The Ethiopian Empire, historically known as Abyssinia, was a sovereign state that encompassed the present-day territories of Ethiopia and Eritrea. It existed from the establishment of the Solomonic dynasty around 1270 until the 1974 coup d'état.
The Zagwe Dynasty and the Rise of Yekuno Amlak
After the fall of the Kingdom of Aksum in the 10th century AD, the Ethiopian Highlands fell under the rule of the Zagwe Dynasty. The new rulers were Agaws that had come from the Lasta region.
By the late 13th century, a young Amhara nobleman named Yekuno Amlak rose to power in Bete Amhara. He was allegedly a descendant of the last king of Aksum, Dil Na'od, and hence the royal kings of Aksum. Through the Aksumite royal lineage, it was also claimed that Yekuno Amlak was a descendant of the biblical king Solomon.
Yekuno Amlak then rebelled against the Zagwe king and defeated him at the Battle of Ansata. Yekuno Amlak would rise to the throne by 1270 AD.
Throughout Yekuno Amlak's reign he would enjoy friendly relations with the Muslims. He not only had established close ties with the neighboring Makhzumi dynasty but had also made contact with the Rasulids in Yemen and the Egyptian Mamluk Sultanate.
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In 1285 Yekuno Amlak was succeeded by his son Yagbe'u Seyon, who wrote a letter the Mamluke Sultan, Qalawun asking him to allow the patriarch of Alexandria to send an abuna or metropolitan for the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, but also protesting the Sultan's treatment of his Christian subjects in Egypt, stating that he was a protector of his own Muslim subjects in Ethiopia.
Towards the end of his reign, Yagbe'u refused to appoint one of his sons to be his successors and instead decreed that each of them should rule for one year, he was succeeded by his sons in 1294 but this agreement immediately broke down, by 1299 one of his sons Wedem Arad seized the throne.
Amda Seyon I and Imperial Expansion
Wedem Arad was succeeded by his son, Amda Seyon I, whose reign witnessed the composition of a very detailed and seemingly accurate account of the monarch's various campaigns against his Muslim enemies.This was the first of a series of royal chronicles which were written for the Ethiopian Emperors until modern times. These royal chronicles provided an unbroken chronological record of the entire medieval period in the Horn of Africa.
A no less important work produced during his reign was the Fetha Nagast or "Law of the Kings," which served as the country's legal code.
The warlike emperor of Amda Seyon I conducted many campaigns in Gojjam, Damot and Eritrea, but his most important campaigns were against his Muslim enemies to the east, which shifted the balance of power in favour of the Christians for the next two centuries.
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Around 1320, Sultan an-Nasir Muhammad of the Mamluk Sultanate based in Cairo began persecuting Copts and destroying their churches. Amda Seyon then threatened to divert the flow of the Nile if the sultan did not stop his persecution.
Haqq ad-Din I, sultan of Ifat, seized and imprisoned an Ethiopian envoy on his way back from Cairo. The Ifat sultan was succeeded by Sabr ad-Din I who rallied the Muslims and waged a rebellion against the Ethiopian occupation.
Amda Seyon responded by launching another campaign against his Muslim adversaries to the east, killing the Sultan and campaigning as far as Adal, Dawaro and Bali in present day eastern Ethiopia.
Amda Seyon's conquests significantly expanded the territory of the Ethiopian Empire, more than doubling it by size and establishing complete hegemony over the region.
Following Amda Seyon's campaigns to the east. Most of the Muslims in the Horn would become tributaries to the Ethiopian Empire, among them being the Ifat Sultanate.
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Amda Seyon was succeeded by his son Newaya Krestos in 1344. Newaya Krestos would put down several Muslim revolts in Adal and Mora.
Towards the end of his reign he aggressively helped the Patriarch of Alexandria Mark IV, who had been imprisoned by As-Salih Salih, the Sultan of Egypt. One step Newaya Krestos took was to imprison the Egyptian merchants in his kingdom.
Dawit I and Challenges to Ethiopian Hegemony
In 1382, Dawit I succeeded the son of Newaya Krestos, Newaya Maryam, as Emperor of Ethiopia. The tributary state of the Ifat Sultanate had begun to resist Ethiopian hegemony and assert their independence under Sultan Sa'ad ad-Din II.
Sultan Sa'ad as-Din would then raid the Ethiopian frontier provinces capturing much loot and slaves. This resulted in Emperor Dawit I declaring all the Muslims of the surrounding region to be "enemies of the Lord" and invading the Ifat Sultanate.
After a battle between Sa'ad ad-Din and the Emperor, in which the Ifat army was defeated and "no less [sic] than 400 elders, each of whom carried an iron bar as his insignia of office" were killed, Sa'ad ad-Din with his remaining supporters were chased to as far as Zeila on the coast of Somaliland.
There, the Ethiopian army besieged Zeila, finally capturing the city and killing Sultan Sa'ad ad-Din, ending the Ifat Sultanate.
After Sa'ad ad-Din's death "the strength of the Muslims was abated", as Egyptian historian al-Maqrizi states, and then the Amhara settled in the Muslim territories "and from the ravaged mosques they made churches".
However, the remaining Walashma returned from their exile in 1415 and established the Adal Sultanate centred around the Harar region.
The Muslims then began to harass Christian held territories in the east prompting Emperor Yeshaq I to dedicate much of his time to defending his eastern peripheral territories. He seems to have employed several Egyptian Christian advisors to drill his army and teach them how to make Greek fire.
These advances were not enough to keep the Muslims at bay, and Emperor Yeshaq was soon killed fighting the Adalites in 1429.
Yeshaq's death was followed by several years of dynastic confusion during which 5 emperors succeeded each other in 5 years.
Zara Yaqob and Centralization
During his first years on the throne, Zara Yaqob launched a strong campaign against survivals of pagan worship and "un-Christian practices" within the church. He also took measures to greatly centralize the administration of the country, bringing regions under much tighter imperial control.
After hearing about the demolition of the Egyptian Debre Mitmaq monastery, he ordered a period of national mourning and built a church of the same name in Tegulet. He then sent envoys to Egyptian Sultan, Sayf ad-Din Jaqmaq strongly protesting against the persecution of Egyptian Copts and threatening to divert the flow of the Nile.
The Sultan then encouraged the Adal Sultanate to invade the province of Dawaro to distract the Emperor. However, this invasion was repulsed by the Emperor who defeated and killed the Adalite Sultan Badlay ibn Sa'ad ad-Din at the Battle of Gomit.
The Egyptian sultan then had the Patraich of Alexandria severely beaten and threatened to execute him. The new Adalite sultan Muhammad ibn Badlay, son of the slain sultan, agreed to pay an annual tribute to the Emperor Zara Yaqob in the same year.
Zara Yaqob persecuted those who admitted to worshipping pagan gods, many of whom were decapitated in public.
Zara Yaqob later founded Debre Berhan after seeing a miraculous light in the sky.
Zara Yaqob was succeeded by Baeda Maryam I. Emperor Baeda Maryam would give the title of the Queen Mother to Eleni of Ethiopia, one of his father's wives.
She proved to be an effective member of the royal family; Paul B. Henze comments that she "was practically co-monarch" during his reign.
After the death of Baeda Maryam in 1478 he was succeeded by his 7-year-old son Eskender, whom Eleni would serve as his regent.
She attempted to establish peace with the Adal Sultan Muhammad, but could not prevent Mahfuz the Emir of Harar from making raids into Ethiopian territory.
The Ethiopian Empire would reach its peak during the long reign of Emperor Zara Yaqob (1434-1468). While initially a rather small and politically unstable entity, the Empire managed to expand significantly under the crusades of Amda Seyon I (1314-1344) and Dawit I (1382-1413), temporarily becoming the dominant force in the Horn of Africa.
Kings of Solomon: Not Prester John - Ethiopian Empire - Part 1 - Extra History
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