Recommended listening: Sounds of Somalia: Traditional Somali Music
Story
The sons of Dagalle arrived to find a curious sight. Their father, the chief of the Dir clan, had sent them to follow their sister Dobira when she took the camels out to pasture. Dagalle had noticed that the camels had been coming back curiously well-watered given how arid their pastures normally were. He tasked his sons with following Dobira to find out what the mysterious source of water was. They dutifully trailed their sister as she brought the flocks northward. She led them to a well where a man dressed like an Arab trader was waiting for her. But when the man spotted the group of armed young men, he hastily rolled a rock over the well and leapt up into a nearby tree.
The man in the tree was Darood. Known in his home country as Abdirahman bin Isma'il al-Jabarti, he came from a powerful family in Yemen. The late 10th century was a period of political turmoil in Yemen after the fall of the Ziyadid dynasty in 989. Darood's exact role in these events is lost to history, but some sort of conflict with his uncle led him to leave his homeland and flee across the Red Sea to the Somali coast. When he first arrived, he didn't come across any of the bustling port settlements dotted around the coast. Instead he set up camp under a large tree, where he dug a well to sustain himself. It was here that Dobira found him as she herded her father's flock. Darood offered her the water from his well, and after that she returned regularly to water her camels and get to know the peculiar stranger from across the sea.
Although Darood himself must have been a curiosity to Dobira, alone in the desert as he was, Muslim men from Arabia would have been familiar to her. Arab traders had been doing business with Somali people since at least the 9th century, building up trade relationships that spanned across the Indian Ocean. Somali pastoralists like the Dir clan facilitated the export of ivory, ostriches, hides, frankincense, myrrh, livestock, slaves, and gold, while from places as distant as India and China they imported textiles, pottery, rice, dates, and swords. Chinese coins from the 11th century have been found in archaeological sites in Somalia, indicating the wealth of trade that went on there in medieval times. Darood did not come to Somalia by conventional means, but he was nevertheless representative of an ongoing cultural exchange.
Once her brothers arrived on the scene, Dobira found herself caught in the middle. Unable to move the rock he'd used to block the well, they demanded Darood come down at once. Darood refused, saying he would only come down if they granted him Dobira's hand in marriage. The story as recorded in later histories makes no mention of what Dobira thought of this arrangement. Had she come to develop an attachment to Darood as she brought her camels day after day to drink from his well? Or did she feel used, a pawn in his political games? Whatever her feelings about the matter were, her family decided to accept Darood's terms. Her brother let Darood step down onto his shoulders while coming down from the tree, and a new alliance was forged.
Dobira's marriage to Darood is the foundation legend of the Darod clan, who remain one of the most important Somali clans to this day. Tombs to each survive in the area around Haylaan, but how much the people buried there have to do with the Dobira and Darood of the story is hard to determine. Somali clan genealogies that make reference to this time period often pair an Indigenous woman with a Muslim man of illustrious background: Darood was said to have been a distant relative of Muhammad. But there are other similar stories in Somali communities about local women who married gods. These heavenly beings also made their demands from the lofty branches of a tree, only agreeing to come down when a local man let the god step on his shoulders and marry his female relative. It's possible that the story of Dobira and Darood is simply an Islamicized version of this divine partnership, brought down to earth with a man instead of a god in a monotheistic system.
But even if this is the case, there no doubt were many marriages between Somali women and Arab men during this period. Dobira and Darood's story itself represents the interplay between cultures as Islam spread among the Somali people. Whether Dobira and Darood's marriage really was negotiated while he hid from her brothers in a tree, their marriage and its legacy represent how connected medieval Somali pastorliasts were to the world of international trade.
The man in the tree was Darood. Known in his home country as Abdirahman bin Isma'il al-Jabarti, he came from a powerful family in Yemen. The late 10th century was a period of political turmoil in Yemen after the fall of the Ziyadid dynasty in 989. Darood's exact role in these events is lost to history, but some sort of conflict with his uncle led him to leave his homeland and flee across the Red Sea to the Somali coast. When he first arrived, he didn't come across any of the bustling port settlements dotted around the coast. Instead he set up camp under a large tree, where he dug a well to sustain himself. It was here that Dobira found him as she herded her father's flock. Darood offered her the water from his well, and after that she returned regularly to water her camels and get to know the peculiar stranger from across the sea.
Although Darood himself must have been a curiosity to Dobira, alone in the desert as he was, Muslim men from Arabia would have been familiar to her. Arab traders had been doing business with Somali people since at least the 9th century, building up trade relationships that spanned across the Indian Ocean. Somali pastoralists like the Dir clan facilitated the export of ivory, ostriches, hides, frankincense, myrrh, livestock, slaves, and gold, while from places as distant as India and China they imported textiles, pottery, rice, dates, and swords. Chinese coins from the 11th century have been found in archaeological sites in Somalia, indicating the wealth of trade that went on there in medieval times. Darood did not come to Somalia by conventional means, but he was nevertheless representative of an ongoing cultural exchange.
Once her brothers arrived on the scene, Dobira found herself caught in the middle. Unable to move the rock he'd used to block the well, they demanded Darood come down at once. Darood refused, saying he would only come down if they granted him Dobira's hand in marriage. The story as recorded in later histories makes no mention of what Dobira thought of this arrangement. Had she come to develop an attachment to Darood as she brought her camels day after day to drink from his well? Or did she feel used, a pawn in his political games? Whatever her feelings about the matter were, her family decided to accept Darood's terms. Her brother let Darood step down onto his shoulders while coming down from the tree, and a new alliance was forged.
Dobira's marriage to Darood is the foundation legend of the Darod clan, who remain one of the most important Somali clans to this day. Tombs to each survive in the area around Haylaan, but how much the people buried there have to do with the Dobira and Darood of the story is hard to determine. Somali clan genealogies that make reference to this time period often pair an Indigenous woman with a Muslim man of illustrious background: Darood was said to have been a distant relative of Muhammad. But there are other similar stories in Somali communities about local women who married gods. These heavenly beings also made their demands from the lofty branches of a tree, only agreeing to come down when a local man let the god step on his shoulders and marry his female relative. It's possible that the story of Dobira and Darood is simply an Islamicized version of this divine partnership, brought down to earth with a man instead of a god in a monotheistic system.
But even if this is the case, there no doubt were many marriages between Somali women and Arab men during this period. Dobira and Darood's story itself represents the interplay between cultures as Islam spread among the Somali people. Whether Dobira and Darood's marriage really was negotiated while he hid from her brothers in a tree, their marriage and its legacy represent how connected medieval Somali pastorliasts were to the world of international trade.
Artist's Comments
This was a fun if challenging piece to work on. For the forced perspective, I found this reference and this reference really helpful. It was fun to try something different for the composition, and I really like how Dobira and her brother came out. I couldn't find any depictions of Somali people's dress dating to medieval times, so I used photographs from the early 20th century as references for the clothing. I really love the hairstyles in those photos and it was fun to draw them here. I'd like to thank my friends Dizzy, Sacha, and Chinar for their help on this one: the first two for art advice and the latter for his help understanding the various Arabic names of Dobira.
Africa is such a large and diverse continent that I always really get a lot out of researching this pictures, learning all sorts of things I never knew anything about before. Given the incredible resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in recent months, I felt especially motivated to educate myself more about Black history since there is so much we aren't taught. I'd like to add in here as a note that Somaliland is a self-declared independent state unrecognised by the international community, so I ended up using both Somaliland and Somalia to describe the area in this picture. I hope you enjoyed learning the story of Dobira and getting a glimpse into the vibrant world of trade and cultural exchange in the medieval Indian Ocean region. ~ August 21, 2020
Africa is such a large and diverse continent that I always really get a lot out of researching this pictures, learning all sorts of things I never knew anything about before. Given the incredible resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in recent months, I felt especially motivated to educate myself more about Black history since there is so much we aren't taught. I'd like to add in here as a note that Somaliland is a self-declared independent state unrecognised by the international community, so I ended up using both Somaliland and Somalia to describe the area in this picture. I hope you enjoyed learning the story of Dobira and getting a glimpse into the vibrant world of trade and cultural exchange in the medieval Indian Ocean region. ~ August 21, 2020
Resources
Want to learn more about Dobira and medieval Somaliland? Here are some recommended resources.
"The Man in the Tree: A Note on a Somali Myth" by Virginia Luling
In this article, Luling analyzes several different versions of the story about a marriage between a local Somali woman and a man in a tree. Some of these feature a Muslim man like Darood, while others feature a god or other holy person. My information about different versions of the story came primarily from this article. [Note: The link is not working at the time of publication but is the one I used to access the article.]
"Exploring long-distance trade in Somaliland (1000-1900 AD): Preliminary results of the 2015-2016 field seasons" by Alfredo González-Ruibal et al
This paper goes into fascinating archaeological detail about different Somali port cities and their wide-ranging connections to trade partners. Special attention is paid to what archaeology can tell us about how Indigenous societies interacted with newcomers from elsewhere in the Indian Ocean trade network.
From Pirate Ports to Special Economic Zones: Violence, regulation, and port-making in the Somali Peninsula by Jatin Dua
This book includes a really great introduction to interactions between Somali port cities and the Indian Ocean world in the early medieval period. The author also recounts the story of Dobira and Darood, contextualizing it with information about the role of clan geneaologies in Somali society. My information about imports and exports in medieval Somalia comes from this article.
Tomb of Dobira on Wikimedia Commons
You can see a photograph of Dobira's tomb here. There's also a photo of her husband's tomb.
"The Man in the Tree: A Note on a Somali Myth" by Virginia Luling
In this article, Luling analyzes several different versions of the story about a marriage between a local Somali woman and a man in a tree. Some of these feature a Muslim man like Darood, while others feature a god or other holy person. My information about different versions of the story came primarily from this article. [Note: The link is not working at the time of publication but is the one I used to access the article.]
"Exploring long-distance trade in Somaliland (1000-1900 AD): Preliminary results of the 2015-2016 field seasons" by Alfredo González-Ruibal et al
This paper goes into fascinating archaeological detail about different Somali port cities and their wide-ranging connections to trade partners. Special attention is paid to what archaeology can tell us about how Indigenous societies interacted with newcomers from elsewhere in the Indian Ocean trade network.
From Pirate Ports to Special Economic Zones: Violence, regulation, and port-making in the Somali Peninsula by Jatin Dua
This book includes a really great introduction to interactions between Somali port cities and the Indian Ocean world in the early medieval period. The author also recounts the story of Dobira and Darood, contextualizing it with information about the role of clan geneaologies in Somali society. My information about imports and exports in medieval Somalia comes from this article.
Tomb of Dobira on Wikimedia Commons
You can see a photograph of Dobira's tomb here. There's also a photo of her husband's tomb.