[2][3][4] They are considered the earliest documented clan to have settled in the Somali peninsula, as noted in the 12th century by Al-Idrisi, occupying the regions spanning from Ras Hafun to Merca, which served as their capital.

[10] The Hawiye have historically exercised authority over large sections of the Horn of Africa as Sovereign Sultans and Imams overseeing crucial trade routes that have existed since the early periods of Somali maritime history.

[13] This political and economic influence continued to have relevance well into the modern age, with the Hawiye clan playing a pivotal and historically significant role in laying the foundations of the Somali nation.

Some scholars consider these genealogical claims as historically untenable, but instead argue that they reflect a longstanding cross cultural exchange between Somalia and Southern Arabia.

The tomb of Shiekh Hawiye can be found in Qundhuro, situated within the Haraghe region, which served as his primary residence for the later years of his life as a revered Sheikh who dedicated himself to the propagation of the teachings of Islam.

The origin and traditional homeland of the Hawiye is believed to be in the Somali Region of Ethiopia,[25] where he was preceded by the arrival of his Samaale ancestors in the areas between Djibouti and Somaliland,[26] before descending southeast and along the Shabelle Valley.

[11][37][38][39] Lee Cassanelli in his 1982 book "The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600-1900" often refers to the Ajuran as former leaders of a Hawiye clan dynasty.

[12][40][41] By 1700, the Hiraab and other clans occupied a large territory stretching the interior from the Shabelle valley to the arid lands of Mudug and to the coastal areas of Mogadishu towards Hobyo.

Explorer John Kirk arrived in southern Somalia in 1873 during a period of great economic prosperity with the region being dominated by the Imamate and the Geledi Sultanate.

Roughly 20 large dhows were docked in both Mogadishu and Merka respectively filled with grain produced from the farms of the Geledi in the interior with much of the trade being destined for Zanzibar.

The military leader to overthrow and exile the successor of the coup President Siad Barre of the Supreme Revolutionary Council in 1991 before fighting and defeating subsequent US occupying forces (1993-1995) was General Mohamed Farrah Aidid, a Habar Gidir.

Despite 2 interim governments built from Djibouti and supplanted in the capital with its elected Hawiye Presidencies in Ali Mahdi Muhammad in 1991 and Abdiqasim Salad Hassan (Habargidir) a decade later, 14 national peace conferences throughout their tenures and a 3-year UN/US humanitarian & peacekeeping intervention (1992-1995), the Mogadishu Civil War remained a stalemate until 2006 which saw the rise of the popular Islamic Courts Union (ICU), a predominately Hawiye-based Islamic Fundamentalist Organisation that ended the rule of factional warlords and their chiefdoms, with the ICU promoting religious reform while conquering large parts of the country.

Both groups seem to have been long established in the Sultanate of Bale: the early immigrants from Merca started from a Hawiya-occupied region and oral traditions relate the Garğēda with the time of the "holy war" in the 1530s.

[49]Along with Rahanweyn, the Hawiye clan also came under the Ajuran Empire control in the 13th century that governed much of southern Somalia and eastern Ethiopia, with its domain extending from Hobyo in the north, to Qelafo in the west, to Kismayo in the south.

[50] Known to medieval writers as the Ajan Coast[51][52][53] Harold Marcus credits the role of the Hawiye-led commonwealth alliance[54][55] in expanding and islamizing the communities of what is now southeast Ethiopia and southern Somalia during the 15th and 16th centuries.

According to best known travel and tourism handbook "Guide to Ethiopia" by author Phillip Briggs and ecologist professor Marco Viganó, the Kundudo (Qundhura) mountain ranges which sits at the mouth of Gursum, Somali (woreda) and easiest to access via Babile was the locality of ancient Hubat,[58][59][60] an early Hawiye settlement area pre-dating and surrounding Harar particularly towards the South East and also historically inhabited by nomadic highland Hawiye clans who had turned to farming and cultivation during the rainfall season according to J.Spencer's "Islam in Ethiopia" where they later repelled and neighboured the Oromo Invasions.

[72][73][74] Weakened by centuries of northern conflict, a fraction of the Hawiye of the post Adal Harar Emirate continued to remain powerful in the Somali interior[75][76][77][78] and would later form a dynasty of jurists in early modern Zeila.

This area was not only the traditional Hawiyya homeland, but also stood midway geographically between the emirates of Harar and the Benaadir, an ideal link for the transmission of political and religious ideas.Enrico Cerulli, an Author on key Somali social development and early history, mentions the following passage on the birth and succession of the Ajuran Sultanate.

The descendants of the Ajuraan (among which are the Gareen imams) can therefore be understood to have inherited the spiritual (Islamic) and the secular (numerical) power provided by the alliance of the first three Hawiyya "brothers".

Ajuran power reposed on the twin pillars of spiritual preeminence and Hawiyya kinship solidarity, a potent combination in the Somali cultural context.

In historical terms, a theocratic ideology superimposed on an extensive network of Hawiyya-affiliated clans helped uphold Ajuran dominance over a wide region.

He writes: "According to local oral tradition, the Hiraab imamate was a powerful alliance of closely related groups who shared a common lineage under the Gorgaarte clan divisions.

[82] The alliance involved the army leaders and advisors of the Habar Gidir and Duduble, a Fiqhi/Qadi of Sheekhaal, and the Imam was reserved for the Mudulood branch who is believed to have been the first born.

The agricultural centres of El Dher and Harardhere included the production of sorghum and beans, supplementing with herds of camels, cattle, goats and sheep.

[82] The economy of the Hawiye includes the predominant nomadic pastoralism, and to some extent, cultivation within agricultural settlements in the riverine area, as well as mercantile commerce along the urban coast.

At various points throughout history, trade of modern and ancient commodities by the Hawiye through maritime routes included cattle skin, slaves, ivory and ambergris.

[83][82] Richard Burton, a famous 19th century British explorer said to have been the first European to reach the Holy Islamic sites of Mecca and Medina in secrecy, on visiting the country of the Somalis in 1854 noted among other authors at the time, the northern and southern expansion of the Hiraab prior to the Imamate's deeper conflicts with the advent of Colonialism, said the following;

[87] NOTE: The Sheekhaal, Xawaadle and Saransoor (Gaaljecel, Dagoodi, Ciise, Masarre, Tuuf Garre) are historically counted as Hawiye lineages under Hiraab,[89] Gorgaarte[90] and Gugundhabe[88] respectively.