The town of Zeila, identified in antiquity…

The town of Zeila, identified in antiquity with the commercial port of Avalites described in the first century-Greco-Roman travelogue the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, an area situated in the historic northern Barbara region of present Somlaia, had evolved into an early Islamic center with the arrival of Muslims shortly after the hijra.

By the ninth century, Zeila is described as the capital of an already-established Adal kingdom, and had attained its height of prosperity in the fourteenth century.

Travelers' reports, such as the memoirs of the Italian Ludovico di Varthema, indicate that Zeila continued to be an important marketplace during the sixteenth century, despite being sacked by the Portuguese in 1517.

The Ottoman Turks, consolidating their position at the entrance to the Red Sea, garrison Zeila in 1520.