposed by Sultan Yusuf Mahamud and left Hamar Weyne.

The Geledi Sultanate ruled until Sultan Osman Ahmed leased the city to Italy in 1892. By 1905 Italy had purchased the city and established it as the capital of Italian Somaliland. While the Mogadishu harbor didn’t provide the most ideal conditions relative to some other ports along the coast, the already-existing city and dense, stone developments made it an attractive place for colonization.

The greatest development occurred between 1926, when Mussolini visited a colony for the first time (Tripoli) and 1935, when Italians led a number of military campaigns and planned large scale developments. When Siad Barre came to power following independence and installed his military dictatorship, the monuments continued in the colonial lineage. By the collapse of the regime, the remnants of many of these monuments remain, only to be rapidly replaced by investment from Somalis abroad.