Horn of Africa Horn of Africa The Horn of Africa (, , , , ) (shortened to HOA; alternatively Somali Peninsula) is a peninsula in Northeast Africa. It juts hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. The area is the easternmost projection of the African continent. Referred to in ancient and medieval times as "Land of the Berbers" and "Habesha", the Horn of Africa denotes the region containing the countries of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia. It covers approximately 2,000,000 km (770,000 sq mi) and is inhabited by roughly 115 million people
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