Zeila

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Zeila (Somali: Saylac, Arabic: زيلع, romanized: Zayla), also spelled Zaila or Zayla, is a historical port town in the western Awdal region of Somaliland. In the Middle Ages, the Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela identified Zeila with the Biblical location of Havilah. Most modern scholars identify it with the site of Avalites mentioned in the 1st-century Greco-Roman travelogue the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and in Ptolemy, although this is disputed. The town evolved into an early Islamic center with the arrival of Muslims shortly after the Hijrah. By the 9th century, Zeila was the capital of the early Adal Kingdom and Ifat Sultanate in the 13th century, it would attain its height of prosperity a few centuries later in the 16th century. The city subsequently was under Ottoman protection from the 16th to the 19th century, during which it was briefly seized by Sharmarke Ali Saleh in 1856. It later transitioned from Ottoman to British control. Up until recently Zeila was surrounded by...

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