The Falashas: The Forgotten Jews of Ethiopia, by David Kessler
Today's date is: 5/12/2025
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| 65 the spread of the new, militant religion along the east coast of the Red Sea was followed in the next twelve years by the conquest of Syria, Iraq and Egypt. The threat to Axum's independence was a very real one. Though Ethiopia may have escaped an Arab onslaught thanks to the forbidding aspect of its mountainous terrain, some credit may also be given to a long-established Islamic tradition. In return for the hospitality which the Axumite King Armah had shown to a group of Muslim refugees fleeing from persecution in Mecca (before its conquest by Muhammad), the prophet had commanded his followers to leave the Abyssinians in peace, thereby exempting them from the horrors of the jihad or Holy War.(1) This order, however, did not prevent the Arabs from occupying various places on the African coast, including the Dahlak archipelago which guarded the entrance to the harbour of Adulis which was destroyed about this time. 'Arab control of the ports necessarily had serious consequences for the Axumites. Their empire's hitherto flourishing foreign trade shrank to modest dimensions, while cultural intercourse with the non Arab peoples of the Middle East became increasingly difficult.'(2) With the exception of Nubia, which had been Christianised in the sixth century, the Axumites now found themselves surrounded by Muslim and pagan peoples and practically cut off from the rest of the world. The Nubian Christian kingdoms established their capitals at Dongola and Soba on the Nile and resisted Muslim domination for close on a thousand years. Meanwhile, a mixed Arab and Negro people, known as the Funj, formed a powerful Islamic nation centred at Sennar who gradually created an effective barrier between the Christians of Abyssinia and those of Nubia, whom they eventually overran in the sixteenth century. With the rise of Islam Ethiopia was thrown back on its own resources, obliged perforce to become self-reliant and inward looking. Christians and Jews alike were cut off from the mainstream of their religious inspiration by their enveloping, mainly hostile neighbours. The Christians retained tenuous links with the church in Alexandria, which continued until 1955 to be responsible for the appointment of the Abuna, or Patriarch, of the Ethiopian Copts. The Ethiopian Church also retained, after the time of Saladin in the twelfth century, a link with Jerusalem through its own small representation at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the few pilgrims who made the hazardous journey to the Holy Land. (1) ibid., p. 54. |