The Kingdom of Berbera was a Somali state that existed in the Post-Classical Era and before the Middle Ages.
History[]
Berbera was previously known to be a port city on the coast of the Indian Ocean in present-day Somalia, serving as a trade hub between India and the Arabian Peninsula. In 769, the sayyid Yusuf of Berbera rose to power as King of Berbera with a head full of plans, and he sought to bring Islam to East Africa and establish his own empire. Although he was ethnically an Arab and a descendant of Husayn ibn Ali, Yusuf culturally identified as Somali, and all of his wives were African; his children included both white and black-skinned children, and he created a ruling dynasty of Afro-Arabs that came to be known as the "Hussainids" due to their status as sadah. The kingdom's first adversary was the neighboring Shirazid Emirate, a Bedouin dynasty that ruled over lands along the Strait of Mandeb; in 769, King Yusuf conquered the County of Zeila from the Shirazids, and he proceeded to conquer Harer in the following months, destroying the Shirazid Emirate.In 772, Berbera proceeded to conquer Aden from the Arwadid Emirate, but Abyssinia conquered the rest of the country.
Under King Yusuf's son Muhammad I of Berbera who succeeded Yusuf on his death in 774, Berbera went on to conquer Shewa, Gojjam, Gondar, and East African Abyssinia, expanding the kingdom to become a major Muslim kingdom.
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