Horn of Africa complex pattern of interrelationships among the various groups. According to "Ethnologue", there are 10 individual languages spoken in Djibouti, 14 in Eritrea, 90 in Ethiopia, and 15 in Somalia. Most people in the Horn speak Afroasiatic languages of the Cushitic or Semitic branches. The former includes Oromo, spoken by the Oromo people in Ethiopia, and Somali, spoken by the Somali people in Somalia, Djibouti and Ethiopia; the latter includes Amharic, spoken by the Amhara people of Ethiopia, and Tigrinya spoken by the Tigrayan people of Eritrea and Ethiopia. Other Afroasiatic languages with a significant number of speakers include the Cushitic
Horn of Africa the Adal Sultanate with Zeila as its headquarters dates back to at least the 9th or 10th century. According to I.M. Lewis, the polity was governed by local Somali dynasties, who also ruled over the similarly-established Sultanate of Mogadishu in the littoral Benadir region to the south. Adal's history from this founding period forth would be characterized by a succession of battles with neighbouring Abyssinia. Islam was introduced to the region early on from the Arabian peninsula, shortly after the hijra. At Muhammad's urging, a band of persecuted Muslims had fled across the Red Sea into the Horn. There, the