Maduna and Amud in the western region, Aw-Barkhadle in the Hargeisa region and Fardowsa, near Sheikh. Ancient Zeila was divided into five residential districts; Khoor-doobi, Hafat al-Furda, Asho Bara, Hafat al-Suda and Sarrey. History Avalites During antiquity, Zeila was part of the Somali city-states that in engaged in a lucrative trade network connecting Somali merchants with Phoenicia, Ptolemaic Egypt, Greece, Parthian Persia, Saba, Nabataea, and the Roman Empire. Somali sailors used the ancient Somali maritime vessel known as the beden to transport their cargo. Zeila is an ancient Somali city and has been identified with what was referred to in classical antiquity as the town of Avalites (), situated in the erstwhile Barbara geographical region on the northern Somali coast. Along with the neighboring Habash (Habesha or Abyssinians) of Al-Habash to the west, the Barbaroi or Berber (ancestral Somalis) who inhabited the area was recorded in the 1st century CE Greek document the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea as engaging in extensive commercial exchanges with Egypt and pre-Islamic Arabia. The travelogue mentions the Barbaroi trading frankincense, among various other commodities, through their port cities such as Avalites (modern Zeila). Competent seamen, the Periplus' author also indicates that they sailed throughout the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden for trade. The document describes the Barbaroi's governance system as decentralized and essentially consisting of a collection of autonomous city-states. It also suggests that "the Berbers who live in the place are very unruly," an apparent reference to their independent nature. Ifat & Adal Sultanates Islam was introduced to the area early on from the Arabian Peninsula, shortly after the Hijrah. Zeila's two-mihrab Masjid al-Qiblatayn dates to the 7th century, and is the oldest mosque in the city. In the late 9th century, Al-Yaqubi wrote that Muslims were living along the northern Somali seaboard. He also mentioned that the Adal kingdom had its capital in the city, suggesting that the Adal Sultanate with Zeila as its headquarters dates back to at least the 9th or 10th centuries. According to I.M. Lewis, the polity was governed by local dynasties consisting of Somalized Arabs or Arabized Somalis, who also ruled over the similarly-established Sultanate of Mogadishu in the Benadir region to the south. Adal's history from this founding period forth would be characterized by a succession of battles with neighbouring Abyssinia. By the year (1214-17), Ibn Said referred to both Zeila and Berbera. Zeila, as