The lower course of the Awash, which flows from the Shewan foothills north-east past the hot springs and swamps of the middle valley to end in the lakes of Aussa and Lake Abbe without reaching the sea, with the plains on either side, the volcanic country of the Gulf of Tadjoura and the salt lake of Assal.
The Afar here herd camels and cattle along the river, farm a little in the Aussa oasis and the flood lands, and take salt from Lake Assal. The Awash is also the frontier that the Ethiopian chronicles of the fourteenth century describe as the edge of the Muslim lands ('beyond the Awash'); the caravan road from Zeila to Shewa crosses this country. The later Afar sultanates of Aussa, Tadjoura and Gobaad are later, and the medieval village of Handoga near Dikhil (stone houses, a building with a prayer niche, a Chinese coin) shows settled life here in the medieval centuries.
Who holds it
- Name
- Not known for 1200
- Title
- Afar clan chiefs and elders
- Since
- Not applicable
- Confidence
- low
How things stand that morning
No war recorded. West the escarpment rises to Angot, Amhara and Shewa (eth sheet, with the Makhzumi sultanate of Shewa beyond the Awash); south the Harla towns of the Harar plateau; east the Dir herders towards Zeila.
Customs
Clan law (madaa); river grazing and flood farming; dues from caravans crossing to Shewa.
Assemblies
Not recorded for 1200.
Overlord claims
None known in 1200.
Where the sources disagree
- The line with the Somali (Issa) in the plains between Lake Abbe and Dire Dawa is drawn from later distribution moved east to allow for the later Issa advance; it is a guess.
Evidence: Later chronicles and ethnography; Handoga's archaeology.
On the map: Approximate in the south-east.
Primary sources for Afar
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- The History of the Observant Traveller: the pages on Zeila, Berbera, Mogadishu and Dahlak, Ibn al-Mujawir (Yusuf ibn Yaqub ibn al-Mujawir) (about 1221 to 1230). The closest description of the Horn's ports to 1200, written about twenty-five years later by a trader and official who worked the Aden trade: Zeila and its traffic in slaves, ivory and the goods of the Ethiopian interior; the Barbar (Somali) coast with Berbera and Mogadishu, and the sea route from Aden to Mogadishu and on to Kilwa with its sailing seasons; the Dahlak islands with their own sultan and his dues; Socotra; and the customs and prices of Aden under the Ayyubids of Yemen. Read online
Sources and studies
- Wikipedia: Afar people
- I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali (4th ed., 2002), chapter 1, and Peoples of the Horn of Africa (1955); from the researcher's knowledge, not re-read for this record
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.