Maydh ميط

History

Pierre d’Avity stated that in ancient times, the town was known as Acanne, in the same way Hafun was known as Opone. According to Augustus Henry Keane, Maydh represents an early center of dispersal of the Somali people. National genealogies collected by the scholars Cox and Abud assert that many clan patriarchs are buried in or nearby the town. The Book of Curiosities uniquely depicts the Indian Ocean as an enclosed narrow sea, per Ptolemaic tradition, drawn in two halves; eastern (India and China) and western (East Africa) later joined elliptically. In the surviving copy, the halves are misplaced, linking China to Arabia and Africa to India. The Somali section, rich in original detail, names Berbera’s coast, and several mountains are marked, including the Cape of Guardafui at the tip of the Horn of Africa. Maydh, Heis, and other capes are also visualized. The city of Maydh was home to Sheikh Isaaq ibn Ahmed Al Hashimi (Sheekh Isaxaaq), who moved to Somaliland from the Arabian Peninsula in the 12th or 13th century CE. He is considered to be the founding father of the large Somali Isaaq clan family that predominantly inhabits Somaliland, as well as parts of Djibouti and Ethiopia. Sheikh Isaaq's domed tomb is also located here. According to tradition, the old town was built by Sheikh Ishaaq and his followers upon earlier foundations. Legendary 15th century Arab explorer Ahmad ibn Mājid wrote of Maydh and several other notable landmarks and ports of the northern Somali coast, including Berbera, the Sa'ad ad-Din islands (aka the Zeila Archipelago near Zeila), Alula, Ruguda, Heis, El-Darad and El-Sheikh. Somaliland in general is home to numerous such archaeological sites, with similar edifices found at Haylaan, Qa’ableh, Qombo'ul, Gelweita and El Ayo. However, many of…

Most-observed species

• Egyptian Vulture

  Neophron percnopterus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1
• Western Reef-Heron

  Egretta gularis (Bosc, 1792) · Aves
  1
• Black Kite

  Milvus migrans (Boddaert, 1783) · Aves
  1

Most recent

• M 4.4 — 2019-05-16
  149 km NW of Ceerigaabo, Somalia