Early History The original settlers of the Somali region were ethnic Cushites from the fertile lakes of southern Ethiopia. This group is sub-divided into a number of other ethnicities, which are still readily recognized and fought over today. Archeological evidence supports the idea that most of the coastline of present day Somalia had been settled by AD Huntingford has argued in his translation of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, written about this time, that the "Lesser and Greater Bluffs", the "Lesser and Greater Strands", and the "Seven Courses" of Azania all should be identified with the Somali coastline from Hafun south to Siyu Channel.
This indicate that parts of Somalia were familiar to Roman and Indian traders by this time. In the ensuing centuries, the Somalis were one of the first peoples to convert to Islam.
The Arabs established the city of Zeila Now Saylac on the Horn of Africa which would last as a central trading hub until the 17th century, when it was sacked by Christian Ethiopians.
In the Middle Ages the formation of the clan-family political structure began to take shape, when extended families of persecuted Muslims elsewhere in Arabia, fled en masse to the frontier in Somalia.
Their relative affluence made them powerful, and inter-marriage with the locals produced economically beneficial relationships. During the s, the future capital city of Mogadishu came to prominence as a favorite "party town" for Arab sailors. Muslim Somalia enjoyed friendly relations with neighboring Christian Ethiopia for centuries. Despite jihad raging everywhere else in the Arab world, Somalia promised never to attack Ethiopia. The fact that Ethiopia has some of the most forbidding natural terrain in the world didn't hurt the peace effort.
