Zeila (Somali: Saylac, Arabic: زيلع‎‎), also known as Zaila, is a port city in the northwestern Awdal region of Somalia. In antiquity, it was identified with the commercial port of Avalites described in the 1st century Greco-Roman travelogue the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, an area that was situated in the historic northern Barbara region. The town evolved into an early Islamic center with the arrival of Muslims shortly after the hijra. By the 9th century, Zeila was the capital of the Ifat Sultanate, and a major port for its successor state the Adal Sultanate, it would attain its height of prosperity a few centuries later in the 16th century. The city subsequently came under Ottoman and British protection in the 18th century.