Three Thousand Years of Ethiopian History (or, Demolishing Myths about Ethiopian History) (original) (raw)
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Highlights of Ethiopian History and Culture
Henok Tadesse
Ethiopia"s history and culture was hidden for centuries from the outside world due to different factors and has not been known as it deserved to be. One of the factors is the fact that Ethiopia has been largely isolated following the decline of the Axum (Aksum) civilization around 700 A.D. Unlike most ancient civilizations, the history of Axum is unknown in the mainstream and some historians are surprised when they somehow learn about it and wonder why they had not learned about it in the universities. Ethiopia has a rich history of at least three thousand years. Its prehistory, the Aksum civilization and the last one thousand and three hundred years of its history are fascinating. Thanks to the internet, Ethiopian history and culture is increasingly being known today, overcoming past prejudices and biases. This is good not only for Ethiopia, but also for many who are interested in history, culture and religion. It is good for Ethiopian history particularly because, as can be seen from Youtube videos and articles on the internet, it will help in the systematic exploration and documentation of Ethiopian history by genuine historians and talented amateurs around the world. Certainly, there are a lot more people who have never heard about Ethiopian history before. This note is meant to help anyone interested to discover and explore Ethiopian history and culture for themselves. Ethiopian history and culture was largely hidden for centuries from the outside world due to different factors and has not been known as it deserved to be. One of the factors is the fact that Ethiopia has been isolated from the outside world following the decline of the Axum (Aksum) civilization around 700 A.D. Axum was one of the great civilizations of the ancient world, along with and on a par with Persia, Rome and China. Yet, unlike most ancient civilizations, the history of Axum is unknown in the mainstream and some historians are surprised when they somehow learn about it and wonder why they had not learned about it in the universities. Ethiopia has a rich history of at least three thousand years. Its prehistory, the Aksum civilization and the last one thousand and three hundred years of its history are so fascinating that many people see it in disbelief as bordering on "myths". Yet these "myths" are so supported overwhelmingly by archaeological and other evidences that some have described it as " a seamless fusion of facts and myths". Thanks to the internet, Ethiopian history and culture is increasingly being known today, overcoming past biases and prejudices. This is good not only for Ethiopia, but also for many who are interested in history, culture and religion. It is good for Ethiopian history particularly because, as can be seen from Youtube videos and articles on the internet, it will help in the systematic exploration and documentation of Ethiopian history by genuine historians and talented amateurs around the world. Certainly, there are a lot more people who have never heard about Ethiopian history before. This short note is meant to help
The First Ethiopians: A Critical Perspective
ALTERNATION
This is an ambitious book by a retired Professor of English at Rhodes University that makes very large claims about the origins of Western racism towards Black Africans. The author has spent many years and a great deal of effort on this project (p. ix) as is evident from the substantial length of the work and the very extensive bibliography 1 1 The author sometimes employs a 'scatter-gun' approach to the references, rather than specifying these more precisely. For example, the reference to Watts (1976) on race prejudice in Juvenal, does not contain much of relevance at all to 'Roman attitudes to black Africans' (p. 334)-there is a passing allusion to Blacks on p. 86 of this article, but for the rest it mostly concerns Greeks, Jews and Orientals. The same could be said of the majority of the references given on this page. One of the most serious drawbacks to the bibliography is that it is virtually entirely in English, whereas much important work on Africa in ancient history has been done in French, Italian and German. Thus, there is no mention at all of Gsell (1913-1930), or the 18volume publication L'Africa romana by the Department of History at the University of Sassari. (pp. 447-501), from which many scholars will undoubtedly benefit, as I most definitely have. Wits University
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 2002
Rubin tackles the fascinating and crucial issue of the development of the Islamic self-image and perception of world history in the first few centuries of Islam. He does so by examining that self-image in relation to monotheistic groups that preceded Muslims, generally designated as the 'Children of Israel', 'Jews', 'Christians', 'those who were before you', etc. His sources are extensive and drawn from various types of h 1adı : ths: Sunni and Shii; legal, exegetical and historiographical; sound (s 1ah 1ı : h 1) and unsound. The isna : ds are not examined for authenticity, but general regions in which the h 1adı : ths were first circulated. Although Rubin examines these sources from a literary point of view and makes no attempt to determine the historicity of the events described in them, they are placed within the chronology of the development of the Islamic self-image. Rubin argues that the history of Muh 1 ammad was produced under the impact of later events, particularly the great conquests outside Arabia, and so the first stages of development of Islamic historical perception should begin with the events outside Arabia. Hence, chapters i and ii begin by examining traditions from the period of the Arab conquest of Syria which reflect the apologetic needs of the conquerors. Through traditions by Ka"b al-Ah 1 ba : r, a Jewish convert to Islam, an Arab-Jewish messianism is created that provides divine legitimization for the Islamic conquest. The early Islamic historiographers saw the conquest as fulfilment of a divine promise given in the Torah and as a renewed version of the Israelite conquest of Canaan. The messianic theme of the Lost Tribes of Israel, who in these h 1adı : ths fight alongside Muslims in an eschatological battle for Constantinople, further demonstrates that Jews and Arabs shared a divine mission to drive out the Byzantines from the Holy Land. Chapter ii examines h 1adı : ths that demonstrate reactions against this focus on Syria and the Promised Land at the expense of Arabia. The Jewish-Arab messianism was redirected so as to elevate the H 1 ija : z to the rank of the Promised Land. This was done, for example, by making the Ka"ba a destination of pilgrimage for the prophets before Muh 1 ammad and by linking the Lost Tribes to Arabia. Chapters iii to v explore the more familiar depiction of the Children of Israel in early Islamic literature. No longer are they righteous believers. Instead, because of their sinfulness, they are inferior to the righteous Arabs. Chapter iii shows how various sins of the Children of Israel already delineated in the Qur'an (such as the unwillingness of the Israelite spies sent by Moses to fight for the Promised Land) are used to contrast with devout Muslims who are ready to follow Muh 1 ammad into any battle. Similarly, chapter iv examines traditions about the Children of Israel's refusal to say h 1it 1t 1a (derived times-Rubin concludes that 'it is feasible to assume that Jewish and Christian models of sacred history preceded Qur'a : nic ones in Islamic tradition'. It also seems reasonable that the need for legitimization was replaced by self-satisfaction, which in turn is replaced with disillusionment and fear of assimilation. While I agree that his external considerations make sense, others might argue that they do not. Thus, if there is a weakness in this excellent study, it is that Rubin did not expand on this critical and tantalizing section of his argument.
The Bogus-Ethiopian Millennium of Ignorance and Aberration - By Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
Within a few days the totalitarian colonial state of Abyssinia, comically self-styled as ‘Ethiopia’, will inaugurate the macabre ceremonials of the supposedly Ethiopian Millennium. This is not Ethiopian, and certainly not a Millennium by any means. Why this anachronistic and dysfunctional, dictatorial entity celebrates the beginning of the third millennium on September 11, 2007? The correct term: the Ge'ez Millennium of the Abyssinians We will briefly analyze the falsification of the name, before presenting an enumeration of miscalculations that led the Abyssinians assume that 2000 years separate us now from the birth of Jesus. The people who believe this fallacy are the Amhara and Tigray tribes that are the descendants of the Axumite Abyssinians; their Semitic origins have been retraced in Pre-Islamic Yemen, where epigraphic evidence informs us about the tribe of Habashat that in various successive waves during the 2nd half of the 1st millennium BCE migrated from there to Africa, across the Bab el Mandeb straits. All pre-Christian remains the Habashat / Abyssinians left in Africa (exclusively unearthed in today’s Eritrea and the Tigray northernmost province of Abyssinia) bear witness to an absolutely Semitic Yemenite – non African – Culture, Religion, Language and Scripture; we could comfortably call it the Yemenite Annex on African soil. This would not be the only; according to the Periplus of the Red Sea, an Ancient Greek text written in the times of Emperor Nero by an Alexandrian Egyptian merchant and captain who had traveled extensively throughout the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, the entire East African coast from the Horn of Africa (Cape Guardafui – in Ancient Greek Akroterion Aromaton, the Cape of Perfumes) down to Rhapta (approx. Dar es Salam, in today’s Tanzania) was named Azania. Azania was a Yemenite colony absolutely controlled by the Sabaean King, and Yemenites had practiced – according to the aforementioned text – mixed marriages, and learned the local language in order to implement their policies more efficiently. Contrarily to Azania, ‘the Other Berberia’ (in the area of today’s Somaliland) was a locally ruled oligarchy, and Axumite Abyssinia was an independent kingdom mostly active around Adulis, the harbour and port of call in the area of today’s Massawa. In the middle of the 1st century CE, Axum was always overshadowed by Ethiopia, the great Kushitic kingdom of Meroe in the area of today’s Northern Sudan that was bordering with the Roman province of Egypt. Published in AfroArticles, American Chronicle, and Buzzle on 6th September 2007 http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard/Article/The-Bogus-Ethiopian-Millennium-of-Ignorance-and-Aberration/40932
The Ideology of the Shebanization and the Birth of the Ethiopian Nation (13 th -16 th century
Deresse Ayenachew WOLDeTSADIK, 2021
This article is an inquiry on the medieval political ideology of Ethiopia that we call the Shebanization, which inspired the birth of the Ethiopian nation. This ideology was based on the national epic of Kəbra Nagast (Glory of Kings) that narrates the legendary visit of Queen Sheba to King Solomon (971-931 BC) of the Bible. It gives the Judaic origin to both the church and the state of the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia. It highlighted the unity of the Christian kingdom under the promised Land of Ethiopia in the model of Israel. This legendary origin was intended to defend the widely spreading Muslim kingdoms that threatened to dominate the fragmented Christian polities. The Christians were limited in the narrow highlands of the Northern Ethiopia and part of Eritrea. The legend revitalized and united these Christian polities and strengthened them to confront the expanding power of Islam in the Horn of Africa. Eventually, it allowed them to establish intended unity and they created an unprecedented powerful kingdom in the Horn of Africa. This paper proposes how the shebanization process interrelated the multicultural peoples of the Horn to forge the birth of the Ethiopian nation in medieval period.