Abtirsi.com Forums

Hi James, im from the southeren quranyow mohamed and live in bay reagion and we are now part of raxanweyn.... here is our abtirsi..

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9 khalaf
10 moalin omar
11 Isow
12 Barre
13 Kilmaale
14 Furkesha
15 Quranyow
16 Mohamed
17 Mahe
18 Dir

i know you have the children of Furkesha in your site but that doesn't include our name Kilmaale Furkesha... i have looked all over the internet but i didn't find any info about kilmaale... so i started to think that since our people migrated from the quranyow in northern kenya down to bay region, it could have been lost in pronunciation because it was such a long time that even today we are part of a completely different tribe but we still remember our abtirsi. give me your thoughts on this if you have any info regarding this.

Hey cool, I think Quranyow are considered a full member of Garre as well, due to Quranyow's mother. Which Raxanweyn confederation are you guys in?

I've added in khalaf moalin omar here:
http://www.abtirsi.com/view.php?person=7013

Hey James thanks for that .. yh i know quranyow are garre and they live both in northern kenya and shabeelaha hoose in somalia.... we are in the Hariin clan of rahanweyn/Mirifle and settle near baidoa a places called, labaatan jarow, goof gaduud, busul, mooro waraabe... so we basically dont even claim or know much about our garre/quranyow/dir side... these days we are basically just Hariin.. however i have always heard our elders talking about that such a long time ago our people were defeated by the oromo and boran in nothern kenya and pushed towards southern somalia... and most of them moved to settle near the river shabelle whereas our group decided to settle near baidoa and joined the Hariin sub clan which we have since mixed, married with and are now fully rahanweyn and the only thing connecting us to quranyow now is our abtirsi.... sow just out of curiosity james, how does a European get into somali clan systems and now is an expert lol tell me a little about that if you don't mind plz its interesting... i say this because couple of years ago when i first came to England as teenager and was going to college i asked some of my English friends what their clans were looool which they hilariously laughed at and made so many jokes about me since then.. to me at the time, it was strange that they didn't belong to no tribes and they were lucky if they knew their great grandfather's name lol sorry about long post.

Here is an account of the migrations of the Gharri (Garre) people:

According to the Gharri’s oral traditional history and British colonial era records based on interview they had with then Gharri elders, regarding the origin of the Gharri people, the Gharri people came from red sea coast and settled at “Serar”, what is now known as arusi province of Ethiopia, They build mosques and homes made of stones. Then during the 1600th exodus of people’s movement, from the north reached the Gharri kingdom and fighting ensued because the enemies started looting the Gharri properties and herds. The Gharri were outnumbered and they were forced to immigrate toward southwest, and settled around filtu and Wachile areas.
The Gharri traditional historians state that the Gharri lived there for period of about 60 years without any disturbances. During that time they build stone houses and mosques around filtu and wachile especially around the dawa riverbanks in around fifty miles corridors from Malka Mari through Malka Dirir area.as it were a standard way of building houses. Then later on the exodous of the Borana reached there. It was believed that was the first time they came in contact with the Borana

So, during late 1600 and early 1700, they lived with the Borana. Later on, things changed, and the Gharri were outnumbered by the Boran and the Borana tried to make them subjects and demand tribute. So, the Gharri decided to move back to their previous region of Confur through Juba land.

The "exodus from the north" is Darod Somalis from the Sultanate of Adal out of Ethiopia, specifically Ifat, which had been invaded by Amhara and Oromos, which forced Garre (of whom your ancestors were in the Garre confederation at the time) to leave their lands in Serar (Seraro in Oromo, it's a Woreda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seraro) and migrate to Wuchale in northern Kenya.

According to the Gharri they chose to leave on their own after pressure from the Borana grew too great, though who knows, anyways they crossed over the Jubba into Konfur. After this, one branch of the Gharri decided to go back and reclaim their lands, but presumably your ancestors decided to stay behind and join the Raxanweyn.

The bit about being originally from the Red Sea Coast is probably close to true, though probably not the coast but rather the interior near Harar.

Thank you for that James its interesting and the accounts you have given here do sound similar to what i have heard from elders. So James ( sorry if i just assume you a European man and i don't know if you have any Somali in you) if you dont mind telling me are you a Somali people history researcher, professor, student or just a person interested in these clan/tribal structure ?....i first came across your site after some guys argued about their abtirsi and after a long argument decided to do some research online and we came across your site which resolved the little argument. and once again thank you for your amazing work.

About 10 years ago I started reading about the Adal and Ajuuraan sultanates and wanted to know more, I've been studying ever since. I am a north American of primarily Scottish and Scandinavian origins, though my abtirsi is Danish.