The Afar hold the hot lowlands between the Ethiopian escarpment and the sea: the Danakil depression with its salt plain below sea level, the Red Sea coast from the Gulf of Zula to the Bab al-Mandab, the shores of the Gulf of Tadjoura, and the lower Awash with the oasis of Aussa and Lake Abbe.
They herd camels, goats, sheep and cattle, cut and carry the salt of the depression and of Lake Assal up to the highland markets, fish, and pilot and supply the coast. Ibn Sa'id, in the mid-thirteenth century, is the first to name them, as the Dankal; most were Muslims by the thirteenth century through holy men and traders from Arabia. They live in clans under elders and chiefs who keep their own customary law (madaa); the noble 'red' houses and the commoner 'white' houses of later times may already exist.
No Afar ruler is named before the Ethiopian chronicles of the fourteenth century, and the later Afar sultanates do not yet exist. On 1 January 1200 no one rules the Afar as a whole and no one is known to take tribute from them.
Who rules
- Name
- Not applicable. No Afar chief of 1200 is named. The Afar sultanates (the Dankali kingdom of Beylul, Aussa, Tadjoura, Rahaita, Gobaad, Biru) are attested from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and later.
- Title
- No single ruler: clan chiefs and elders
- Since
- Not applicable
- Born
- Not applicable
- Family
- Clans grouped in later times into the 'red' noble houses (Asaimara) and the 'white' commoner houses (Adoimara); more than 150 sub-tribes in modern counts.
- Confidence
- medium
Wikipedia (Afar people): the first written mention is Ibn Sa'id's (mid-thirteenth century), of a people he calls the Dankal on the coast towards the Bab al-Mandab and Zeila; most Afar are said to have become Muslims by the thirteenth century; the Ethiopian chronicles meet them from Amda Seyon's reign (1314-1344) beyond the Awash.
Overlord
None. No outside power is known to take tribute from the Afar in 1200.
The realm that morning
No war is recorded. To the west the escarpment rises to Zagwe Tigray, Angot and Christian and Muslim Shewa (eth sheet); to the north the Saho hold the escarpment south of Massawa; to the south-east the Somali clans (the Dir in tradition) graze towards Zeila and the Harla towns stand on the Harar plateau; the Dahlak sultan and Yemen face them across the water.
Wealth
Herds; salt from the depression and Lake Assal (the salt-bar trade is described in the sixteenth century and is probably far older); fish and the coast; dues on caravans.
Military
No figures. Clan levies of spearmen and knife-men; their later reputation in the Ethiopian chronicles is as fierce fighters who tied their garments together so they could not flee.
Threats
- Drought
- Later: the Christian kings' campaigns beyond the Awash (fourteenth century) and the rise of Ifat and Adal
How it decides
By clan: chiefs and elders judge by customary law (madaa), settle blood-money and grazing, and agree on war and the passage of caravans; details for 1200 are not recorded.
Tribute
None known. They take dues and gifts from caravans and salt traders crossing their country.
Where the sources disagree
- Wikipedia reports Ibn Sa'id placing the Dankal 'from Suakin south to Mandeb, near Zeila'; the northern limit is doubtful (the coast north of Massawa is Beja country) and is not followed.
- The Afar term madaa for customary law is given from the researcher's knowledge, not from a source read for this record.
Evidence: One mid-thirteenth-century mention (Ibn Sa'id) and later Ethiopian chronicles; the rest is ethnography and tradition projected back.
On the map: The Afar ground is drawn through its two provinces and the anchors; its line with the Somali (Dir) in the south-east is a guess, and later Issa expansion moved it westwards.
Primary sources for this realm
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
- Taddesse Tamrat, Ethiopia, the Red Sea and the Horn, in Cambridge History of Africa vol. 3 (1977); from the researcher's knowledge and the Wikipedia summaries citing it, not re-read
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.