Islam

From Ethiopedia

Because the Christian king gave refuge at Aksum to the Prophet Muhammad's disciples who had fled persecution in Mecca about A.D. 622, Muhammad was said to have excepted the Abyssinian state from any jihad (holy war). Still, a gradual penetration into East Africa proceeded from the time Muslims occupied the Dahlak islands off Massawa about A.D. 650 to protect their Red Sea commerce. With Islam firmly established in Yemen, Egypt, and the upper Nile, Ethiopia was effectively isolated from Christendom. Trading and political relations continued through this Muslim barrier, and the imperative acquisition of their bishop from Alexandria compelled the rulers of Ethiopia to have periodic communication with the rulers of Egypt. Muslim principalities were established along the coast from Massawa to Zeyla and inland to the highlands of Shewa, where the Mahzumite sultanate existed in A.D. 989 until its conquest by the bordering sultanate, Ifat, in 1285. Greater Ifat also included smaller entities like Mora and Adal until Ifat was conquered by Amde Tseyon in 1332, followed by Fetegar, Wej, Dewaro, Bale, and Hadeya. In 1443, a letter from Emperor Zera Yaqob to the Mamluk sultan in Cairo cited the freedom he granted Muslims in Ethiopia as he protested the persecution of Christians in Egypt, a repetition of a similar protest made in 1290. Trade security superseded strictly religious issues, and relations were peaceful when trade was not interfered with. New factors affected Islamic relations with Ethiopia as the Ottomans conquered Syria, Egypt, North Africa, and the Arabian coast between 1512 and 1519 and met opposition from the naval power of Christian Portugal; in 1507 the Ottomans failed to uproot a Portuguese settlement on the island of Socotra which blocked the entrance to the Red Sea and by 1538 the Portuguese commanded the Indian Ocean. However, the Turks managed to supply arms to a Muslim warrior (see ISLAMIC CONQUEST) who reconquered all the Muslim principalities as well as the Christian provinces between 1528 and his death in 1543. Muslim power fell back but still mustered sufficient strength to kill Emperor Gelawdewos in battle in 1559. Ethiopians transferred their fear of Islam to a horror of Catholicism provoked by the proselytizing priests attached to the Portuguese military mission that had helped them defeat the jihad; Fasiledes (1632—1667) initiated pacts with the Ottoman pashas of Massawa and Suakim to keep the Catholics out; the price was the peaceful propagation of Islam. Theological controversies had weakened the Ethiopian church and the simple doctrines of Islam found fertile ground in the highlands of Ethiopia where Muslim traders did business. Yohannes I (1667—1682), alarmed at the progress of Islam, called a council at Gondar, where it was decreed that Muslims must not commingle with Christians. The Muslims (called Jabartis) joined ranks with other penalized communities (Felashas, Armenians, and Parsees) who were debarred from owning land or engaging in agriculture. About 1755, the control of the Solomonic dynasty passed into the hands of an Oromo clan of Yejju who had adopted Islam; some of its leaders switched to Christianity to ease their acceptance at court and marry into the impoverished royal family. They controlled northern Ethiopia for the next hundred years (see ZEMENE MESAFINT). Emperor Tewodros IV ended their hegemony in 1855; one of his aims was to convert or expel all Muslims. Egypt, under Muhammed Alt, had expanded into the Nile valley in 1820—1830 and aimed to conquer Ethiopia. Egypt's motives were more geopolitical than religious; a network offons and two invasions in 1875 and 1876 failed. The emergence of a militant Shi'ite sect, the Mahdists, on the border of Sudan in 1881, constituted a new threat, replete with demands that the Christian emperor become Muslim; they mounted many raids and battles, in one of which Yohannes IV was killed in 1889. Mahdist power waned after their defeat at Omdurman in 1898 but was not eliminated until the following year. Within Ethiopia, Mahdist efforts at subversion had met with little success despite hostility towards Yohannes IV's edict that all Muslims convert, a campaign launched in 1878 which made little progress. Menelik II restored religious freedom when he became emperor in 1889, though he imposed Christian overlords over most of his conquests of non-Christian lands to the south and south-west; as long as taxes and tribute came in, there was little interference with religion. The age-old fear of Islam returned after Menelik IPs death in 1913; his grandson, lyasu (whose father had been one of the Wello leaders forced to convert in 1878) succeeded and showed great sympathy for Islam; it was the needed pretext to depose him. Equal rights to civil and military rank for any native of Ethiopia were written into the 1931 constitution, but social prejudice kept Muslims inferior in the power structure; they have their own courts and schools, and in predominantly Muslim regions hold important posts. During the occupation the Italians supported the building and repair of mosques, seeking to undermine church influence, which was so bound up with nationalist sentiment. Today, an estimated one-third of the population is Muslim, but each community possesses different characteristics reflecting ethnicity, historical factors, and its proximity to animists and Christians. The government reduced the number of Christian holidays celebrated and recognized certain Muslim holidays in an effort at accommodation. However, the coincidence of strong Muslim support for Eritrean independence and the hostilities with Somalia over the Haud and the Ogaden keep Muslim-Christian relations from being cordial.

Source: Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia and Eritrea, by Chris Prouty and Eugene Rosenfeld (1994)