Ethiopia and the Red Sea

The Rise and Decline of the Solomonic Dynasty and Muslim European Rivalry in the Region

Mordechai Abir

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9780714631646
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136280979
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early Modern History
• Index: History

First Published in 1980. An important waterway for international trade, the Red Sea is about 2000 kms. long and generally between 200-300 kms. wide. In its southern part the Arabian peninsula approaches the Horn of Africa to a distance of about 25 kms. This book is partly the outcome of research for the chapter called 'Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa' (from the middle of the sixteenth century until the middle of the eighteenth century), published in the fourth volume of the Cambridge History of Africa. The extensive research conducted for several summers between 1967 and 1971 for a forty-page chapter resulted in substantial material in order to create this volume.

CHAPTER I

Economic and Political Background

Trade and Politics in the Red Sea to 1500

The contribution of the lucrative Far East trade to the prosperity of the Middle East and to the economy of parts of the Arabian Peninsula goes back to the period before the advent of Christianity. Some early sources and archaeological finds furnish fragmented information about the pattern of this trade, which reached the Middle East by way of the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. Flourishing trading metropolises such as Adulis, Sheba and Kataban, Hormuz and Kuwait and trading colonies established by Greek, Roman, Arab, Persian, Indian and other merchants along the coasts of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf bear evidence of the prosperity of this trade.¹

The development of maritime technology and navigation in the Indian Ocean was relatively slow, and until about the turn of the first millenium A.D. shipping in this region was basically coastal. Nevertheless, its contribution to the expansion of the Far East trade with the Mediterranean and indirectly to developments in the region was considerable. Undoubtedly, the rise of Islam was affected by changes in the patterns of the caravan routes in the Arabian Peninsula related to the international trade. The rise of the Muslim empire, which theoretically united all the territory from India to the Iberian Peninsula, was a major factor contributing to the rapid expansion of the Far East trade in the coming centuries.

Composed of luxury items such as gems, ivory, and above all spices, the Far East trade shifted its centre of gravity to the Persian Gulf when the centre of the Muslim empire moved from Damascus to Mesopotamia in the middle of the eighth century, because the Red Sea countries were convulsed, during this period, by migrations

THE HORN OF AFRICA AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Principalities, Provinces and Major Landmarks

and internal wars. The Abbasid empire prospered due to international trade and the wealth of Golden Baghdad became the theme of many legends. However, already by the end of the second millenium A.D. it was evident that the wheel had turned and the situation was being reversed. With the decline of the Abbasid empire the Persian Gulf became infested with pirates, who interfered with the seaborne trade, and transport by this route was dangerous and more costly. The Red Sea route was relatively safer and had the additional advantage of enabling merchants to transport merchandise by sea to ports far nearer to the centres of trade, and consumer markets in the Middle East and Europe, thus minimising the need for the more difficult, expensive and dangerous land transportation. This advantage more than offset additional taxation incurred in Yemen and Egypt², not to mention the fact that the Hajj season was always an occasion for an international fair in Hijaz because many pilgrims combined the pilgrimage with mercantile activities (Hajj Wa-Hidja).

The main trading centres and ports along the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden were already flourishing by the beginning of the second millenium A.D.³ Aden itself, situated near the entrance of the Red Sea, became the unrivalled trading metropolis of the region and a major entrepôt for Far East and African trade. A cosmopolitan town, its population was composed mainly of merchants from Arabia, the Horn of Africa, Egypt and from countries all around the Indian Ocean. Many merchants settled in the town for a few years and others arrived in this port every season.⁴

Cognizant of the growing importance of the Red Sea trade, the Italian towns (above all Venice) began to participate in it by transporting merchandise from Egypt's Mediterranean ports to Europe. Although excluded from direct involvement in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean trade, they prospered thanks to this commercial activity. Nevertheless, the major part of the benefits accruing from this trade went to Red Sea and oriental merchants and to the rulers of the Muslim countries, notably Egypt.⁵

Profits from the Far East trade were so enormous that it was commonly believed in Europe that this trade was a pillar of the economy of the Muslim world and the source of its strength and military power. A naval expedition launched by the Crusaders in 1183 from Eilat into the Red Sea was partly motivated by the wish to undermine the Muslim economy. According to Salah ad-Din's chronicler, the Qadi al-Fadhl, the Christian flotilla not only attacked Muslim shipping in the northern part of the sea, but also beyond Bab al-Mandab.⁶ Ironically, the Crusaders greatly contributed to the expansion of the Red Sea trade and the rise in the revenues of Ayyubid and later of the Mamluk rulers of Egypt. The tens of thousands of Crusaders and pilgrims returning to Europe from the Holy Land who had acquired a taste for eastern luxuries were responsible, to a great extent, for the rapid expansion of the use of spices among the upper classes in Europe and a considerably expanded market for exotic oriental products in general.

The continuous development of the Red Sea trade since the opening of the first millenium A.D. had a substantial impact on political dynamics in the countries of the Red Sea basin. Salah ad-Din was determined to establish his authority in the region even before the abortive maritime adventure of the Crusaders. By 1172 an Ayyubid dynasty ruled most of Yemen and its capitals were Zabid and Aden. Soon afterwards, however, this dynasty was replaced by the Rassulids and though their authority in Yemen's highlands was even more precarious than that of the Ayyubids, they revived the traditional rivalry between Yemen and Egypt over the control of Hijaz and the trade of the Red Sea.

The most fertile and populous part of the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen, was a focus of cultural and political fermentation long before the rise of Islam. All this, notwithstanding its geo-physical characteristics, enhanced the preservation of its fiercely individualistic tribalist society, and it was a haven for sects of heterodox Islam and other minorities. The numerous dynasties and principalities which sprang up in Yemen opposed any attempt at centralisation, and often assumed theological difference as their cause.

The south and the Tihama coast, with its population of mixed blood (closely related to Ethiopia), are considered predominantly Sunni, but in reality the latter was the home of many tribes who adhered to heterodox Islam, including several Shi'i sects. The central plateau and parts of the north, the stronghold of the Zaydis, had strong Isma'ili (Shi'ite) enclaves and were periodically swept by Kharijite movements. Religious upheavals, led by Shi'i or Khariji Imams, other puritan leaders or adventurers of different sorts, were, therefore, a most common phenomenon in Yemen's history. Indeed, regionalist orientation, and paradoxically also movements for greater unification and cohesiveness, were often translated into religious terms. Invariably such a state of affairs was not conducive to the development of greater cohesion and of a strong centralised authority in the country. All this, however, did not affect the commercial importance of Yemen, although it may have impeded its development.

Traditionally Indian Ocean shipping did not sail beyond the port of Aden. Merchandise from the Far East was unloaded in this port-town and after paying local taxes it was reloaded on the smaller, flat-bottomed boats coming from Egypt, Hijaz and Yemen. While in Aden, Far East merchants met and traded with their local counterparts or with merchants from Arabia, the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. Contemporary Muslim historiographers such as Al-Mas'udi, Al-Idrisi and Qalqashandi⁷ claim that until the fifteenth century Indian Ocean captains did not sail into the Red Sea because they were unable to navigate their heavy boats through the shallow straits of Bab al-Mandab. It is far more likely, however, that the true cause for this arrangement was economic, as Aden's and Yemen's rulers were unwilling to lose the rich revenues from the transit trade.

Very much aware of the benefits of trade, Egypt's rulers, despite their merciless war against the Crusaders, encouraged European merchants, especially from the Italian towns, to trade with Egypt. But, dissatisfied with their share of the trade, sultans such as Baybars (r. 1260–1277) and An-Nasir Muhammad b. Qala'un (r. 1293–1294, 1298–1308, 1309–1340) were determined to bring the merchants of the Far East directly into ports under their control. Facilities for shipping and trade were provided in Suez, At-Tor and Jedda and Egyptian merchants (many of them Jews) were instructed to invite their counterparts from the Far East to trade in Egypt and its Red Sea ports. At the end of the thirteenth century, during the reign of Sultan Qala'un, Aden's rulers, it seems, attempted to prevent the establishment of direct relations between Egypt and the Far East, but abandoned such efforts in the face of Egyptian threats to conquer Yemen.⁸ Thus, by the fourteenth century it was already quite common for Indian and other Far East merchants to accompany their merchandise to Egypt as passengers of ships belonging to the Red Sea.

The first half of the fourteenth century, during the long reign of An-Nasir Muhammad b. Qala'un, was one of the most prosperous and outstanding periods in Egyptian history. In this period the Mamluks gradually consolidated their control over Hijaz and extended their influence in Sudan to the Red Sea coast.⁹ But the bitter struggle for power between the Bahri and Burji Mamluks in Egypt in the second half of the century¹⁰ interrupted the aggressive, economically oriented policy of Egypt's sultans and postponed additional measures to overcome the obstructions of Yemen's rulers in the context of the rivalry over the control of the Red Sea trade.

After their final victory over the Bahris at the turn of the fourteenth century, the Burjis strengthened their hold over Hijaz and consolidated their control on the Sudanese coast nearly as far as Sawakin.¹¹ Significantly, in the 1420's the first Indian captain sailed through Bab al-Mandab directly to Suez and Jeddah. When Aden's rulers threatened to take reprisals against such captains, Egypt's sultan Al-Malik al-Ashraf Barsbay began in 1428 to prepare a maritime expedition against Yemen. Aden's master realistically reconciled himself to the new situation and refrained from interfering with ships trading with Egypt. Even so Bars-bay and his successors launched economic warfare against Aden in order to undermine its commercial importance. They levied taxes on merchandise reshipped from Aden and penalised merchants trading with this port. But the Egyptians could not overcome the objective attractions of Aden as a convenient half-way port, an established trading centre with stable government and an important emporium of the Horn and the Persian Gulf commerce. Finally the Egyptians gave up the campaign and were satisfied with the new status quo which left them with the lion's share of the revenues of the Red Sea trade.¹²

Aden continued to prosper as the major entrepôt and trading centre in the region, des...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter I: Economic and Political Background
• Chapter II: Ethiopia's Foreign Relations to 1500
• Chapter III: Government, Administration, Army and Church to 1500
• Chapter IV: The Rise of the Muslim Kingdom of Ethiopia in the Sixteenth Century — Power Politics
• Chapter V: The Revival of the Solomonic Monarchy and the Decline of Muslim Power in the Horn
• Chapter VI: Trade and Power Politics in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean in the Sixteenth Century
• Chapter VII: The Rise of Galla Power in the Horn
• Chapter VIII: A Period of Transition
• Chapter IX: The Reign of Susinyos — A Seventeenth Century attempt at Westernisation
• Chapter X: Imposed Conversion and the Triumph of the National Church
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index