Kingdom of Adal | ||||||||||
Boqortooyadii Adal | ||||||||||
|
||||||||||
Capital | Zeila | |||||||||
Languages | Somali · Arabic | |||||||||
Religion | Islam | |||||||||
Government | Monarchy | |||||||||
History | ||||||||||
• | Established | 9th century | ||||||||
• | Decline | 13th century | ||||||||
|
||||||||||
Today part of |
Somalia Djibouti Ethiopia |
In the late 9th century, Al-Yaqubi wrote that the Adal kingdom had its capital in Zeila suggesting that the Adal Sultanate with Zeila as its headquarters dates back to at least the 9th or 10th centuries. According to I.M. Lewis, the polity was governed by local dynasties consisting of Somalized Arabs or Arabized Somalis, who also ruled over the similarly-established Sultanate of Mogadishu in the Benadir region to the south.