| Chapter 1: | Historical Background |
This is known as the first hejira in the Moslem faith. As a tribute to the king’s generosity, Mohammed was said to have given directives to his followers not to make a jihad (conquest and conversion) against Ethiopia.
Notwithstanding Mohamed’s orders, several jihads were conducted to subdue the Christian Empire. One, led by the Adal Imam (king) Ahmed Ibn Ibrahim el Ghazi, known in Ethiopia as Gragn (the left handed), had temporarily succeeded in 1527 in taking over virtually all parts of Christian Abyssinia; as a result, nine out of ten Ethiopians were said to have been converted to Islam though most of them only nominally.*
In 1543, bolstered with the firearms-equipped Portuguese military expedition under the leadership of Christopher da Gama (son of the famous explorer Vasco da Gama), the armies of Emperor Galawdewos defeated Gragn and once again established the Christian Empire. Then the Moslem invasions of the Middle East cut the country off from the rest of the world, and as the British historian Gibbon wrote in 1788, “the Ethiopians slept near a thousand years, forgetful of the world by whom they were forgotten.”†
During the Crusades, the land-locked empire ruled by Christians took on a mystical note in Europe. At that time, there was an Ethiopian emperor who was highly versed in theology and doubled as priest serving in one of the famous rock hewn churches of Lalibala. This emperor, known in Europe as Prester John, was reported to be residing in a grand palace, where incalculable amounts of silver, gold, pearls, rubies, and sapphires were said to have been stowed. For several years, the crusaders had vainly tried to link up their armies with those of Prester John with the ultimate purpose of liberating the Holy Land from the Moslem Sultanate established by the Seljuk Turks.
* Even though the expansion of Islam was stemmed at this point, it had already left itsimprint. Political power has stayed in the hands of the Christians until today, but theproportion of Moslems and Christians in Ethiopia stands at 40% to 60%, respectively.
† [Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, London: John Murray (1846) Ch. xlvii.