The Ajuran Sultanate (Somali: "Dawladdii Ajuuraan", Arabic: الدولة الأجورانيون), also spelled Ajuuraan Sultanate, and often simply as Ajuran, was a Somali empire of the medieval and early modern periods that dominated the Indian Ocean trade. It was a Somali Muslim sultanate  that ruled over large parts of the Horn of Africa from the early 1200s to the late 1600s. Through a strong centralized administration and an aggressive military stance toward invaders, the Ajuran Sultanate successfully resisted an Oromo invasion from the west and a Portuguese incursion from the east during the "Gaal Madow" war and Ajuran-Portuguese war. Trading routes dating from the ancient and early medieval periods of Somali maritime enterprise were strengthened or re-established, and foreign trade and commerce in the coastal provinces flourished