War, migration and the castles of Gondar
The conquests of Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim nearly destroy the Christian kingdom; Oromo migrations remake the map; and the emperors settle at Gondar, building castles and a brilliant court.
- A History of Ethiopia — Harold G. Marcus, University of California Press (2002)
- The Ethiopians: A History — Richard Pankhurst, Blackwell (2001)
- Islam and Christianity in the Horn of Africa: Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan — Haggai Erlich, Lynne Rienner (2010)
- The Oromo of Ethiopia: A History, 1570–1860 — Mohammed Hassen, Cambridge University Press (1990)
- Fasil Ghebbi, Gondar Region (World Heritage List) — UNESCO World Heritage Centre (1979)
In 1529 Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi, leader of the Muslim sultanate of Adal, based around Harar, routed the Christian emperor’s army at Shimbra Kure. Over the next decade his forces, using firearms supplied through the Ottomans, overran most of the Christian highlands. Churches and monasteries were burned and many Christians converted. In 1541 a small Portuguese force arrived to help the Christians, and in 1543 Ahmad was killed in battle near Lake Tana by the forces of Emperor Galawdewos.
- A History of Ethiopia — Harold G. Marcus, University of California Press (2002)
- The Ethiopians: A History — Richard Pankhurst, Blackwell (2001)
- Islam and Christianity in the Horn of Africa: Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan — Haggai Erlich, Lynne Rienner (2010)
Both sides were exhausted. Into the weakened lands moved Oromo pastoralists from the south, organised by the Gadaa age-grade system. Over the next century they settled across much of central, southern and eastern Ethiopia, some becoming Christian, some Muslim, and some rising to high office at the imperial court.
- The Oromo of Ethiopia: A History, 1570–1860 — Mohammed Hassen, Cambridge University Press (1990)
- A History of Ethiopia — Harold G. Marcus, University of California Press (2002)
The Portuguese Jesuits who followed tried to bring the church into union with Rome. Emperor Susenyos converted to Catholicism in 1622, setting off a civil war; he abdicated in 1632, and his son Fasilides expelled the Jesuits and founded a permanent capital at Gondar around 1636. Gondar’s castles, churches and painted ceilings, now the UNESCO-listed Fasil Ghebbi, mark a golden age of court culture. But from 1769 imperial power collapsed into the Zemene Mesafint, the “Era of the Princes”, when regional warlords ruled and emperors were figureheads.
- Fasil Ghebbi, Gondar Region (World Heritage List) — UNESCO World Heritage Centre (1979)
- A History of Ethiopia — Harold G. Marcus, University of California Press (2002)
- The Ethiopians: A History — Richard Pankhurst, Blackwell (2001)
Ahmad Gragn ("the left-handed") was a destroyer who burned churches and monasteries and forced conversions; the kingdom was saved by faith, by Emperor Galawdewos and by Portuguese help.
- A History of Ethiopia — Harold G. Marcus, University of California Press (2002)
- The Ethiopians: A History — Richard Pankhurst, Blackwell (2001)
Imam Ahmad was a leader of the Adal sultanate in a long struggle between Christian and Muslim states, who for a time united much of the Horn. Some Ethiopian Muslims, and Somali nationalists, see him as a hero, and resent his portrayal as a mere fanatic.
- Islam and Christianity in the Horn of Africa: Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan — Haggai Erlich, Lynne Rienner (2010)
The Oromo expansion was not an "invasion" by outsiders but the movement of a people with its own sophisticated political system, Gadaa, into lands left weakened by war; Oromo history should not be told only through the eyes of Christian chroniclers.
- The Oromo of Ethiopia: A History, 1570–1860 — Mohammed Hassen, Cambridge University Press (1990)
Why it matters today
These centuries shaped modern Ethiopia's religious and ethnic map. Ahmad "Gragn" is still a charged name: a villain in Christian memory, a hero to some Muslims. The Oromo expansion is told either as a disaster or as a people's rise. And Gondar's castles, a UNESCO site, are a source of pride, as well as a reminder of the long "Era of the Princes" when the state fell apart.