Zeila

Zeila stands on the Gulf of Aden near the entrance to the Red Sea. For centuries it was a leading port of the northern Horn of Africa, bringing together merchants, sailors and pilgrims bound for Arabia. Caravans connected the harbour with the Muslim towns and markets of the interior, while ships carried provisions and other goods across the gulf to Yemen.

Zeila was closely tied to the Muslim rulers of Ifat and Adal and to their struggles with Christian Ethiopia. Around the beginning of the fifteenth century, the defeat and death of the Ifat ruler Saad ad-Din near Zeila became a powerful memory among Muslims of the region. The port recovered its place in trade, but Portuguese fleets attacked it in 1517 and again in 1528. Gold, ivory, livestock and enslaved people passed through the city, whose stone houses and streets impressed early sixteenth-century visitors.