Sultanate of Adal
The Sultanate of Adal ( Somali : Saldaanada Cadal, Arabic : سلطنة عدل , Ge'ez : አዳልʾ) was a Muslim sultanate between 1415 and 1577 in the area of today's Ethiopia , Eritrea , Djibouti and northern Somalia or Somaliland . It is considered the successor to the Ifat Sultanate . It was founded in Awsa , the capital was initially Dakar or Dakker , a place near Harar . In 1520/21 the capital was moved to Harar.
The population was made up of different ethnic groups, mainly Afar and Somali .
Its history is shaped by a military struggle between Christianity and Islam for supremacy in the region. Around 1577, with Portuguese support, Christian Abyssinia was victorious . The sultanate had to give up the capital Harar. The parts of the lost Adal that did not come under Christian rule for a long time later formed the Sultanate of Aussa and Sultanate of Harar.
Today the name Awdal, derived from Adal, designates an administrative region in north-western Somalia or in the internationally not recognized but de facto independent Somaliland .
history
Prehistory: the Sultanate of Ifat
Main article : Sultanate of Ifat
Due to the Arab conquest of Egypt in 642 (or 646) and finally after the failure of the Crusades from 1250, Christian Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) was cut off from the rest of the Christian world, i.e. above all from its natural ally Byzantium , up to Sudan and Islam spread in the coastal regions around Ethiopia ( Eritrea , Somalia ) . The Sultanate Ifat , which arose in the 13th century on the coast after the fall of the Sultanate of Shoa , extended from 1285 to the eastern plateaus of the Shoa . In Abyssinia, around 1270, the (Jewish) Zagwe dynasty of Falasch origin was overthrown by the Solomonic dynasty that came to power in the Western Shoah . Ethiopia's Emperor Amda Seyon (Sion, Zion, Seyum), a fanatical Christian who persecuted both Muslims and Jews, subjugated several Islamic emirates from Gondar in 1320-1344 . From 1381, his successor David I even attacked the Egyptian Mameluke Empire.
In 1386, Sultan Haqadin II fell , the ruler of the Sultanate Ifat , who put up bitter resistance against the attempts at conquest. In 1415 his successor Sa'ad ad-Din was also killed, and the capital Zeila (Zaila or Sela, near Djibouti ) fell into the hands of the Christian emperor Isaac (Yeshaq, Yesdar).
Early days
Thereupon the newly founded Sultanate of Adal on the Gulf of Aden took the lead in the fight against Ethiopia, over the whole of today's eastern half it actually extended (about 40 degrees longitude and as far as Negele in the south). It included all of Eritrea, Somaliland (Northern Somalia ) and Djibouti as well as the Ethiopian regions of Denakil ( Danakil-Somalia ), Afar , Ogaden and Harar - a city that was “holy” to the Christian kings of Abyssinia and Ethiopian Muslims, and is now the center of Islam in Ethiopia.
Sultan Ahmad Ibrahim "Gran" by Adal
In 1516 Adal was defeated anyway, Sultan Mahfuz fell in the fight against Emperor David II (aka Lebna Dengel). After that, however, two new foreign actors appeared.
- Since 1493 the Portuguese Catholic influence at the imperial court had increased, in 1503 the Portuguese had subjugated Zanzibar , 1505 Mombasa and (a fort near) Mogadishu , 1506 Socotra . In 1513 a Portuguese fleet bombed the Arab-Somali city-states, defeated the fleet of Muslim Egypt in the Gulf of Aden and in 1520 occupied the port city of Massaua and Aden (Yemen).
- In 1517, however, the Ottomans had conquered the kingdom of the Egyptian Mamelukes and soon afterwards also the Hejaz as far as Yemen .
This advance reignited the Muslim resistance. Adal took up arms again after General Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghasi , also known as Mohammed Gran (Granye, Gurey), who was just 14 years old at the time , overthrew Sultan Abu Bakr in 1520.
As Mahfuz's son-in-law and new sultan, he united the herd warriors of the tribes of the Arabized Somalis , the Somali Oromo and the fanatical Afar (Denakil) and in 1527 proclaimed the "Holy War" against Lebna Dengel. Even numerous Jews ( falashas ) oppressed by Orthodox Christians joined them. In the 19th and 20th centuries, this decisive phase of the conflict in the eastern Horn of Africa , which originated from Adal, was pejoratively referred to as the Mohammedan storm.
In 1529 the Sultan allegedly defeated 200,000 Ethiopian foot troops and 16,000 imperial horsemen with his 12,000 men and only 600 horsemen at Shimba-Kare , but lost 5000 fighters in the process. With new Turkish auxiliaries he conquered almost all of Ethiopia in several campaigns until 1533, only parts of the highlands remained unoccupied. The land was devastated by the nomads, Christian testimonies destroyed, large parts of the peasants only saved themselves by converting to Islam. The emperor died on the run in 1540, his heir to the throne was taken prisoner, and the dowager in the capital besieged.
Ethiopian troops were only able to beat the Muslims with the help of Portuguese riflemen. The Ottomans had conquered Aden in 1538, but in 1541 a Portuguese fleet under Vasco da Gama's son Christoph brought around 400 men with firearms, blocked Turkish supplies across the Red Sea and bombed Zeila and Mogadishu . Sultan Ahmad, now called "left-handed", died in 1543 in the Battle of Lake Tana (Wayna Daga). In 1559 his successor Barakat also fell in Adal's capital. <
Downfall
The new sultan Nur ibn Mudjahid , Ahmad's nephew, was able to repel Ethiopians and Portuguese again and avenge Ahmad by the death of the Abyssinian emperor Claudius , but was also defeated in 1567; His successor Mohammed Ibn Nasr also fell in 1576. Thereupon the Ottoman Turks attempted a counterattack in 1578 and again in 1589 via Massaoua (Turkish since 1557) in Tigray , but were defeated.
The Ethiopians had to cede large parts of the country to the Oromo. However, some of them became settled peasants and to a large extent accepted Christianity, which enabled integration and their use against the sultanate of Harar , which emerged from the ruins of Adal . The rest of Harars were from then on dominated by the Afar. On the northern coast (Eritrea) and Zeila (1548) the Turks established themselves again, in 1578 their province "Habesh" (Turkish for Abyssinia) even comprised the actual tip of the eastern Horn of Africa. Zeila then came under Yemeni influence. South Somalia with Mogadishu fell to Oman and Zanzibar from 1698 .
Follow-up time
United with the Egyptians, the Muslims from Harar made a renewed and, for the time being, last attempt to conquer Ethiopia starting in 1875. However, Yohannes IV fought back the Egyptian forces in 1876. Until the Mahdi uprising in Sudan (1884), Eritrea and Somaliland belonged to the Ottoman viceroyalty of Egypt, and Massaoua even until 1885. Caliph Abdallahi ibn Muhammad , the leader of the Mahdists in Sudan , invaded Ethiopia in 1887 with 60,000 men. In return, the Ethiopians, under the leadership of the emperor himself, attacked Sudan in 1889. In the battle of Metemma on March 9, 1889, in which the emperor fell, they were defeated. In return, the Ethiopians conquered Harar in 1887, and finally Ogaden from 1891. The intervention of the Europeans prevented Ethiopia from conquering the rest of the Horn of Africa, but led to British-Italian colonial rule over Somalia. After the defeat of the Mahdists, Mohammed Abdullah Hassan instigated an uprising in Somalia and Ogaden against the colonial powers and the British-Ethiopian partition agreement of 1897. After Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghasi (also known as Ahmad Gran), he is considered to be the second great national hero of the Somali struggle for freedom, in which Ethiopia's supposedly Muslim king Iyasu V was involved during World War I before the British were able to suppress the uprising in 1920 for good . Only under Iyasus successor Haile Selassie the official renaming of the country name carried Abyssinia in Ethiopia .
After the storm: proselytizing by Jesuits and Anglicans
In actual Ethiopia, however, the Catholic influence continued to increase at the same time, the Portuguese followed from 1557, but especially in the 17th century the Jesuits , whose claims the victorious Claudius († 1559) rejected. Nevertheless, they managed to persuade Emperor Dengel († 1607) to convert in 1603 . His son Sissinios (Susenyos), Sissionos, Socinius) initially even agreed to a church union with Rome (like Emperor Constantine I (alias Zara Jakob) around 1450 , but then revoked in 1630, fearing the discontent of his subjects. He was overthrown and killed he nevertheless in 1632; his successor Basilides (Fasilidas) drove out the Catholic priests or had them executed, as well as Muslim missionaries. The country returned to Orthodox Christianity with Coptic characteristics, found its peace again and fell into isolation and feudal fragmentation until the 19th century, so became neither Muslim nor Catholic.
From then on, three larger kingdoms fought each other in Ethiopia ( Amhara with the old capital Gonder , next to Tigray with Asmara and the ancient capital Aksum , as well as Shoah among descendants of the imperial dynasty, which was disempowered in the 18th century) and three smaller ones. The last Roman Catholic missionaries (Capuchins), however, were only expelled from Amhara in 1855 with the reunification under Emperor Theodor II . His power collapsed after his death, as did that of his successor Yohannes IV of Tigray. It was only after his death that Menelik II of Shoa finally asserted himself as emperor throughout the country.
Around this time around 3 million Ethiopians lived between 15 million Somali and Oromo (Galla) in the Horn of Africa (up to and including Kenya ). Today, however, the Oromo alone make up 40% of the population; together with other Muslims, their share is now over 50%. With extensive Arab investments, Saudi influence increases. In contrast, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is also being pushed back from the USA by the unbridled zeal for proselytizing conservative, Protestant denominations (sects) - very similar to the former Jesuit mission. The resumption of food deliveries by the USA is therefore an endeavor both to keep the old Christian elite in power and to facilitate the work of our own missionaries. The Anglican or Ethiopian Protestant Church is now the second largest Christian community in the country.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Adal | historical state, East Africa . In: Encyclopedia Britannica . ( britannica.com [accessed December 14, 2017]).
- ↑ Ethiopia: The Trials of the Christian Kingdom and the Decline of Imperial Power ~ a HREF = "/ et_00_00.html # et_01_02". Retrieved December 14, 2017 .
- ↑ Adal Sultanate . In: Janakesho . January 23, 2016 ( wordpress.com [accessed December 14, 2017]).
- ^ Mohamed Haji Mukhtar: Adal Sultanate . In: The Encyclopedia of Empire . John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2016, ISBN 978-1-118-45507-4 , doi : 10.1002 / 9781118455074.wbeoe145 / abstract ( wiley.com [accessed December 14, 2017]).
- ↑ Musa Mohammad Omar: Ethnic groups and nation states in the Horn of Africa: Somalia and Eritrea . LIT.
- ^ Mordechai Abir: Ethiopia and the Red Sea: The Rise and Decline of the Solomonic Dynasty and Muslim-European rivalry in the region .