Harrar or spelled Harar, capital of Harar region, E central Ethiopia, at an altitude of c.6,000 ft (1,830 m). It is the trade center for a region where coffee, cereals, and cotton are produced. Harar was probably founded in the 7th cent. A walled city, Harar was long a center of Islamic learning. Today it is the site of a military academy and of teacher-training and agricultural schools.
The walled town - UNESCO Protected
The town of Harar dates from before the thirteenth century. Its strategic location between the coastal lowlands and central highlands led to its development as an important centre of Islamic culture and commerce. A period of instability led to a loss of its traditional power between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries but it regained its importance in the following century.Until the present century, all development took place inside the sixteenth-century walls, where even now the population is growing.
Although the modern town slowly expanded outside the walls, Harar has preserved generally a harmonious appearance with nearly a hundred mosques. Old Harar is one of the few towns in Ethiopia that owe their overall aspect to Islamic building traditions. At the same time, it preserves an exotic mixture of different Ethiopian cultures.
Having rested from this by no means arduous journey, the traveler will be ready to enter the Old City, which for most of its long history was closed to foreigners from other lands.
Harar is remarkable in that it has its own special tongue, Adare, which is known only to the people of the city. This language, which must once have been used much more widely, is one of the offshoots of Ge,ez, the classical Semitic language of Ethiopia. It was the language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, as well as the root of Amharic, Ethiopias modern official language, and of Tigrinya, the language spoken in the north of the country. Before entering the city, todays traveler, like those of the past, has to pass through its famous 3,342 meter-long encircling wall, locally known as the Jogal. This structure was erected in the sixteenth century by one of the cities best remembered local rulers of medieval times, Nur ibn-Mujahid, who is said to have dug a defensive trench around the town. This wall, which ensured the cities safety in former days, is made of locally quarried, untrimmed Hashi stone or calcareous tuff, held together with mud, and reinforced with stout juniper planks. The walls of Harar were pierced in early times by five gates, a number supposed to symbolize the Five Pillars of Islam. These gates, known to the Hararis as bari, were situated respectively to the north, east, south-east, south, and west of the city. Each had its own distinctive name, and provided entry and egress to caravans traveling to and from different stretches of the surrounding country.
Though most of the men of Harar now wear modern, or European, clothes, many of the womenfolk are still dressed in traditional costumes reminiscent of those described by Richard Burton, and illustrated in the engravings he published in his famous book. The women wear clothes of silk or other fine material, sometimes of crimson, purple or, more often, of black decorated with a small diaper of gold. Over this, Harari women will also gracefully drape a shawl, perhaps of orange or black, likewise decorated with gold.
