Banaadir

Tradition and old records assert that southern Somalia, including the Mogadishu area, was historically inhabited by hunter-gatherers. These were later joined by Cushitic-speaking populations, who would go on to establish local aristocracies. During its medieval Golden Age, Mogadishu was ruled by the Muzaffar dynasty, and later by the Ajuran Sultanate. This is found mainly in Banaadiri oral tradition. It subsequently fell under the control of an assortment of local Sultanates and polities, most notably the Sultanate of the Geledi. The sultanate of the Geledi were in an alliance with the Zanzibar Dynasty. The city later became the capital of Italian Somaliland (1889–1936) in the colonial period. When the Italians arrived in Mogadishu the city had two towns only. These towns were Xamar Weyne and Shingaani. The people who lived in these towns were known as "reer xamar" who were the original population and the people that lived outside these towns, what is modern day Hodan, Boondhere and all the districts were known as Xamar Daye. These tribes mainly included Reer Mataan sub tribes. The Xamar Daye, being nomadic people used their lands as grazing lands and used them for things such as camel herding. They sold their cattle in bulk to the reer xamar merchants, who were urban dwellers and seafarers; they in turn traded these items throughout the Indian Ocean and brought back luxury goods such as ivory. After the Somali Republic became independent in 1960, Mogadishu became known and promoted as the White Pearl of the Indian Ocean. After the ousting of the Siad Barre regime in 1991 and the ensuing Somali Civil War, various militias fought for control of the city, later to be replaced by the Islamic Courts Union in the mid-2000s. The ICU thereafter splintered into more radical groups, notably the al-Shabaab, which fought the Transitional Federal Government (2004–2012) and its African Union Mission to Somalia allies. With a change in administration in late 2010, government troops and their military partners had succeeded in forcing out Al-Shabaab by August 2011. Mogadishu has then subsequently experienced a period of intense reconstruction.