United States or Saint Martin ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Then he occupied himself with the education of this son and, when the boy waxed strong and came to the age of seven, he brought him a Fakih, a doctor of law and religion, to teach him in his own house and charged him to give him a good education and instruct him in politeness and manners.

Sometimes comes the Sayyid Mohammed el Barr, a stout personage, formerly governor of Zayla, and still highly respected by the people on acount of his pure pedigree. With him is the Fakih Adan, a savan of ignoble origin. When they appear the conversation becomes intensely intellectual; sometimes we dispute religion, sometimes politics, at others history and other humanities.

The Shaykh Jami, a celebrated genealogist, informed me that in A.H. 666 = A.D. 1266-7, the Sayyid Yusuf el Baghdadi visited the port of Siyaro near Berberah, then occupied by an infidel magician, who passed through mountains by the power of his gramarye: the saint summoned to his aid Mohammed bin Tunis el Siddiki, of Bayt el Fakih in Arabia, and by their united prayers a hill closed upon the pagan.

The Shaykhash, or "Reverend" as the term means, are the only Somal of the mountains not derived from Dir and Darud. Claiming descent from the Caliph Abubakr, they assert that ten generations ago, one Ao Khutab bin Fakih Umar crossed over from El Hejaz, and settled in Eastern Africa with his six sons, Umar the greater, Umar the less, two Abdillahs, Ahmed, and lastly Siddik.