Harar: The Living Museum
To Muslims this historic walled citadel, Harar, or the City of Saints, ranks only behind the sanctified trio of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem as Islam’s fourth-holiest city. Within Ethiopia, it is far and away the country’s most important repository of Islamic landmarks, with 82 mosques and 438 Awaach (shrines of important Islamic scholars) crammed into 48 hectares - the largest concentration in the world. Religious significance aside, the ancient town of Harar also served for centuries as the most important emporium in the Horn of Africa, the trade pivot linking the ports of the Somali coast to the fertile Ethiopian interior.
UNESCO, which inscribed Harar Jugol as a World Heritage Site in 2006, regards its unique gey gar (city houses), with their exceptional interior design, as the most spectacular part of the city’s cultural heritage. There are endless other delights: the labyrinthine alleys, the busy market places where colourfully-draped local women sell deliciously juicy tropical fruits, pastel-painted cafes brewing coffee plucked from the surrounding hills, the great hospitality of the people and the architectural beauty of Harar Jugol. Above all, it is a lively and truly welcoming city, with its multifaceted aura of cultural and architectural integrity. In fact, in 2002, UNESCO awarded Harar the Cities for Peace Prize, in recognition of its outstanding contribution to the promotion of peace, tolerance and solidarity in everyday life.
Historical Harar
Harar was founded in the 7th century and by the 16th century was the capital of Adal Muslim state. Today, Harar is the beautiful, multicultural capital of the Harari People Regional State. It is famous for its excellent hospitality, bustling traditional markets, handicraft products and its museums. Centuries old craft-making traditions including weaving, jewellery and bookbinding are well preserved and of particular interest to culture enthusiasts.
Sherif Harari City Museum
This private museum curated by the collector Abdullahi Sherif is housed in one of Harar’s most beautiful buildings, a wide-balconied double-storey mansion that splendidly combines elements of Islamic and Indian architecture. The house was built in the late 19th century by Ras (Prince) Mekonnen, whose son Ras Tefari (the future Emperor Haile Selassie) spent much of his childhood there. Among the many treasures on display are collections of antique Islamic manuscripts, coins minted in the city during the 18th century, traditional Harari costumes, musical instruments and household artefacts. A musical archive includes hundreds of field recordings made in and around Harar since the 1940s.
Arthur Rimbaud Museum
Another late 19th century architectural gem, the restored double-storey house where the poet Arthur Rimbaud is said to have lived now functions as a museum with displays dedicated to the poet and his years in Harar. The first floor houses a fascinating collection of monochrome photographs of the city taken in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Harar city houses (Gay Gar)
Around 2000 traditional city houses, or gey gars, populate Harar Jugol, including one built during Amir Abdushakur’s dynasty in 1783. Entered via a traditional carved wooden door (gan beri), the split-level interior is centred on a living room (nedeba) dominated by a carpet-draped elevated platform where most social activity takes place. The niched walls are hung with myriad household items, notably the circular flat polychrome injera-baskets for which Harar is famed. This open-plan area is flanked by two small cells: the dera, a bedroom where newlyweds spend their first week of wedlock, and the smaller kirtet, which functions as a cellar and storage room. Some houses have an upper floor, or kuti kela, once used to store coffee and grains but now usually adapted as an additional bedroom. A good example of a traditional gey gar, decorated with hundreds of vintage artefacts, is the well-executed facsimile in the Harar Community Centre Museum. Local guides can arrange for tourists to visit genuine lived-in Harari houses, and those who want to immerse themselves deeper in the experience can overnight at one of the city’s four family-run cultural guesthouses.
Did you know?
• The feeding of wild hyenas in Harar is rooted in the ancient Ashura ceremony, when a few bowls of porridge are left out for the hyenas, and the city’s fortunes over the coming year are predicted based on how much is eaten.
• The Harar coffee bean is one of the oldest still produced and is known for its heavy-bodied, spicy and fragrant flavour.
• One of the first Europeans to visit Harar was the British Sir Richard Burton in 1856 and then Arthur Rimbaud, the prodigious French poet who abandoned his writing aged 19, then spent seven years travelling in Europe. Rimbaud moved to Harar in 1880, and worked as an arms trader there until his death in 1891.
• The old walled city of Harar is known to its Harari inhabitants as Gey (‘City’). The Harari also refer to themselves as Gey Usu (‘City People’) and to their Semitic Harari tongue as Gey Sinan (‘City Language’).
GETTING THERE
Harar lies 510km east of Addis Ababa along a good surfaced road, passing through Adama and Awash National Park.
The main air gateway to Harar is Dire Dawa, 52km by road to the northwest.
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Ethiopian Airlines (www.ethiopianairlines.com) flies daily between Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa, where taxis are available at the airport to whisk you along the surfaced road to Harar.
Another possible air gateway, Jijiga, the capital of Ethiopia Somali Region, lies 100km east of Harar and is also connected to Addis Ababa by daily Ethiopian Airlines flights.
GETTING AROUND
The Harar Jugol is best explored on foot with an experienced local guide who knows their way around its confusing maze of alleys. Guides can be arranged through any hotel or by asking at the central Tourist Information Office.
Taxis and bajaji can be picked up at Feres Megala and along the main road through the new town.
ACCOMMODATION
The most attractive accommodation is a quartet of inexpensive family-owned cultural guesthouses set in traditional Harari homes within the walls of Harar Jugol.
A new international standard hotel is being built in 2015.
A few budget lodgings are also scattered around the new town. Other hotels are found in Dire Dawa.
ANNUAL FESTIVALS
The usual Islamic holidays are celebrated in Harar, including Eid al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan. At the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, the first day of the month of Shewal is celebrated as Eid-al-Fitr. This is followed by six-days of fasting. The 8th day of the month of Shewal is Shewal Eid - a special Harari cultural festival, consisting of 24 hours of celebrations.
Harar comes alive during the Ashura ceremony, which takes place on the 10th day of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar.
Kulubi Gebriel, on the road back towards Addis Ababa, attracts up to 100,000 Christian pilgrims on 26 July and 28 December, holy days dedicated to Kidus Gebriel (Saint Gabriel).
SHOPPING
The Gidir Megala (Grand Market) and surrounding handicraft shops are the best places in Harar to buy curios.