Habesha people
Encyclopedia
The term Habesha refers to the South Semitic-speaking
group of people whose cultural, linguistic, and in certain cases, ancestral origins trace back to those people who ruled the Axumite Empire and the kingdom known as DʿMT (usually vocalized Diʿamat).
Peoples referred to as "Habesha" today include the Amhara
, Tigray-Tigrinya
and Tigre ethnic groups of Ethiopia
and Eritrea
, who are predominantly Oriental Christians
and have been since AD 332
, with exception to Tigre who are predominantly Muslim. The Amhara and Tigray ethnicities combined make up about 33% of Ethiopia's population (ca. 24.6 million Amhara, 5.5 million Tigray), while the Tigrinya & Tigre combined make up 85% (55% plus 30% respectfully) of Eritrea's population (ca. 5 of 5.9 million). A broader definition of this term also includes segments of the Semitic-speaking Gurage peoples in the southwest and the Harari people
s in the east and southeast because of their strong historical links to the Amhara and Tigray.
In the broadest sense, the word Habesha may refer to anyone from Ethiopia or Eritrea, although some would exclude themselves from this association.
inscription
recounting the defeat of the Aksumite Negūs ("king") GDRT
of Aksum and ḤBŠT. The term "Habashat" seems to refer to a group of peoples, however, rather than a specific ethnicity, as evidenced by a Sabaean inscription about the alliance between the Himyar
ite king Shamir Yuhahmid and Aksum under King `DBH
in the first quarter of the 3rd century AD. They had lived alongside the Sabaeans who lived across the Red Sea from them for many centuries:
The term "Habesha" was formerly thought by some to be of Arabic descent (who used the word Ḥabaš, also the name of an Ottoman province comprising parts of modern-day Eritrea and Ethiopia), because the English name Abyssinia
comes from the Arabic form. South Arabian expert Eduard Glaser claimed that the hieroglyphic ḫbstjw, used in reference to "a foreign people from the incense-producing regions" (i.e. Punt
, located mainly in the coastal area of Eritrea and Somalia)used by Queen Hatshepsut
ca. 1460 BC, was the first usage of the term or somehow connected, a claim repeated by others; however, this etymology is not at all certain, given the large time difference in the usage of the terms.
and central Eritrea was where Ethiopian and Eritrean Habesha civilization had its origins. The first kingdom to arise was that of DʿMT in the 8th century BC. The Aksumite Kingdom, one of the powerful civilizations of the ancient world, was centered there from at least 400 BC to the 10th century AD. Spreading far beyond Tigray and Eritrea, it molded the earliest culture of Ethiopia and left many historical treasures: towering finely carved stelae, the remains of extensive palaces, and the ancient places of worship still vibrant with culture and pageantry.
Throughout history, indigenous peoples had been interacting through population movement, warfare, trade, and intermarriage in the Horn of Africa region, resulting in a predominance of peoples speaking languages of the Afro-Asiatic family. The main branches represented were the Cushitic and the Semitic. As early as the third millennium BCE, the pre-Aksumites had begun trading along the Red Sea. They mainly traded with Egypt. Earlier trade expeditions were taken by foot along the Nile Valley. The Egyptians main object in the trade from the Ethiopian region was to acquire myrrh
, which the northern Horn of Africa region had much of (which they referred to as the Land of Punt).
The foundation of the Kingdom of Aksum is suggested to be as early as 300 BCE. Very little is known of the time period between the mid-first millennium BCE to the beginning of Aksum's flourish around the first century CE. Aksum is thought to be a successor kingdom of DʿMT, a kingdom in the early 1st millennium BC most likely centered at nearby Yeha
.
The Aksumite kingdom was located in the northern Ethiopian province of Tigray and Eritrea and it Aksum remained the capital until the seventh century CE. Aksum owes its prosperity to its location. The Blue Nile basin and the Afar depression are both within a close proximity of Aksum. The former is rich in gold and the latter of salt: both materials having a highly important use to the Aksumites. Aksum was also within an accessible distance to the port of Adulis, on the coast of the Red Sea, hence maintaining trade relations with other nations, such as Egypt, India, and Arabia. Aksum’s "fertile" and "well-watered" location produced enough food for its population as well as its exotic animals, such as elephants and rhinoceros.
From its capital on the Tigray Plateau, Aksum was in command of the trade of ivory with Sudan. It also dominated the trade route leading south and the port of Adulis
on the Gulf of Zola. Its success depended on resourceful techniques, production of coins, steady migrations of Greco-Roman merchants and ships landing on the port of Adulis. In exchange for Aksum’s goods, traders bid many kinds of cloth, jewelry, metals and steel for weapons.
At its peak, Aksum controlled territories as far as southern Egypt, east to the Gulf of Aden
, south to the Omo River
, and west to the Nubian Kingdom of Meroë
. The South Arabian kingdom of the Himyarites and also a portion of western Saudi Arabia was also under the power of Aksum. At this point in time the majority of the citizens of Aksum were one of the ancestors of the present day Amhara and Tigray peoples, the Biher-Tigrigna, Tigrinya speakers and the Tigre of Eritrea.
Some time in the early Middle Ages, the Amharic and Tigrinya began to replace Geʿez, which eventually became extinct outside of religious use. Amhara warlords often competed for dominance of the realm with Tigrayan warlords. While many branches of the Imperial dynasty were from the Amharic speaking area, a substantial amount were from Tigray. The Amharas seemed to gain the upper hand with the accession of the so-called Gondar
line of the Imperial dynasty in the beginning of the 17th century. However, it soon lapsed into the semi-anarchic era of Zemene Mesafint
("Era of the Princes"), in which rival warlords fought for power and the Yejju Oromo enderase
s ("regents") had effective control, while emperors
were just considered to be figureheads. The Tigrayans only made a brief return to the throne in the person of Yohannes IV, whose death in 1889 allowed the base to return to the Amharic speaking province of Shewa
.
. Some consider the Amhara to have been Ethiopia's ruling elite for centuries, represented by the line of Emperors ending in Haile Selassie I. Many commentators, including Marcos Lemma, however, dispute the accuracy of such a statement, arguing that other ethnic groups have always been active in the country's politics. One possible source of confusion for this stems from the mislabeling of all Amharic-speakers
as "Amhara", and the fact that many people from other ethnic groups have Amharic names
. Another is the fact that most Ethiopians can trace their ancestry to multiple ethnic groups. In fact, the last Emperor, Haile Selassie I, often counted himself a member of the Gurage people on account of his ancestry, and his Empress, Itege Menen Asfaw
of Ambassel
, was of Oromo
descent. The expanded use of Amharic language results mostly from its being the language of the court, and was gradually adopted out of usefulness by many unrelated groups, who then became known as "Amhara" no matter what their ethnic origin.
, the first Emperor of Ethiopia. The tradition that the biblical Queen of Sheba was a ruler of Ethiopia who visited King Solomon in Jerusalem in ancient Israel is supported by the 1st century AD Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who identified Solomon’s visitor as a queen of Egypt and Ethiopia.
In the past, scholars like Hiob Ludolf
and Carlo Conti Rossini postulated that the ancient communities that evolved into the modern Ethiopian state were formed by a migration across the Red Sea of Semitic-speaking South Arabians around 1000 BC who intermarried with local non-Semitic-speaking peoples. Indeed, the ancient kingdom of Aksum ruled much of Southern Arabia including Yemen
until the rise of Islam
in the 7th century, and both the indigenous languages of Southern Arabia and the Amharic and Tigrinya languages of Ethiopia are South Semitic
languages. However, the ancient Semitic language of Ethiopia, is now known to not have derived from Sabaean
, and there is evidence of a Semitic speaking presence in Ethiopia and Eritrea at least as early as 2000 BC. There is also evidence of ancient Southern Arabian communities in modern day Ethiopia and Eritrea in certain localities, attested by some archaeological artifacts and ancient Sabaean inscriptions in the old South Arabian alphabet
. However, scholars like Stuart Munro-Hay point to the existence of an older D'MT kingdom, prior to any Sabaean migration ca. 4th or 5th c. BC, as well as evidence of to Sabaean immigrants having resided in Ethiopia for little more than a few decades Furthermore, there is archeological evidence of a region in Northern Ethiopia and Eritrea also called Saba, now referred to as "Ethiopian Saba" to avoid confusion.
There is little archaeological evidence to verify the story of the Queen of Sheba and the longstanding presumption that Sabaean migrants had played a direct role in Ethiopian civilization has recently come under attack. Sabaean influence is speculated by some recent authors to have been minor, limited to a few localities, and disappearing after a few decades or a century, perhaps representing a trading or military colony in some sort of symbiosis or military alliance with the Ethiopian civilization of D`MT.
In the reign of King Ezana
(ca. early 4th c. AD, the term is listed as one of the nine regions under his domain, translated in the Greek
version of his inscription as Aithiopía, the first known use of this term to specifically describe the region known today as Ethiopia (and not Kush
or the entire African and Indian region outside of Egypt). The 6th c. author Stephanus of Byzantium
later used the term "Αβασηγοί" (i.e. Abasēnoi) in reference to:
The Abasēnoi spoken of by Stephanus was located by Hermann von Wissman as a region in the Jabal Hubaysh (perhaps related in etymology with the ḥbš root
). Other places names in Yemen contain the ḥbš root, such as the Jabal Ḥabaši, whose residents are still called al-Ahbuš (pl. of Ḥabaš). The location of the Abasēnoi in Yemen may perhaps be explained by remnant Aksumite populations from the 520s conquest by King Kaleb
; King Ezana's
claims to Sahlen (Saba) and Dhu-Raydan (Himyar) during a time when such control was unlikely may indicate an Aksumite presence or coastal foothold. Traditional scholarship has assumed that the Habashat were a tribe from modern-day Yemen that migrated to Ethiopia. However, the Sabaic
inscriptions only use the term ḥbšt to the refer to the Kingdom of Aksum and its inhabitants, especially during the 3rd c., when the ḥbšt (Aksumites) were often at war with the Sabaeans and Himyraites.
The Sabean theory was the most common one explaining the origins of the Habesha before the 20th century. It was first suggested by Hiob Ludolf and revived by early 20th century Italian scholar Conti Rossini. The theory states that at an early epoch South Arabian tribes, including one called the "Habashat" emigrated to the opposite African coast. According to this theory, Sabaeans brought with them South Arabian letters and language, which gradually evolved into the Ge'ez language and Ge'ez alphabet
. However, though the Ge'ez alphabet did develop from Epigraphic South Arabian
(whose oldest inscriptions are found in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Yemen), it is now known that Ge'ez is not descended from any of the Old South Arabian languages.
In the large corpus of South Arabian inscriptions, however, there has never been mention of migration to the west coast of the Red Sea, nor of a tribe called "Habashat." All uses of the term date to the 3rd century AD and later, where they are always used in reference to the people of the Kingdom of Aksum. In recent times, this theory has largely been abandoned.
The way of life in the habesha countryside evokes images of Biblical times; camel
s, donkey
s, and sheep are everywhere. Fields are plowed using ox
en. The Orthodox Church is a large part of the culture. The church buildings are built on hills. Major celebrations during the year are held around the church, where people gather from villages all around to sing, play games, and observe the unique mass of the church, which includes a procession through the church grounds and environs.
Coffee
is a very important ceremonial drink. The "coffee ceremony" is common to the Tigrinya and the Amhara. Beans are roasted on the spot, ground, and served thick and rich in tiny ceramic cups with no handles. This amount of coffee can be finished in one gulp if drunk cold, however, it is traditionally drunk very slowly as conversation takes place. When the beans are roasted to smoking, they are passed around the table, where the smoke becomes a blessing on the diners. The traditional food served at these meals consists of injera
, a spongy flat bread, served with wat
, a spicy meat sauce.
Houses in rural areas are built mostly from rock, dirt, and timber poles. The houses blend in easily with the natural surroundings. Many times the nearest water source is more than a kilometer away from the house. In addition, people must search for fuel for the fire throughout the surrounding area.
The Habesha people have a rich heritage of music and dance, using drums and stringed instruments tuned to a pentatonic scale
. Arts and crafts and secular music are performed mostly by artisans who are regarded with suspicion. Sacred music and iconic art is performed by monastically trained men.
ancestor used to write royal inscriptions of the kingdom of DʿMT in Epigraphic South Arabian
. As a member of South Semitic, it is closely related to Sabaean
, and the Ge'ez alphabet later replaced Epigraphic South Arabian in the Kingdom of Aksum (although Epigraphic South Arabian was used for a few inscriptions into the 8th century, though not any South Arabian language since DʿMT). Early inscriptions in Ge'ez and Ge'ez alphabets have been dated2 to as early as the 5th century BC, and in a sort of proto-Ge'ez written in ESA since the 9th century BC. Ge'ez literature properly begins with the Christianization of Ethiopia (and the civilization of Axum) in the 4th century, during the reign of Ezana of Aksum. While Ge'ez is an extinct language that is now only used in Ethiopian Orthodox churches, the three languages that have branched off from it are Tigre, Tigrinya and Amharic. While Tigre is a direct descendant from Ge'ez, Tigrinya was derived from Tigre. Amharic formed approximately 200–300 years after Tigrinya.
The Habesha empire centered in Axum and Adowa was part of the world in which Christianity grew. The arrival of Christianity in Tigrayan lands happened about the same time that it arrived in Ireland
. The Tigrayans, in fact, had been converted to Christianity hundreds of years before most of Europe. Many Tigrayan churches were cut into cliffs or from single blocks of stone, as they were in Turkey
and in parts of Greece
, where Christianity had existed from its earliest years. The church is a central feature of communities and of each family's daily life. Each community has a church with a patron saint
.
Ethiopia has often been mentioned in the Bible
. A well-known example of this is the story of the Ethiopian eunuch
as written in Acts
(8: 27): "Then the angel of the Lord said to Philip, Start out and go south to the road that leads down from Jerusalem to Gaza. So he set out and was on his way when he caught sight of an Ethiopian. This man was a eunuch, a high official of the Kandake (Candace) Queen of Ethiopia in charge of all her treasure." The passage continues by describing how Philip helped the Ethiopian understand one passage of Isaiah
that the Ethiopian was reading. After the Ethiopian received an explanation of the passage, he requested that Philip baptize him, which Philip obliged. Queen Gersamot Hendeke VII (very similar to Kandake) was the Queen of Ethiopia from the year 42 to 52. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church was founded in the fourth century by Syria
n monks. Historically, the Ethiopian and Eritrean churches have had strong ties with the Egyptian Coptic Church, the Egyptian Church appointing the archbishop for the Eritrean Church. They gained independence from the Coptic church in the 1950s, although the Eritrean Orthodox Church has recently reforged the link.
Over 5 million of these people are Coptic Orthodox, with one priest for every 92 members—the highest concentration in Ethiopia. The remainder are Muslim
s. There are many Muslims in Tigray Province, but they generally belong to other ethnic groups. The Tigray are reported to have fewer than 500 evangelical believers. There are more believers among the Tigrinya in Eritrea.
The faith of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is very intimately woven into the culture of the Tigrinya people and is central to their way of life. A number of unique beliefs and practices distinguish Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity from other Christian groups; for example, the Ark of the Covenant
is very important. Every Ethiopian church has a replica of the Ark. Also, the Ethiopian Church has a larger biblical canon than other churches.
Church services are conducted in Ge´ez, the ancient language of Ethiopia and Eritrea. Ge´ez is no longer a living language, its use now confined to religious contexts, occupying a similar place in Ethiopian church life to Latin in the Roman Catholic Church
.
Other Ethiopian Orthodox practices include such things as fasting, prescribed prayers, and devotion to saints and angels. A child is never left alone until baptism and cleansing rituals are performed. Boys are baptized forty days after birth, whereas girls are baptized eighty days after birth.
Defrocked priests and deacons commonly function as diviners, who are the main healers. Spirit possession is common, affecting primarily women. Women are also the normal spirit mediums.
A number of Ethiopian Christians adhere to various forms of Pentecostalism
or Anabaptism, collectively referred to as P'ent'ay
.
. Ethiopian Christians, like some other Eastern Christians
, traditionally follow dietary rules that are similar to Jewish Kashrut
, specifically with regard to how an animal is slaughtered. Similarly, pork
is prohibited, though unlike Kashrut, Ethiopian cuisine does mix dairy
products with meat
- which in turn makes it even closer to Islamic dietary laws
(see Halal
). Women are prohibited from entering the church during their menses; they are also expected to cover their hair with a large scarf (or shash) while in church, but contrary to popular belief and the actual practice of most other Christian denominations, it is not in the Old Testament that this is commanded, but rather in the New (1 Cor. 11). As with Orthodox synagogue
s, men and women are seated separately in the Ethiopian church, with men on the left and women on the right (when facing the altar). However, women covering their heads and separation of the sexes in the Church building officially is common to many Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Christians and not unique to Judaism. Ethiopian Orthodox worshippers remove their shoes when entering a church, in accordance with Exodus 3:5 (in which Moses
, while viewing the burning bush
, is commanded to remove his shoes while standing on holy ground). Furthermore, both the Sabbath
(Saturday), and the Lord's Day (Sunday) are observed as holy, although more emphasis, because of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, is laid upon the Holy Sunday.
Islam in Ethiopia dates to 615
. During that year, a group of Muslims were counseled by the Prophet Muhammad to escape persecution in Mecca and migrate to Abyssinia
, which was ruled by, in Muhammad's estimation, a pious Christian king (al-najashi). Muhammad's followers crossed the Red Sea and sought refuge in the Kingdom of Aksum, possibly settling at Negash, a place in present-day Northern Ethiopia, Tigray region. Moreover, Islamic tradition states that Bilal, one of the foremost companions of Muhammad, was from Ethiopia, as were many non-Arab Companions of Muhammad - in fact, Ethiopians were the single largest non-Arab ethnic group who were Muhammad's companions. Ethiopia was thus the earliest home outside of Arabia for the dispersal of the Islamic world faith. Ethiopia is almost evenly split between Orthodox Christians and Sunni Muslims.
Most of Ethiopia and Eritrea's Muslims are Sunni
Muslims and much as in the rest of the Muslim world
, the beliefs and practices of the Muslims of Ethiopia and Eritrea are basically the same: embodied in the Qur'an
and the Sunnah
. There are also sufi
orders present in Ethiopia. According to the 1994 census of Ethiopia (with similar numbers for the 1984 census), about half of its population is adherent of Islam and members of the Muslim community can be found throughout the country. Islam in Ethiopia is in the Oromo and Ogaden region.
The most important Islamic religious practices, such as the daily ritual prayers (ṣalāt) and fasting ( ṣawm
, Ethiopic
, ṣom - used by local Christians as well) during the holy month of Ramadan
, are observed both in urban centers as well as in rural areas, among both settled peoples and nomads. Numerous Ethiopian Muslims perform the pilgrimage to Mecca
every year.
was a kingdom that stretched from Ethiopia to the south of the Yemen. Yemen is very close to Ethiopia across the Red Sea, and it has been recorded that modern Ethiopia has been heavily influenced by the ancient Sabean kingdom. Moreover, the details of the queen's visit, including the alleged theft of the Holy Ark as well as Solomon getting her pregnant with a child who established the "Solomonic" lineage in Ethiopia, as given in Christian Ethiopian tradition, were written in the Kebra Nagast
the Ethiopian chronicle of its early history. The oldest known existing copies of which date from as far back as 13th century. Jewish Ethiopians are mentioned in both the Torah Old Testament
as well as the Christian New Testament
. It is clear that the Jewish presence in Ethiopia dates back at least 2500 years.
The Jewish Pre-settlement Theory essentially states that starting around the 8th century BCE until about the 5th century BCE, there was an influx of Jewish settlers both from Egypt & Sudan in the north, and southern Arabia in the east. Whether these settlers arrived in great numbers is yet a matter of debate. What is certain, however, is that these settlers must have preceded the arrival of Christianity. Evidence for their presence exists not only in historical books, but also in material artifacts depicting ancient Jewish ceremonies. For instance the temple at Yeha (in Tigray province), which is said to have been erected in the 8th century BCE, is believed to be an architectural copy of other Jewish temples found in Israel and Egypt during the pre-Babylonian era (before 606 BCE). Another example is found on the monastery islands of Lake Tana (northern Gojjam), where several archaic stone altars, fashioned in the manner of Jewish sacrificial alters of pre-8th century BCE Israel, have been found not only preserved in good condition but also containing blood residue. The manner of the blood placed on the stone altars was found to be typical of a culture that strongly adhered to Mosaic Law.
The chief Semitic languages of Ethiopia also suggest an antiquity of Judaism in Ethiopia. "There still remains the curious circumstance that a number of Abyssinian words connected with religion -- Hell
, idol
, Easter
, purification
, alms
-- are of Hebrew origin. These words must have been derived directly from a Jewish source, for the Abyssinian Church knows the scriptures only in a Ge'ez version made from the Septuagint"
Beta Israel traditions claim that the Ethiopian Jews are descended from the lineage of Moses himself, some of whose children and relatives are said to have separated from the other Children of Israel after the Exodus and gone southwards, or, alternatively or together with this, that they are descended from the tribe of Dan, which fled southwards down the Arabian coastal lands from Judaea at the time of the breakup of the Kingdom of Israel into two kingdoms in the 10th century BCE. (precipitated by the oppressive demands of Rehoboam
, King Solomon's heir), or at the time of the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel in the 8th century BCE. Certainly there was trade as early as the time of King Solomon down along the Red Sea to the Yemen and even as far as India, according to the Bible, and there would therefore have been Jewish settlements at various points along the trade routes. There is definite archaeological evidence of Jewish settlements and of their cultural influence on both sides of the Red Sea well at least 2,500 years ago, both along the Arabian coast and in the Yemen, on the eastern side, and along the southern Egyptian and Sudanese coastal regions.
South Semitic
South Semitic is a commonly accepted branch of the Semitic languages. Semitic itself is a branch of the larger Afro-Asiatic language family found in Africa and Asia....
group of people whose cultural, linguistic, and in certain cases, ancestral origins trace back to those people who ruled the Axumite Empire and the kingdom known as DʿMT (usually vocalized Diʿamat).
Peoples referred to as "Habesha" today include the Amhara
Amhara people
Amhara are a highland people inhabiting the Northwestern highlands of Ethiopia. Numbering about 19.8 million people, they comprise 26% of the country's population, according to the 2007 national census...
, Tigray-Tigrinya
Tigray-Tigrinya people
Tigray-Tigrinya are an ethnic group who live in the southern, central and northern parts of Eritrea and the northern highlands of Ethiopia's Tigray province. They also live in Ethiopia's former provinces of Begemder and Wollo, which are today mostly part of Amhara Region, though a few regions...
and Tigre ethnic groups of Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
and Eritrea
Eritrea
Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
, who are predominantly Oriental Christians
Oriental Orthodoxy
Oriental Orthodoxy is the faith of those Eastern Christian Churches that recognize only three ecumenical councils — the First Council of Nicaea, the First Council of Constantinople and the First Council of Ephesus. They rejected the dogmatic definitions of the Council of Chalcedon...
and have been since AD 332
Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is the predominant Oriental Orthodox Christian church in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Church was administratively part of the Coptic Orthodox Church until 1959, when it was granted its own Patriarch by Coptic Orthodox Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of All...
, with exception to Tigre who are predominantly Muslim. The Amhara and Tigray ethnicities combined make up about 33% of Ethiopia's population (ca. 24.6 million Amhara, 5.5 million Tigray), while the Tigrinya & Tigre combined make up 85% (55% plus 30% respectfully) of Eritrea's population (ca. 5 of 5.9 million). A broader definition of this term also includes segments of the Semitic-speaking Gurage peoples in the southwest and the Harari people
Harari people
The Harari people, also called geyusu , are a Semitic-speaking ethnic group originating from the Harari Region located in the eastern Ethiopia.- Harari Language :...
s in the east and southeast because of their strong historical links to the Amhara and Tigray.
In the broadest sense, the word Habesha may refer to anyone from Ethiopia or Eritrea, although some would exclude themselves from this association.
Etymology
The modern term derives from the vocalized Ḥabaśā, first written with a script that did not mark vowels as ḤBŚ or in "pseudo-Sabaic as ḤBŠTM". The earliest known use of the term dates to the second or third century AD South ArabianSabaeans
The Sabaeans or Sabeans were an ancient people speaking an Old South Arabian language who lived in what is today Yemen, in the south west of the Arabian Peninsula.Some scholars suggest a link between the Sabaeans and the Biblical land of Sheba....
inscription
South Arabian alphabet
The ancient Yemeni alphabet branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in about the 9th century BC. It was used for writing the Yemeni Old South Arabic languages of the Sabaean, Qatabanian, Hadramautic, Minaean, Himyarite, and proto-Ge'ez in Dʿmt...
recounting the defeat of the Aksumite Negūs ("king") GDRT
GDRT
GDRT was a king of the Kingdom of Aksum , known for being the first king to involve Axum in the affairs of what is now Yemen. He is known primarily from inscriptions in South Arabia that mention him and his son BYGT...
of Aksum and ḤBŠT. The term "Habashat" seems to refer to a group of peoples, however, rather than a specific ethnicity, as evidenced by a Sabaean inscription about the alliance between the Himyar
Himyar
The Himyarite Kingdom or Himyar , historically referred to as the Homerite Kingdom by the Greeks and the Romans, was a kingdom in ancient Yemen. Established in 110 BC, it took as its capital the modern day city of Sana'a after the ancient city of Zafar...
ite king Shamir Yuhahmid and Aksum under King `DBH
`DBH
`DBH [vocalized as `Azaba or `Adhebah] was a king of Axum, on the territory of modern-day Ethiopia, who ruled c. 230–240. He and his son GRMT are known through South Arabian inscriptions which mention Shamir, king of Dhu-Raydan and Himyar asking for his help against the Sabaean...
in the first quarter of the 3rd century AD. They had lived alongside the Sabaeans who lived across the Red Sea from them for many centuries:
ShamirShammar Yahri'shShammar Yahri'sh was a Himyarite king. In AD 275, he led his troops to victory over Najran, Mareb and Hadhramaut. He succeeded in uniting much of Yemen, assuming the title "King of Saba and Dhu Raydan and Hadhramaut and Yamnat"...
of dhū Raydān and Himyar had called in the help of the clans of Habashat for war against the kings of Saba; but Ilmuqah granted... the submission of Shamir of dhū Raydān and the clans of Habashat.
The term "Habesha" was formerly thought by some to be of Arabic descent (who used the word Ḥabaš, also the name of an Ottoman province comprising parts of modern-day Eritrea and Ethiopia), because the English name Abyssinia
Ethiopian Empire
The Ethiopian Empire also known as Abyssinia, covered a geographical area that the present-day northern half of Ethiopia and Eritrea covers, and included in its peripheries Zeila, Djibouti, Yemen and Western Saudi Arabia...
comes from the Arabic form. South Arabian expert Eduard Glaser claimed that the hieroglyphic ḫbstjw, used in reference to "a foreign people from the incense-producing regions" (i.e. Punt
Land of Punt
The Land of Punt, also called Pwenet, or Pwene by the ancient Egyptians, was a trading partner known for producing and exporting gold, aromatic resins, African blackwood, ebony, ivory, slaves and wild animals...
, located mainly in the coastal area of Eritrea and Somalia)used by Queen Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut also Hatchepsut; meaning Foremost of Noble Ladies;1508–1458 BC) was the fifth pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty of Ancient Egypt...
ca. 1460 BC, was the first usage of the term or somehow connected, a claim repeated by others; however, this etymology is not at all certain, given the large time difference in the usage of the terms.
History
Historically, Tigray ProvinceTigray Province
Tigray was a province of Ethiopia. The Tigray Region superseded the province with the adoption of the new constitution in 1995. The province of Tigre merged with its neighboring provinces, including Semien, Tembien, Agame and the prominent Enderta province and towards the end of 19th century it...
and central Eritrea was where Ethiopian and Eritrean Habesha civilization had its origins. The first kingdom to arise was that of DʿMT in the 8th century BC. The Aksumite Kingdom, one of the powerful civilizations of the ancient world, was centered there from at least 400 BC to the 10th century AD. Spreading far beyond Tigray and Eritrea, it molded the earliest culture of Ethiopia and left many historical treasures: towering finely carved stelae, the remains of extensive palaces, and the ancient places of worship still vibrant with culture and pageantry.
Ancient Period
Myrrh
Myrrh is the aromatic oleoresin of a number of small, thorny tree species of the genus Commiphora, which grow in dry, stony soil. An oleoresin is a natural blend of an essential oil and a resin. Myrrh resin is a natural gum....
, which the northern Horn of Africa region had much of (which they referred to as the Land of Punt).
The foundation of the Kingdom of Aksum is suggested to be as early as 300 BCE. Very little is known of the time period between the mid-first millennium BCE to the beginning of Aksum's flourish around the first century CE. Aksum is thought to be a successor kingdom of DʿMT, a kingdom in the early 1st millennium BC most likely centered at nearby Yeha
Yeha
Yeha is a town in northern Ethiopia, located in the Mehakelegnaw Zone of the Tigray Region. The Central Statistical Agency has not published an estimate for this village's 2005 population.- Archeology :...
.
The Aksumite kingdom was located in the northern Ethiopian province of Tigray and Eritrea and it Aksum remained the capital until the seventh century CE. Aksum owes its prosperity to its location. The Blue Nile basin and the Afar depression are both within a close proximity of Aksum. The former is rich in gold and the latter of salt: both materials having a highly important use to the Aksumites. Aksum was also within an accessible distance to the port of Adulis, on the coast of the Red Sea, hence maintaining trade relations with other nations, such as Egypt, India, and Arabia. Aksum’s "fertile" and "well-watered" location produced enough food for its population as well as its exotic animals, such as elephants and rhinoceros.
From its capital on the Tigray Plateau, Aksum was in command of the trade of ivory with Sudan. It also dominated the trade route leading south and the port of Adulis
Adulis
Adulis or Aduli is an archeological site in the Northern Red Sea region of Eritrea, about 30 miles south of Massawa. It was the port of the Kingdom of Aksum, located on the coast of the Red Sea. Adulis Bay is named after the port...
on the Gulf of Zola. Its success depended on resourceful techniques, production of coins, steady migrations of Greco-Roman merchants and ships landing on the port of Adulis. In exchange for Aksum’s goods, traders bid many kinds of cloth, jewelry, metals and steel for weapons.
At its peak, Aksum controlled territories as far as southern Egypt, east to the Gulf of Aden
Gulf of Aden
The Gulf of Aden is located in the Arabian Sea between Yemen, on the south coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and Somalia in the Horn of Africa. In the northwest, it connects with the Red Sea through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, which is about 20 miles wide....
, south to the Omo River
Omo River
The Omo River is an important river of southern Ethiopia. Its course is entirely contained within the boundaries of Ethiopia, and empties into Lake Turkana on the border with Kenya...
, and west to the Nubian Kingdom of Meroë
Meroë
Meroë Meroitic: Medewi or Bedewi; Arabic: and Meruwi) is an ancient city on the east bank of the Nile about 6 km north-east of the Kabushiya station near Shendi, Sudan, approximately 200 km north-east of Khartoum. Near the site are a group of villages called Bagrawiyah...
. The South Arabian kingdom of the Himyarites and also a portion of western Saudi Arabia was also under the power of Aksum. At this point in time the majority of the citizens of Aksum were one of the ancestors of the present day Amhara and Tigray peoples, the Biher-Tigrigna, Tigrinya speakers and the Tigre of Eritrea.
Medieval Period
Gondar
Gondar or Gonder is a city in Ethiopia, which was once the old imperial capital and capital of the historic Begemder Province. As a result, the old province of Begemder is sometimes referred to as Gondar...
line of the Imperial dynasty in the beginning of the 17th century. However, it soon lapsed into the semi-anarchic era of Zemene Mesafint
Zemene Mesafint
The Zemene Mesafint was a period in Ethiopian history when the country was rent by conflicts between warlords, the Emperor was reduced to little more than a figurehead confined to the capital city of...
("Era of the Princes"), in which rival warlords fought for power and the Yejju Oromo enderase
Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles
Until the end of the monarchy in 1974, there were two categories of nobility in Ethiopia: the Mesafint or princes, hereditary nobles, formed the upper echelon of the ruling class; while the Mekwanint were the appointed nobles, often of humble birth, who formed the bulk of the nobility...
s ("regents") had effective control, while emperors
Emperor of Ethiopia
The Emperor of Ethiopia was the hereditary ruler of Ethiopia until the abolition of the monarchy in 1974. The Emperor was the head of state and head of government, with ultimate executive, judicial and legislative power in that country...
were just considered to be figureheads. The Tigrayans only made a brief return to the throne in the person of Yohannes IV, whose death in 1889 allowed the base to return to the Amharic speaking province of Shewa
Shewa
Shewa is a historical region of Ethiopia, formerly an autonomous kingdom within the Ethiopian Empire...
.
Amharic language
Amharic is a Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia. It is the second most-spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic, and the official working language of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Thus, it has official status and is used nationwide. Amharic is also the official or working...
as "Amhara", and the fact that many people from other ethnic groups have Amharic names
Onomastics
Onomastics or onomatology is the study of proper names of all kinds and the origins of names. The words are from the Greek: "ὀνομαστικός" , "of or belonging to naming" and "ὀνοματολογία" , from "ὄνομα" "name". Toponymy or toponomastics, the study of place names, is one of the principal branches of...
. Another is the fact that most Ethiopians can trace their ancestry to multiple ethnic groups. In fact, the last Emperor, Haile Selassie I, often counted himself a member of the Gurage people on account of his ancestry, and his Empress, Itege Menen Asfaw
Menen Asfaw
Empress Menen Asfaw was the wife and consort of Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia. Empress Menen was the daughter of Asfaw, Jantirar of Ambassel...
of Ambassel
Ambassel
Ambassel is one of the 105 woredas of the Amhara Region in Ethiopia, and an amba, or mountain fortress, located in the woreda; the woreda is named for this feature...
, was of Oromo
Oromo people
The Oromo are an ethnic group found in Ethiopia, northern Kenya, .and parts of Somalia. With 30 million members, they constitute the single largest ethnic group in Ethiopia and approximately 34.49% of the population according to the 2007 census...
descent. The expanded use of Amharic language results mostly from its being the language of the court, and was gradually adopted out of usefulness by many unrelated groups, who then became known as "Amhara" no matter what their ethnic origin.
Modern Period
Eritreans achieved independence from Ethiopia with the defeat of the Derg in 1991 and international recognition in 1993. Eritreans have long had a separate history from their neighbors, but were repatriated back with Ethiopia, after a 40-year Italian colonial rule, in 1961. The struggle for independence was sparked with the Eritrean dissatisfaction of Emperor Haile Selassie's choice of governor for the Eritrean kifle-hager (region), and resulted in Eritrean independence on May 24, 1991. During the 1970s, the TPLF (Tigray People Liberation Front), an ethnic group of Ethiopia, joined Eritreans in the war against the Derg. After the defeat of the Derg, the Tigray People's Front proceeded to rule Ethiopia and remains the ruling party.Origins
The Imperial family of Ethiopia (which is currently in exile) claims its origin directly from the offspring of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba ( nigiśta Śabʿa, who is named Makeda in the Ethiopian account. The Ethiopian narrative Kebra Negast "Glory of Kings" contains an account of Makeda and her descendants. King Solomon is said in this account to have seduced the Queen, and sired a son by her, who would eventually become Menelik IMenelik I
Menelik I , first Jewish Emperor of Ethiopia, is traditionally believed to be the son of King Solomon of ancient Israel and Makeda, ancient Ethiopia Queen of Sheba. He ruled around 950 BC, according to traditional sources...
, the first Emperor of Ethiopia. The tradition that the biblical Queen of Sheba was a ruler of Ethiopia who visited King Solomon in Jerusalem in ancient Israel is supported by the 1st century AD Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who identified Solomon’s visitor as a queen of Egypt and Ethiopia.
In the past, scholars like Hiob Ludolf
Hiob Ludolf
Hiob Ludolf was a German orientalist, and born at Erfurt. Edward Ullendorff rates Ludolf as having "the most illustrious name in Ethiopic scholarship".-Life:...
and Carlo Conti Rossini postulated that the ancient communities that evolved into the modern Ethiopian state were formed by a migration across the Red Sea of Semitic-speaking South Arabians around 1000 BC who intermarried with local non-Semitic-speaking peoples. Indeed, the ancient kingdom of Aksum ruled much of Southern Arabia including Yemen
Yemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
until the rise of Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
in the 7th century, and both the indigenous languages of Southern Arabia and the Amharic and Tigrinya languages of Ethiopia are South Semitic
South Semitic
South Semitic is a commonly accepted branch of the Semitic languages. Semitic itself is a branch of the larger Afro-Asiatic language family found in Africa and Asia....
languages. However, the ancient Semitic language of Ethiopia, is now known to not have derived from Sabaean
Sabaean language
Sabaean , also known as Himyarite , was an Old South Arabian language spoken in Yemen from c. 1000 BC to the 6th century AD, by the Sabaeans; it was used as a written language by some other peoples of Ancient Yemen, including the Hashidites, Sirwahites, Humlanites, Ghaymanites, Himyarites,...
, and there is evidence of a Semitic speaking presence in Ethiopia and Eritrea at least as early as 2000 BC. There is also evidence of ancient Southern Arabian communities in modern day Ethiopia and Eritrea in certain localities, attested by some archaeological artifacts and ancient Sabaean inscriptions in the old South Arabian alphabet
South Arabian alphabet
The ancient Yemeni alphabet branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in about the 9th century BC. It was used for writing the Yemeni Old South Arabic languages of the Sabaean, Qatabanian, Hadramautic, Minaean, Himyarite, and proto-Ge'ez in Dʿmt...
. However, scholars like Stuart Munro-Hay point to the existence of an older D'MT kingdom, prior to any Sabaean migration ca. 4th or 5th c. BC, as well as evidence of to Sabaean immigrants having resided in Ethiopia for little more than a few decades Furthermore, there is archeological evidence of a region in Northern Ethiopia and Eritrea also called Saba, now referred to as "Ethiopian Saba" to avoid confusion.
In the reign of King Ezana
Ezana of Axum
Ezana of Axum , was ruler of the Axumite Kingdom located in present-day Ethiopia, Eritrea, Yemen, he himself employed the style "king of Saba and Salhen, Himyar and Dhu-Raydan"...
(ca. early 4th c. AD, the term is listed as one of the nine regions under his domain, translated in the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
version of his inscription as Aithiopía, the first known use of this term to specifically describe the region known today as Ethiopia (and not Kush
Kingdom of Kush
The native name of the Kingdom was likely kaš, recorded in Egyptian as .The name Kash is probably connected to Cush in the Hebrew Bible , son of Ham ....
or the entire African and Indian region outside of Egypt). The 6th c. author Stephanus of Byzantium
Stephanus of Byzantium
Stephen of Byzantium, also known as Stephanus Byzantinus , was the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled Ethnica...
later used the term "Αβασηγοί" (i.e. Abasēnoi) in reference to:
an Arabian people living next to the SabaeansSabaeansThe Sabaeans or Sabeans were an ancient people speaking an Old South Arabian language who lived in what is today Yemen, in the south west of the Arabian Peninsula.Some scholars suggest a link between the Sabaeans and the Biblical land of Sheba....
together with the Ḥaḍramites. The region of the Abasēnoi produce[d] myrrh, incense and cotton and they cultivate[d] a plant which yields a purple dye (probably wars, i.e. Fleminga Grahamiana). It lies on a route which leads from ZabīdZabidZabid is a town with an urban population of around 23,000 persons on Yemen's western coastal plain. The town, named after Wadi Zabid, the wadi to its south, is one of the oldest towns in Yemen...
on the coastal plain to the Ḥimyarite capital ẒafārZafar, YemenẒafār or Dhafar is an ancient Himyarite site situated in the Yemen, some 130 km south-south-east of the capital Sana'a. Given mention in different ancient texts, there is little doubt about the pronunciation of the name...
.
The Abasēnoi spoken of by Stephanus was located by Hermann von Wissman as a region in the Jabal Hubaysh (perhaps related in etymology with the ḥbš root
Triliteral
The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or "radicals"...
). Other places names in Yemen contain the ḥbš root, such as the Jabal Ḥabaši, whose residents are still called al-Ahbuš (pl. of Ḥabaš). The location of the Abasēnoi in Yemen may perhaps be explained by remnant Aksumite populations from the 520s conquest by King Kaleb
Kaleb of Axum
Kaleb is perhaps the best-documented, if not best-known, king of Axum. Procopius of Caesarea calls him "Hellestheaeus", a variant of his throne name Ella Atsbeha or Ella Asbeha...
; King Ezana's
Ezana of Axum
Ezana of Axum , was ruler of the Axumite Kingdom located in present-day Ethiopia, Eritrea, Yemen, he himself employed the style "king of Saba and Salhen, Himyar and Dhu-Raydan"...
claims to Sahlen (Saba) and Dhu-Raydan (Himyar) during a time when such control was unlikely may indicate an Aksumite presence or coastal foothold. Traditional scholarship has assumed that the Habashat were a tribe from modern-day Yemen that migrated to Ethiopia. However, the Sabaic
South Arabian alphabet
The ancient Yemeni alphabet branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in about the 9th century BC. It was used for writing the Yemeni Old South Arabic languages of the Sabaean, Qatabanian, Hadramautic, Minaean, Himyarite, and proto-Ge'ez in Dʿmt...
inscriptions only use the term ḥbšt to the refer to the Kingdom of Aksum and its inhabitants, especially during the 3rd c., when the ḥbšt (Aksumites) were often at war with the Sabaeans and Himyraites.
South Arabian/Sabaean Origin theory
Ge'ez alphabet
Ge'ez , also called Ethiopic, is a script used as an abugida for several languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea but originated in an abjad used to write Ge'ez, now the liturgical language of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Church...
. However, though the Ge'ez alphabet did develop from Epigraphic South Arabian
South Arabian alphabet
The ancient Yemeni alphabet branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in about the 9th century BC. It was used for writing the Yemeni Old South Arabic languages of the Sabaean, Qatabanian, Hadramautic, Minaean, Himyarite, and proto-Ge'ez in Dʿmt...
(whose oldest inscriptions are found in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Yemen), it is now known that Ge'ez is not descended from any of the Old South Arabian languages.
In the large corpus of South Arabian inscriptions, however, there has never been mention of migration to the west coast of the Red Sea, nor of a tribe called "Habashat." All uses of the term date to the 3rd century AD and later, where they are always used in reference to the people of the Kingdom of Aksum. In recent times, this theory has largely been abandoned.
Culture
Camel
A camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as humps on its back. There are two species of camels: the dromedary or Arabian camel has a single hump, and the bactrian has two humps. Dromedaries are native to the dry desert areas of West Asia,...
s, donkey
Donkey
The donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus, is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E...
s, and sheep are everywhere. Fields are plowed using ox
Ox
An ox , also known as a bullock in Australia, New Zealand and India, is a bovine trained as a draft animal. Oxen are commonly castrated adult male cattle; castration makes the animals more tractable...
en. The Orthodox Church is a large part of the culture. The church buildings are built on hills. Major celebrations during the year are held around the church, where people gather from villages all around to sing, play games, and observe the unique mass of the church, which includes a procession through the church grounds and environs.
Coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
is a very important ceremonial drink. The "coffee ceremony" is common to the Tigrinya and the Amhara. Beans are roasted on the spot, ground, and served thick and rich in tiny ceramic cups with no handles. This amount of coffee can be finished in one gulp if drunk cold, however, it is traditionally drunk very slowly as conversation takes place. When the beans are roasted to smoking, they are passed around the table, where the smoke becomes a blessing on the diners. The traditional food served at these meals consists of injera
Injera
Injera is a yeast-risen flatbread with a unique, slightly spongy texture. Traditionally made out of teff flour, it is a national dish in Ethiopia and Eritrea...
, a spongy flat bread, served with wat
Wat (food)
Wat, wet, or wot , known as tsebhi in Tigrinya is an Ethiopian and Eritrean stew or curry which may be prepared with chicken, beef, lamb, a variety of vegetables, and spice mixtures such as berbere and niter kibbeh, a seasoned clarified butter.Several properties distinguish wats from stews of...
, a spicy meat sauce.
Houses in rural areas are built mostly from rock, dirt, and timber poles. The houses blend in easily with the natural surroundings. Many times the nearest water source is more than a kilometer away from the house. In addition, people must search for fuel for the fire throughout the surrounding area.
The Habesha people have a rich heritage of music and dance, using drums and stringed instruments tuned to a pentatonic scale
Pentatonic scale
A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave in contrast to a heptatonic scale such as the major scale and minor scale...
. Arts and crafts and secular music are performed mostly by artisans who are regarded with suspicion. Sacred music and iconic art is performed by monastically trained men.
Language and Literature
All Habesha people speak Semitic languages, which originate from the Ancient language of Ge'ez. The Ge'ez language is classified as a South Semitic language. It evolved from an earlier proto-Ethio-SemiticEthiopian Semitic languages
Ethiopian Semitic is a language group, which together with Old South Arabian forms the Western branch of the South Semitic languages. The languages are spoken in both Ethiopia and Eritrea...
ancestor used to write royal inscriptions of the kingdom of DʿMT in Epigraphic South Arabian
South Arabian alphabet
The ancient Yemeni alphabet branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in about the 9th century BC. It was used for writing the Yemeni Old South Arabic languages of the Sabaean, Qatabanian, Hadramautic, Minaean, Himyarite, and proto-Ge'ez in Dʿmt...
. As a member of South Semitic, it is closely related to Sabaean
Sabaean language
Sabaean , also known as Himyarite , was an Old South Arabian language spoken in Yemen from c. 1000 BC to the 6th century AD, by the Sabaeans; it was used as a written language by some other peoples of Ancient Yemen, including the Hashidites, Sirwahites, Humlanites, Ghaymanites, Himyarites,...
, and the Ge'ez alphabet later replaced Epigraphic South Arabian in the Kingdom of Aksum (although Epigraphic South Arabian was used for a few inscriptions into the 8th century, though not any South Arabian language since DʿMT). Early inscriptions in Ge'ez and Ge'ez alphabets have been dated2 to as early as the 5th century BC, and in a sort of proto-Ge'ez written in ESA since the 9th century BC. Ge'ez literature properly begins with the Christianization of Ethiopia (and the civilization of Axum) in the 4th century, during the reign of Ezana of Aksum. While Ge'ez is an extinct language that is now only used in Ethiopian Orthodox churches, the three languages that have branched off from it are Tigre, Tigrinya and Amharic. While Tigre is a direct descendant from Ge'ez, Tigrinya was derived from Tigre. Amharic formed approximately 200–300 years after Tigrinya.
Christianity
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. The Tigrayans, in fact, had been converted to Christianity hundreds of years before most of Europe. Many Tigrayan churches were cut into cliffs or from single blocks of stone, as they were in Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
and in parts of Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, where Christianity had existed from its earliest years. The church is a central feature of communities and of each family's daily life. Each community has a church with a patron saint
Patron saint
A patron saint is a saint who is regarded as the intercessor and advocate in heaven of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or person...
.
Ethiopia has often been mentioned in the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
. A well-known example of this is the story of the Ethiopian eunuch
Ethiopian eunuch
The Ethiopian eunuch is a figure in the New Testament of the Bible. The story of his conversion to Christianity is recounted in Acts 8.-Biblical narrative:...
as written in Acts
Acts of the Apostles
The Acts of the Apostles , usually referred to simply as Acts, is the fifth book of the New Testament; Acts outlines the history of the Apostolic Age...
(8: 27): "Then the angel of the Lord said to Philip, Start out and go south to the road that leads down from Jerusalem to Gaza. So he set out and was on his way when he caught sight of an Ethiopian. This man was a eunuch, a high official of the Kandake (Candace) Queen of Ethiopia in charge of all her treasure." The passage continues by describing how Philip helped the Ethiopian understand one passage of Isaiah
Book of Isaiah
The Book of Isaiah is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, preceding the books of Ezekiel, Jeremiah and the Book of the Twelve...
that the Ethiopian was reading. After the Ethiopian received an explanation of the passage, he requested that Philip baptize him, which Philip obliged. Queen Gersamot Hendeke VII (very similar to Kandake) was the Queen of Ethiopia from the year 42 to 52. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church was founded in the fourth century by Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
n monks. Historically, the Ethiopian and Eritrean churches have had strong ties with the Egyptian Coptic Church, the Egyptian Church appointing the archbishop for the Eritrean Church. They gained independence from the Coptic church in the 1950s, although the Eritrean Orthodox Church has recently reforged the link.
Over 5 million of these people are Coptic Orthodox, with one priest for every 92 members—the highest concentration in Ethiopia. The remainder are Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s. There are many Muslims in Tigray Province, but they generally belong to other ethnic groups. The Tigray are reported to have fewer than 500 evangelical believers. There are more believers among the Tigrinya in Eritrea.
Ark of the Covenant
The Ark of the Covenant , also known as the Ark of the Testimony, is a chest described in Book of Exodus as solely containing the Tablets of Stone on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed...
is very important. Every Ethiopian church has a replica of the Ark. Also, the Ethiopian Church has a larger biblical canon than other churches.
Church services are conducted in Ge´ez, the ancient language of Ethiopia and Eritrea. Ge´ez is no longer a living language, its use now confined to religious contexts, occupying a similar place in Ethiopian church life to Latin in the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
.
Other Ethiopian Orthodox practices include such things as fasting, prescribed prayers, and devotion to saints and angels. A child is never left alone until baptism and cleansing rituals are performed. Boys are baptized forty days after birth, whereas girls are baptized eighty days after birth.
Defrocked priests and deacons commonly function as diviners, who are the main healers. Spirit possession is common, affecting primarily women. Women are also the normal spirit mediums.
A number of Ethiopian Christians adhere to various forms of Pentecostalism
Pentecostalism
Pentecostalism is a diverse and complex movement within Christianity that places special emphasis on a direct personal experience of God through the baptism in the Holy Spirit, has an eschatological focus, and is an experiential religion. The term Pentecostal is derived from Pentecost, the Greek...
or Anabaptism, collectively referred to as P'ent'ay
P'ent'ay
P'ent'ay or Pentay is a slang term widely used in modern Ethiopia, and among Ethiopians living abroad, to describe Ethiopian Christians who are not members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo, Ethiopian Orthodox Tehadeso, Roman Catholic or Ethiopian Catholic churches...
.
Similarities to Judaism and Islam
The Ethiopian church places a heavier emphasis on Old Testament teachings than one might find in the Roman Catholic or Protestant churches, and its followers adhere to certain practices that one finds in Orthodox or Conservative JudaismJudaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
. Ethiopian Christians, like some other Eastern Christians
Eastern Christianity
Eastern Christianity comprises the Christian traditions and churches that developed in the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Asia Minor, the Middle East, Northeastern Africa, India and parts of the Far East over several centuries of religious antiquity. The term is generally used in Western Christianity to...
, traditionally follow dietary rules that are similar to Jewish Kashrut
Kashrut
Kashrut is the set of Jewish dietary laws. Food in accord with halakha is termed kosher in English, from the Ashkenazi pronunciation of the Hebrew term kashér , meaning "fit" Kashrut (also kashruth or kashrus) is the set of Jewish dietary laws. Food in accord with halakha (Jewish law) is termed...
, specifically with regard to how an animal is slaughtered. Similarly, pork
Pork
Pork is the culinary name for meat from the domestic pig , which is eaten in many countries. It is one of the most commonly consumed meats worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BC....
is prohibited, though unlike Kashrut, Ethiopian cuisine does mix dairy
Dairy
A dairy is a business enterprise established for the harvesting of animal milk—mostly from cows or goats, but also from buffalo, sheep, horses or camels —for human consumption. A dairy is typically located on a dedicated dairy farm or section of a multi-purpose farm that is concerned...
products with meat
Meat
Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...
- which in turn makes it even closer to Islamic dietary laws
Islamic dietary laws
Islamic dietary laws provide direction on what is to be considered clean and unclean regarding diet and related issues.-Overview:Islamic jurisprudence specifies which foods are ' and which are '...
(see Halal
Halal
Halal is a term designating any object or an action which is permissible to use or engage in, according to Islamic law. The term is used to designate food seen as permissible according to Islamic law...
). Women are prohibited from entering the church during their menses; they are also expected to cover their hair with a large scarf (or shash) while in church, but contrary to popular belief and the actual practice of most other Christian denominations, it is not in the Old Testament that this is commanded, but rather in the New (1 Cor. 11). As with Orthodox synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
s, men and women are seated separately in the Ethiopian church, with men on the left and women on the right (when facing the altar). However, women covering their heads and separation of the sexes in the Church building officially is common to many Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Christians and not unique to Judaism. Ethiopian Orthodox worshippers remove their shoes when entering a church, in accordance with Exodus 3:5 (in which Moses
Moses
Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...
, while viewing the burning bush
Burning bush
The burning bush is an object described by the Book of Exodus as being located on Mount Sinai; according to the narrative, the bush was on fire, but was not consumed by the flames, hence the name...
, is commanded to remove his shoes while standing on holy ground). Furthermore, both the Sabbath
Shabbat
Shabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until a few minutes after when one would expect to be able to see three stars in the sky on Saturday night. The exact times, therefore, differ from...
(Saturday), and the Lord's Day (Sunday) are observed as holy, although more emphasis, because of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, is laid upon the Holy Sunday.
Islam
615
Year 615 was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 615 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.- Europe :* The Edict of Paris grants extensive...
. During that year, a group of Muslims were counseled by the Prophet Muhammad to escape persecution in Mecca and migrate to Abyssinia
Migration to Abyssinia
The migration known as the first Hijarat was made in two groups totalling more than a hundred persons. According to Islamic tradition, eleven male and five female Sahabah, the Muslims who originally converged in Mecca, sought refuge from Quraysh persecution in the Kingdom of Aksum in of in the...
, which was ruled by, in Muhammad's estimation, a pious Christian king (al-najashi). Muhammad's followers crossed the Red Sea and sought refuge in the Kingdom of Aksum, possibly settling at Negash, a place in present-day Northern Ethiopia, Tigray region. Moreover, Islamic tradition states that Bilal, one of the foremost companions of Muhammad, was from Ethiopia, as were many non-Arab Companions of Muhammad - in fact, Ethiopians were the single largest non-Arab ethnic group who were Muhammad's companions. Ethiopia was thus the earliest home outside of Arabia for the dispersal of the Islamic world faith. Ethiopia is almost evenly split between Orthodox Christians and Sunni Muslims.
Most of Ethiopia and Eritrea's Muslims are Sunni
Sunni Islam
Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam. Sunni Muslims are referred to in Arabic as ʾAhl ūs-Sunnah wa āl-Ǧamāʿah or ʾAhl ūs-Sunnah for short; in English, they are known as Sunni Muslims, Sunnis or Sunnites....
Muslims and much as in the rest of the Muslim world
Muslim world
The term Muslim world has several meanings. In a religious sense, it refers to those who adhere to the teachings of Islam, referred to as Muslims. In a cultural sense, it refers to Islamic civilization, inclusive of non-Muslims living in that civilization...
, the beliefs and practices of the Muslims of Ethiopia and Eritrea are basically the same: embodied in the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
and the Sunnah
Sunnah
The word literally means a clear, well trodden, busy and plain surfaced road. In the discussion of the sources of religion, Sunnah denotes the practice of Prophet Muhammad that he taught and practically instituted as a teacher of the sharī‘ah and the best exemplar...
. There are also sufi
Sufism
Sufism or ' is defined by its adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a '...
orders present in Ethiopia. According to the 1994 census of Ethiopia (with similar numbers for the 1984 census), about half of its population is adherent of Islam and members of the Muslim community can be found throughout the country. Islam in Ethiopia is in the Oromo and Ogaden region.
The most important Islamic religious practices, such as the daily ritual prayers (ṣalāt) and fasting ( ṣawm
Sawm
Sawm is an Arabic word for fasting regulated by Islamic jurisprudence. In the terminology of Islamic law, Sawm means to abstain from eating, drinking , having sex and anything against Islamic law...
, Ethiopic
Ethiopian Semitic languages
Ethiopian Semitic is a language group, which together with Old South Arabian forms the Western branch of the South Semitic languages. The languages are spoken in both Ethiopia and Eritrea...
, ṣom - used by local Christians as well) during the holy month of Ramadan
Ramadan
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, which lasts 29 or 30 days. It is the Islamic month of fasting, in which participating Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking and sex during daylight hours and is intended to teach Muslims about patience, spirituality, humility and...
, are observed both in urban centers as well as in rural areas, among both settled peoples and nomads. Numerous Ethiopian Muslims perform the pilgrimage to Mecca
Mecca
Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
every year.
Judaism
Judaism in Ethiopia is believed to date from very ancient times. Precisely what its early history was, however, remains obscure. The now dominant Coptic Ethiopian Church claims it originated from the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon back in the tenth century BCE. This visit is mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures (I Kings 10:1), ShebaSheba
Sheba was a kingdom mentioned in the Jewish scriptures and the Qur'an...
was a kingdom that stretched from Ethiopia to the south of the Yemen. Yemen is very close to Ethiopia across the Red Sea, and it has been recorded that modern Ethiopia has been heavily influenced by the ancient Sabean kingdom. Moreover, the details of the queen's visit, including the alleged theft of the Holy Ark as well as Solomon getting her pregnant with a child who established the "Solomonic" lineage in Ethiopia, as given in Christian Ethiopian tradition, were written in the Kebra Nagast
Kebra Nagast
The Kebra Nagast , or the Book of the Glory of Kings, is an account written in Ge'ez of the origins of the Solomonic line of the Emperors of Ethiopia. The text, in its existing form, is at least seven hundred years old, and is considered by many Ethiopian Christians and Rastafarians to be an...
the Ethiopian chronicle of its early history. The oldest known existing copies of which date from as far back as 13th century. Jewish Ethiopians are mentioned in both the Torah Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
as well as the Christian New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
. It is clear that the Jewish presence in Ethiopia dates back at least 2500 years.
The Jewish Pre-settlement Theory essentially states that starting around the 8th century BCE until about the 5th century BCE, there was an influx of Jewish settlers both from Egypt & Sudan in the north, and southern Arabia in the east. Whether these settlers arrived in great numbers is yet a matter of debate. What is certain, however, is that these settlers must have preceded the arrival of Christianity. Evidence for their presence exists not only in historical books, but also in material artifacts depicting ancient Jewish ceremonies. For instance the temple at Yeha (in Tigray province), which is said to have been erected in the 8th century BCE, is believed to be an architectural copy of other Jewish temples found in Israel and Egypt during the pre-Babylonian era (before 606 BCE). Another example is found on the monastery islands of Lake Tana (northern Gojjam), where several archaic stone altars, fashioned in the manner of Jewish sacrificial alters of pre-8th century BCE Israel, have been found not only preserved in good condition but also containing blood residue. The manner of the blood placed on the stone altars was found to be typical of a culture that strongly adhered to Mosaic Law.
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
, idol
Cult image
In the practice of religion, a cult image is a human-made object that is venerated for the deity, spirit or daemon that it embodies or represents...
, Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...
, purification
Ritual purification
Ritual purification is a feature of many religions. The aim of these rituals is to remove specifically defined uncleanliness prior to a particular type of activity, and especially prior to the worship of a deity...
, alms
Alms
Alms or almsgiving is a religious rite which, in general, involves giving materially to another as an act of religious virtue.It exists in a number of religions. In Philippine Regions, alms are given as charity to benefit the poor. In Buddhism, alms are given by lay people to monks and nuns to...
-- are of Hebrew origin. These words must have been derived directly from a Jewish source, for the Abyssinian Church knows the scriptures only in a Ge'ez version made from the Septuagint"
Beta Israel traditions claim that the Ethiopian Jews are descended from the lineage of Moses himself, some of whose children and relatives are said to have separated from the other Children of Israel after the Exodus and gone southwards, or, alternatively or together with this, that they are descended from the tribe of Dan, which fled southwards down the Arabian coastal lands from Judaea at the time of the breakup of the Kingdom of Israel into two kingdoms in the 10th century BCE. (precipitated by the oppressive demands of Rehoboam
Rehoboam
Rehoboam was initially king of the United Monarchy of Israel but after the ten northern tribes of Israel rebelled in 932/931 BC to form the independent Kingdom of Israel he was king of the Kingdom of Judah, or southern kingdom. He was a son of Solomon and a grandson of David...
, King Solomon's heir), or at the time of the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel in the 8th century BCE. Certainly there was trade as early as the time of King Solomon down along the Red Sea to the Yemen and even as far as India, according to the Bible, and there would therefore have been Jewish settlements at various points along the trade routes. There is definite archaeological evidence of Jewish settlements and of their cultural influence on both sides of the Red Sea well at least 2,500 years ago, both along the Arabian coast and in the Yemen, on the eastern side, and along the southern Egyptian and Sudanese coastal regions.
See also
- Amhara peopleAmhara peopleAmhara are a highland people inhabiting the Northwestern highlands of Ethiopia. Numbering about 19.8 million people, they comprise 26% of the country's population, according to the 2007 national census...
- Beta IsraelBeta IsraelBeta Israel Israel, Ge'ez: ቤተ እስራኤል - Bēta 'Isrā'ēl, modern Bēte 'Isrā'ēl, EAE: "Betä Ǝsraʾel", "Community of Israel" also known as Ethiopian Jews , are the names of Jewish communities which lived in the area of Aksumite and Ethiopian Empires , nowadays divided between Amhara and Tigray...
- Ethiopian CoffeeEthiopian CoffeeEthiopian Coffee is an Ethiopian football club based in Addis Ababa. They are a member of the Ethiopian Football Federation Premier League. Their home stadium is Addis Ababa Stadium.-History:...
- Ethiopian coffee dressEthiopian coffee dressAn Ethiopian coffee dress is the traditional attire of Ethiopian women. In Ethiopia, this dress is called habesha qemis. Rastafarian women in the African diaspora also wear these dresses. The ankle length dress is made of white cotton. Most dresses are decorated with Ethiopian motifs. The...
- Ethiopian Orthodox Church
- History of EthiopiaHistory of EthiopiaThis article covers the prehistory and history of Ethiopia.-Prehistory:Lucy, discovered in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia's Afar region, is considered the world's second-oldest, but most complete and best preserved, adult Australopithecine fossil...
- SemiticSemiticIn linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages...
- ShebaShebaSheba was a kingdom mentioned in the Jewish scriptures and the Qur'an...
- Solomonic DynastySolomonic dynastyThe Solomonic dynasty is the Imperial House of Abyssinia. Its members claim lineal descent from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, the latter of whom tradition asserts gave birth to the first King Menelik I after her Biblically described visit to Solomon in Jerusalem .-Overview:The dynasty, a...
- Tigray-Tigrinya peopleTigray-Tigrinya peopleTigray-Tigrinya are an ethnic group who live in the southern, central and northern parts of Eritrea and the northern highlands of Ethiopia's Tigray province. They also live in Ethiopia's former provinces of Begemder and Wollo, which are today mostly part of Amhara Region, though a few regions...
- Eritrean Orthodox Church
- EritreaEritreaEritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
Literature
- Eduard Glaser: Die Abessinier in Arabien und Afrika. München 1895, S. 8 f.
- Wilhelm Max Müller: Asien und Europa nach altägyptischen Denkmälern. Leipzig 1893, S. 116.
- Wolbert Smidt: Selbstbezeichnung von Təgrəñña-Sprechern (Habäša, Tägaru, Təgrəñña); in: Bogdan Burtea / Josef Tropper / Helen Younansardaroud, Studia Semitica et Semitohamitica [Festschrift für Rainer Voigt], Münster 2005, S. 385 ff., 391 f.
- Hatem Elliesie: Der zweite Band der Encyclopaedia Aethiopica im Vergleich; in: Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, Band 102, Heft 4-5, Berlin 2007, S. 397 ff. (398-401).