EDWARD ULLENDORFF
LONDON
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1967
Islam can be disposed of every quickly, partly because we have already reviewed the long conflict between Christianity and Islam in the preceding chapter, partly on account of its merely secondary importance to an understanding of the essential Abyssinia, and also because we now possess in J. S. Trimingham’s Islam in Ethiopia (O. U. P., 52) an exceptionally competent survey of the subject.
It is interesting to observe that, though today nearly half of the population of the horn of Africa are Muslims, their impact on the character and substance of Ethiopia is as peripheral as is their geographical distribution all around the central highland plateau. The identification of Abyssinian Christianity with the political and cultural life of the country is so complete that no numerical increase in Islam has been able to touch the intrinsic nature of this phenomenon. Yet, any map of the distribution of religions in the north-east Africa demonstrate most strikingly the Muslim encirclement of Abyssinia – everywhere except for the predominantly pagan south-west.
TO ETHIOPIA, IN THIS HISTORY CONCEPTION, THE MOST NOTABLE GROUP ARE UNQUESTIONABLY THE DJABART, FOR THEY ALONE ENTER INTO LIFE OF THE COUNTRY. DJABART WAS ORIGINALLY THE NAME OF A REGION IN THE TERRITORIES OF ZEILA AND IFAT, ( Cf. Maqrizi, al-ilmam Cairo, seq.)
But was later applied to all MUSLIM living in the Ethiopian Empire. The term is sometimes also used by the Christian population of Abyssinia with reference to the Muslim of Arabian peninsula and thus becomes identical with the term MUSLIM in general. In modern usage, however, DJABART is almost invariably employed in a narrow sense to describe the Mohammedan nuclei in the Christian plateau provinces of Eritrea, Tigrai, Amhara, Shoa, & c. According to Abyssinia tradition the word is derived from Ethiopic AGBERT ‘servant of GOD)’; in Amharic a Muslim is called ESLAM or NEGADDYE (‘trader’ – which is a socially indicative, and factually accurate, description).
THE DJABART or DJABARTI live in families and small groups scattered throughout the Christian highlands. Ethnically and linguistically (they speak Amharic, Tigrinya, &c.) they are indistinguishable from their Christian neighbors. Their knowledge of Arabic is generally limited to the minimum necessary for an understanding of the Koran. Some of them claim descent (with little or no justification) from the first Muslim refugees who were sent to the Negus by the Prophet. The Majority, however, owe their conversion to the sultanates in the southeast Ethiopia and to the invasion of AHMED GRAN. In general, the relations between DJABART and Christians are friendly, though discrimination against the former was not unknown in the past, particularly in the deprivation of RESTI (the hereditary land-right), WHICH LED MANY OF THEM INTO COMMERCE AND HANDICRAFTS.
Estimates their numbers vary greatly, but seems safe to say that there are upwards of 20,000 DJABART in the three plateau provinces of the ERITREA and not less than 50,000 in ETHIOPIA. These figures exclude, of course, the fairly substantial number of Muslim, other than DJABART, who live I the Abyssinian highlands. The DJABART maintain a number of mosque and Koran schools; MADHHAB (rite, especially juridical) they belong to the MALIKYYA, and SHAFI’IYYA.
Islam is still making steady progress among the Cushitic and Nilotic peoples in the lowland area, but none among the highland population of Semitic speech. Perhaps its simple and clear-cut theology makes a special appeal to less sophisticated peoples in the hot and arid regions, with little or no civilization of their own. The universal call of Islam must a great attraction in all those quarters where the particularistic and national message of Abyssinian Monophysite Christianity can scarcely be expected to penetrate.
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ስም ኤርትራ ካብ ካርታ ዓለም ክስረዝ ማለት ብህዝብና ዝጽወር ጉዳይ ኣይክኸውንን እዩ።