Sure you are right. It is some example of the type of idiocy perpetuated by Richard Pankhurst. He is a white boy who has lived in itiopia since world war II. This is not our own opinion.

DJ

Are you sure about that? It sounds like colonial propaganda

By Richard Pankhurst

In this series of articles, which comes to an end in this issue, we have attempted, dear reader, to look outside Ethiopia, and to review the country’s historic contacts across the Red Sea with one of its neighbours: Yemen.

Prehistoric Links

We have seen that Ethiopia and Yemen were neighbouring countries actually linked by land in prehistoric times, and thereafter divided only by a narrow strip of water, quick as well as easy to cross by the simplest of traditional vessels.

The two countries or regions had geographically much in common, and, because of this similarity, as well as their earliest contacts, almost identical flora and fauna, not to mention numerous cultural similarities in the human field.

Separate but Intertwined

The histories of the two countries were doubtless closely connected in prehistoric times, but were thereafter essentially separate, though at times intimately intertwined.

Connections perhaps over a millennium prior to the birth of Christ led to the diffusion of related Semitic languages on both sides of the Red Sea. Such connections also led to the construction of the famous temple at Yeha, in northern Ethiopia, which was erected in honour of the sun and moon gods also worshiped in Yemen, and in fact to adherence on both sides of the Red Sea to a similar religion based on the worship of the sun and moon.

Cross-Continental Trade

The early Christian period subsequently witnessed considerable cross-continental trade across the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, particularly between the Aksumite kingdom and Yemen, which is well documented in the “Periplus of the Erythraean Sea”. We have likewise to take account of at least two Aksumite military occupations of Yemen. These were followed by the temporary circulation of Aksumite currency in the latter area, as well as by the extensive diffusion of Christianity on both sides of the Red Sea.

Islam and Christianity

The two countries, dear reader, were thereafter divided by Yemen’s conversion to Islam, on the one hand, and by Ethiopia’s adherence to Christianity, on the other.

Emperor supervising road-building at the Blue Nile

The resultant difference of religion was to prove a greater obstacle to friendly relations between the two countries than were the intervening seas. The Ethiopian Emperor Yekuno Amlak, soon after his accession in 1270, nevertheless wrote to Sultan Al-Malik al-Muzeffar, of Yemen, requesting the latter’s help in approaching Sultan Rukn ad-Din Baybars of Egypt, with a view to obtaining a new Coptic bishop. This initiative was, however, essentially unfruitful.

Medieval Trade

Trade across the Red Sea, and Gulf of Aden, was, as we have seen, well documented in Arab and subsequently in Portuguese and Italian sources. They indicate that commerce across the Red Sea continued to be important, and had indeed significant consequences. These included the possible introduction into Yemen from Ethiopia of the spear, as well as of two commercially and culturally significant plants: coffee and chat. The slave trade, from Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa to Yemen, dating back to ancient times, and the movement of merchants, mainly in the opposite direction, led meanwhile to a significant inter-blending of population.

Emperor Tewodros’ mortar sebastapol

Conversions

Despite the religious divide between the two countries, many conversions took place. One of the most notable was that of Yaq’ob, a Yemeni Arab, who travelled to Ethiopia, in the late fifteenth century, was converted to Christianity, and, assuming the name of Embaqom, became head of the monastery of Dabra Libanos, and a scholar, and translator, of distinction.

Early sixteenth century fighting in the Horn of Africa, associated with the wars of Imam Mahfuz, ruler of Zayla‘, and later of the more famous Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim, had a significant Yemeni dimension. This warfare was accompanied by the capture of numerous Ethiopian slaves. Many were exported to Yemen, and other parts of the Arab world, and were converted to Islam. The supply of arms to Yemen was important in helping to finance the Imam’s import of fire-arms.

Fasilidas and Al-Mu’ayyad

Hopes, a century later, of the possible conversion of the Ethiopian Emperor Fasiladas played an important part in the correspondence, which that monarch initiated, for entirely other purposes, with the Yemeni ruler Amir al-Mu’ayyad, in 1642. This led to the subsequent important, but abortive, Yemeni mission to Gondar, led by the Yemeni envoy al-Haymi.

More Recent Contacts

Age-old commercial contacts between Yemen and Ethiopia, across the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, continued into the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This period witnessed the modernisation of trade, resulting from the coming of the steamer, the telegraph, and later the radio. Other important developments of these years included the founding of a new Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, site in its day of extensive Yemeni migration, and the advent of Aden-based Indian, and European, merchants in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden area.