The Gaturi (Harari: ጋቱሪ), also spelled as Gatouri are an extinct ethnic group that once inhabited present-day eastern Ethiopia.[1]
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Languages | |
| Gaturi | |
| Religion | |
| Pagan?, Islam |
According to Mohammed Hassen, the Gaturi were a Semitic-speaking people who resided in the region of mount Kundudo and Babile, the region that formed part of the little principality of Dawaro.[2] Historian Merid Wolde Aregay deduced that the Gaturi state language was Harari.[3]
The Harari chronicle states Abadir arrived at an Islamic region called Balad Gatur known later as Harar in the tenth or thirteenth century.[4][5] In Harar, Abadir encountered the Gaturi alongside the Harla and Argobba people.[6] Gaturi is claimed by one source to be a Harla sub clan.[7] According to another Harari tradition seven clans and villages united against a common adversary, including Gaturi, to form Harar city state.[8]
In the middle ages during the Ethiopian-Adal war, one of the leaders of the Muslim forces of Malassay was Amir Husain bin Abubaker al-Gaturi.[9] Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi designated Amir Husain al-Gaturi as governor of Dawaro region which was a border province of Abyssinia.[10]
Gaturi ceased to be mentioned in texts after the sixteenth century. Gaturi is today represented as a sub group of the Harari people and remains a Harari surname.[11][12]
They spoke Gaturi language, possibly an extinct South Ethiopic grouping within the Semitic subfamily of the Afroasiatic languages and closely related to Harari and Argobba languages.[13]