Sarsa Dengel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sarsa Dengel ( Ethiop . ሠረጸ ድንግል , throne name Malak Sagad I. መልአክ ሰገድ , "before whom the angel bows") (* 1550 - 4 October 1597 ) was Negus Negest ( emperor ) of Ethiopia and a member from 1563 to 1597 of the Solomonic dynasty . He was the son of Emperor Minas .

Life

The commanders of Shoa's army and the Queen Mother elected Sarsa Dengel as king. When the Baher Negash Yeshaq , who had rebelled against his father, got older, he made peace with Sarsa Dengel. However, Sarsa Dengel faced a number of other uprisings: his cousin Hamalma , 1563, and another cousin Fasils, two years later, initiated them. With the help of the Ottoman Empire , Yeshaq rebelled one more time. Sarsa Dengel then marched into Tigray in 1576 , where he defeated and killed the Baher Negash and his allies Özdemir Pascha and the Sultan Muhammed IV of Harar in a battle.

Sarsa Dengel was the first Ethiopian emperor to oppose the advance of the Oromo . The Oromo had defeated Nur ibn Mujahid when he was on his way home from the murder of his uncle Claudius in battle. In his tenth year in power (1573), Sarsa Dengel undertook a campaign to the south, where he defeated the Oromo in a battle near Lake Zway . Also in the 15th (1578) and 25th (1588) year of his tenure he fought against them again.

The following years were also marked by campaigns against neighboring peoples: In 1580 and 1585 Sarsa Dengel fought against the Falaschen in Semien , in 1581 and 1585 against the Agau and in 1590 against the Gambo , who lived west of the Coman swamp . In 1588 he undertook a punitive expedition against the Ottoman Turks in response to their raids in the northern provinces. Ennarea was the target of his campaigns twice, in 1586 and 1597. His chronicler reports that the second time some monks tried to dissuade the emperor from this undertaking, but they did not succeed. They warned him not to eat fish from a certain river that was on the way. Despite their warning, he ate fish from that river, fell sick, and died.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Partly translated into English by Richard KR Pankhurst in: The Ethiopian Royal Chronicles . Oxford University Press, Addis Ababa 1967.
  2. ^ GWB Huntingford: Historical Geography of Ethiopia . British Academy, London 1989, p. 149.
predecessor Office successor
Minas Emperor of Ethiopia
1563 - 1597 		Jacob
personal data
SURNAME Sarsa Dengel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Malak Sagad I. (throne name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Negus Negest (Emperor) of Ethiopia
DATE OF BIRTH 1550
DATE OF DEATH October 4, 1597