The Ajuran Sultanate, natively referred to as Ajuuraan, and often simply Ajuran, was a medieval Muslim Empire in the Horn of Africa. Founded by Somali Sultans it ruled over large parts of the Horn of Africa during the Middle Ages. It rose to power in the 13th century and would dominate the Indian Ocean trade for centuries to come. Through a strong centralised administration and an aggressive military stance towards invaders, the Ajuran Empire successfully resisted Oromo invasions from the west and fought against Portuguese incursions from the east.
The city of Merca was a prominent administrative center of the Ajurans
The Jubba River
Farms of Afgooye
Mogadishan currency
An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire exercises political control over the peripheries. Within an empire, different populations have different sets of rights and are governed differently. Narrowly defined, an empire is a sovereign state whose head of state is an emperor or empress; but not all states with aggregate territory under the rule of supreme authorities are called empires or are ruled by an emperor; nor have all self-described empires been accepted as such by contemporaries and historians.
The Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia
Maurya Empire of India at its greatest extent under Ashoka the Great
The three Muslim Gunpowder empires: Mughals, Safavids, and Ottomans in 18th century
Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar