Issue No. 931

The Architecture of Loss

In the small coastal town of Zeila in Somaliland, the ruins of one of the oldest and finest mosques in the Horn of Africa remain. Years of neglect have taken their toll, with many of the stones that once held up the Masjid al-Qiblatayn —dating back to the 7th century —now integrated into the surrounding houses. But a striking minaret still stands askew, as does an arch with two square windows and a handful of columns. Its name 'al-Qiblatayn' translates as 'of the two Qiblahs', while the mosque once housed two mihrabs as well —one facing Mecca and another facing Jerusalem.

Believed to date to the 7th century, the Masjid al-Qiblatayn is one of the oldest surviving mosques in the Horn of Africa, having been most likely established by the early companions of the Prophet Muhammad, who had sought protection in Axum from persecution across the sea. In Islamic tradition, the Christian-majority Axumite kingdom is often referred to as the 'Realm of Neutrality/Protection' (dâr al-hiyâd). As such, Tigray still hosts some early fine mosques, such as the 7th-century Al-Nejashi mosque, named after Najashi, an Axumite leader. But like so many of the ancient region's antiquities, this mosque was badly damaged during the 2020-2022 Tigray war, where parts of the mosque's dome collapsed from artillery shelling, and many of the precious manuscripts were looted.

The Masjid al-Qiblatayn, though, has not been damaged by war but rather neglect, while a handful of bad storms have downed much of the surviving structures. The sorry state of the ancient mosque has not gone unnoticed, though, with Hargeisa and a variety of foreign organisations intermittently drawing up plans to conserve and restore the site. Progress has been sporadic, however, and much remains unknown about the mosque and its surrounding buried buildings, with a comprehensive architectural investigation sorely needed. Once upon a time, though, the Masjid al-Qiblatayn would have held a prominent position in the trading city of Zeila, a port town that lies just across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen. Home to Somalis, Arabs, and Afar, it was part of both the Adal Kingdom and the Ifat Sultanate. But by the 16th century, it would reach its most prosperous period before being subsumed under Ottoman rule.

This ancient mosque is not the only historic site in Somaliland that requires restoration. And in a positive development revealed late last year, France and Somaliland agreed on a major cultural and archaeological heritage project to preserve Somaliland's rich history. As part of the multi-million dollar agreement, Paris will support a variety of outputs, including establishing "protection mechanisms for irreplaceable archaeological sites; building local and national institutional capacity for heritage management and conservation... [and] supporting international scientific collaboration on archaeological research and conservation." The second part of the project relates to sustaining Laas Geel, the site of rock paintings dating back over 5,000 years, containing some of the earliest known depictions of domesticated African aurochs. One of the jewels in Somaliland's heritage crown, there have long been similar concerns about their upkeep, and these forthcoming joint conservation efforts will hopefully preserve them for millennia to come.

And yet, more broadly, the question of cultural heritage, restitution, and reconstruction remains both fraught and complex across Somaliland and Somalia. First, it is important to acknowledge the scale and the tragedies of what has been lost, and the lists are extraordinary. Ninety per cent of Hargeisa was razed to the ground by the indiscriminate aerial and artillery bombardment of Siyaad Barre's forces in 1988, while hundreds more towns and villages were ruined. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed, and hundreds of thousands more were made refugees or internally displaced. 

To the south, Somalia's tangible cultural heritage has been badly mauled by decades of instability and internecine conflict as well, particularly in Mogadishu. Fine pieces of Christian and Islamic architecture alike have been lost, with Al-Shabaab targeting the Italian Catholic Cathedral that was built in 1927, modelled on the Norman-style Cefalù Cathedral in Sicily. But other ancient mosques, the Abdulaziz Mosque and the Arba'a Rukun Mosque, were damaged too in the 1990s, another casualty of the cyclical battles for the city. The National Library, National Theatre, the Somali Film Agency, the Garera Museum, and the old Parliament, to name but a few, all suffered extensive harm, with their remnants looted as well. The crumbling colonial-era Mogadishu Lighthouse, though, is emblematic of the disrepair that much of the country's storied history has fallen into. With dozens of skyscrapers and apartment blocks having been erected in Mogadishu over the past few years, it is a crying shame that some of the money sloshing around the capital has not been diverted to protecting these iconic landmarks. 

Though the plunder and damage to these fine buildings may have diminished in the past decade, another debate has arisen in its place-- the broader struggle for Somali identity and culture. Decades of creeping influence and money from the Middle East, especially in the aftermath of state collapse in the early 1990s, have left distinct imprints on Somali society. In particular, the 'Arabisation' of the country via the Salafist mosques and madrasas funded from Riyadh and Doha has eroded the particular mystical strain of Sufism that was once ubiquitous. And so many of the traditional Somali dances, music, and folklore have fallen by the wayside, while the Hargeisa Cultural Centre and other organisations have often drawn the ire of Islamic conservatives as well. But in recent years, it has been individuals affiliated with Al-I'tisaam, the shadowy Salafist group that shares jihadist origins with Al-Shabaab, who have spearheaded the country's conservative turn. The issue of restoration is inherently political-- what are you choosing to preserve and how? And what are the memories that are preferred and what is lost in the process. 

At a moment where the Gulf powers' tussle for supremacy in the Horn of Africa is spilling over with calamitous effects, the ruins of the Masjid al-Qiblatayn serve as another pertinent reminder that the Horn of Africa has always been connected to the Arabian Peninsula and the Red Sea, with empires, ideas, peoples, and goods having long traversed between the two continents. Managing that relationship in the 21st century, however, is another matter entirely.

Amid the spiralling war in Sudan and renewed tensions in Ethiopia, heritage can seem like a luxury, perhaps an indulgence in stone and memory. But the ruination of the rock-hewn churches in Tigray, the looting of the Sudanese national museums in Khartoum, or Al-Shabaab's attacks on Christian symbols in Mogadishu are all part of a broader scarring of these rich societies. And what is lost is far greater than architecture or objects, but, among other things, evidence of plurality, be it Christian and Muslim, African and Arab, or Sufi and reformist. If the reconstruction of Somalia and Somaliland is to be more than concrete and glass, it must also be a reconstruction of memory.

The Somali Wire Team