Gurage history.
According to the historian Paul B. Henze, the Gurageorigin is explained by
traditions of a military expedition to the south during the last years of
the Kingdom of Aksum, which left military colonies that eventually became
isolated from both northern Ethiopia and each other. [7] However other
historians have raised the issue of the complexity of Gurage peoples if
viewed as a singular group, for example Ulrich Braukhamper states that the
Gurage East people may have been an extension of the
ancient Harla people.[citation needed] Indeed, there is evidence that Harla
architecture may have influenced old buildings (pre-16th c.) found near
Harar (eastern Ethiopia), and the Gurage East group often cite kinship
with Harari (Hararghe) peoples in the distant past.[citation needed]
Braukhamper also states King Amda Seyon ordered Eritrean troops to be
sent to mountainous regions in Gurage (named Gerege), which eventually
became a permanent settlement. In addition to Amda Seyon's military
settlement there, the permanence of Abyssinian presence in Gurage is
documented during his descendants Zara Yaqob and Dawit II's reigns. Thus,
historically, Gurage peoples may be the product of a complex mixture
of Abyssinian and Harla groups which migrated and settled in that region for
different reasons and at various times.[8]
Another stated that the Gurage were originated from a place called Gura,
Eritrea. This believed that linguistically by citing a southward Semitic
migration during the late classical and medieval period; however more
historical research needed.[9]
A single military expedition explanation is likely possible for soldiers to
implant their language in the region effectively. [10] However the extent of
Aksumite political and economic control over the interior Ethiopian
Highlands, as well as that of successor dynasties dominating the Christian
north, is being studied. Aside from local oral traditions linking their past to
areas farther north, the Gurage countryside is home to orthodox Christian
monasteries likely dating to the Middle Ages (Debre Tsion Maryam, Muher
Iyesus, Abuna Gebre Menfes Kiddus, and others), before the conquests
of Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghaziand subsequent Oromo migrations into the
central Highlands.[11]
The Harla, also known as Harala, Karanla, Haralla[1]or Arla,[2] are an ethnic
group that once inhabited Djibouti, Ethiopia and northern and Eastern Somalia.
They spoke the now-extinct Harla language, which belonged to either
the Cushitic[3] or Semitic branches of the Afroasiatic family.[4][5][6] There are
existing books like "The Book of Obligations" ( )كتاب الفرائضin Old Harari written
roughly 500 years ago, when Hararis were referred to as "Harla" at that time as
attested to in the Conquest of Abyssinia.[7
