Futuh Al-Habaša: The Conquest of Abyssinia [16th Century] by Šihab ad-Din Ahmad bin Abd al-Qader bin Salem bin Utman, Paul Lester Stenhouse and Richard Pankhurst

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507

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Author

Paul Lester and Richard Pankhrust See all items with this value

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Articles See all items with this value

Description

The rise in the early sixteenth century of the charismatic Adal leader ImamAhmed bin Ibrahim; his seizure of power at the old Islamic city of Harar: hiscampaigns against Somalis and other fellow Muslims in the neighbouringlowlands: his jihad, or Holy War, against what he considered the 'non-believers’ ofsouth-west Ethiopia, and his subsequent neardestruction of the age-old EthiopianChristian state - all this constituted a major turning-point in the history of Ethiopiaand the Horn of Africa.The wars of Ahmed bin Ibrahim - Ahmed Grafi. or the Left-handed, as he isoften called - had immense consequences. These included the conversion to Islam,albeit in many cases only temporary, of a vast proportion of the Ethiopianpopulation: the virtual collapse of the traditional Christian Ethiopian empire: thebreaking-down of long-established feudal relationships, and related taxation: heavyloss of life, by combatants and civilians alike: the capture, and despatch to Arabia(and also to India) of innumerable slaves: the destruction of some of the country'sfinest Christian churches, monasteries, and treasures: and the bringing to Harar.and export to Arabia, of considerable quantities of gold, used in part by the imamfor the purchase of fire-arms and other weapons.The warfare associated with the imam, which had an important internationaldimension, became increasingly enmeshed in the global conflict between theChristian Portuguese and the Muslim Ottoman Turks. This led to the arrival ofmany Arab fusiliers and canoneers on the Imam's side, and of their Portuguesecounterparts, led by Vasco da Gama's son Christovao.

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Jamal Ali

Everything Harar

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