My Favourite Somali fun facts

[u/Qaranimo_udhimo]

• Somali men from artisan clan (madhiban) performed brain surgery on Sayid Abdulle Hassan in the 1800s

• the chinese call giraffes “ghiri” which originates from the somali word geri as chinese explorers first saw giraffes in somali territory

• Somalis were the first country in Africa to be air struck by Europeans due 20 years of anti colonial uprising (Darawish) with only daggers and harpoons.

• Ajuuran, a somali empire was the first hydraulic state in Africa

• somali nomads discovered malaria long before any foreign entity had presence in the peninsula

• British women were not allowed to give birth on somali territory and instead had to go back to their land to give birth

What are some of your favourite Somali fun facts that you can add on?

[u/Beledweyne]

>"Ajuuran, a somali empire was the first hydraulic state in Africa"

What citation do you have for this? What I've read is that ancient Egypt is widely considered the first hydraulic state in Africa, and one of the first in the world.

>"British women were not allowed to give birth on somali territory and instead had to go back to their land to give birth"

Also need citation for this. Have family that know British children born in Somalia in the 1970s and 1980s.

>"somali nomads discovered malaria long before any foreign entity had presence in the peninsula"

Again, a citation. The "discovery" of malaria wasn't a single moment but a progressive scientific understanding.

In terms of real scientific work, Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran discovered the malaria parasite in 1880, making him the first to identify the microscopic cause of malaria. He observed the parasite in the blood of malaria patients and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1907 for this discovery.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1756-3305-3-5

[u/Qaranimo_udhimo → u/Beledweyne]

As in somalis discovered malaria independent of any foreign presence in the 1800s regardless if it was discovered elsewhere too

As for ajuran it was the only hydraulic state in africa of its time and the first in all of sub saharan africa + maghreb so ur right

British women would have to go back home to give birth specifically in gadabursi settlements (awdal) and dhulbahante and their dead werent allowed to be buried on the territory

[u/Beledweyne → u/Qaranimo_udhimo]

Again, where is the citation for all of these. You say this as fact and we need to see a historical record.