Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi
Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi (c.
1506 -
February 21,
1543) was an
Imam and
General of
Adal who defeated
Emperor Lebna Dengel of Ethiopia. Nicknamed Gran (Gurey in
Somali) "the left-handed", he embarked on a conquest which brought three-quarters of Ethiopia into the power of the Muslim Kingdom of Adal from 1529-43.
Imam Ahmad has traditionally sometimes been interpreted as being an Arab in Ethiopia
[Franz-Christoph Muth, "Ahmad b. Ibrahim al-Gazi" in Siegbert Herausgegeben von Uhlig, ed., Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: A-C (Wiesbaden:Harrassowitz Verlag, 2003), pp.155.], though he is more often represented as Somali. The traditional interpretation of his ethnicity as Somali, however, has been challenged. Adal was a multiethnic state comprising both
Afars and
Somalis. Ewald Wagner postulates that, in fact, "the main population of Adal may have been of Afar stock."
[Ewald Wagner, "`Adal" in ibid, pp.71.] His ethnicity is never mentioned in the
Futuh al-Habasha, the primary work regarding his conquests, but Franz-Christoph Muth identifies him as Somali
[ibid.] Richard Pankhurst has postulated that the general may have in fact been Afar.
Imam Ahmad was born near
Zeila, a port city located in northwestern
Somalia (then part of
Adal, a tributary Muslim state to the Christian Ethiopian
Solomonic dynasty), and married
Bati del Wambara, the daughter of governor
Mahfuz of Zeila. When Mahfuz was killed returning from a campaign against the
Ethiopian emperor
Lebna Dengel in
1517, the
Adal sultanate lapsed into anarchy for several years, until Imam Ahmad killed the last of the contenders for power and took control of
Harar.
In retaliation for an attack on Adal in 1527-8 by the Ethiopian general Degalhan, Imam Ahmad invaded Ethiopia in
1529. Although his troops were fearful of their opponents, and attempted to desert upon news that the Ethiopian army was approaching, Imam Ahmad relied on his elite company armed with
matchlocks, and defeated emperor
Lebna Dengel at
Shimbra Kure that March.
1Imam Ahmad campaigned again in Ethiopia in
1531, breaking Emperor Lebna Dengel's ability to resist in the
Battle of Amba Sel on
October 28, then marched north to loot the island monastery of
Lake Hayq and the stone churches of
Lalibela. When the Imam entered the province of
Tigray, he defeated an Ethiopian army that confronted him there, and on reaching
Axum destroyed the
Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion, in which the Ethiopian emperors had been coronated for centuries.
The Ethiopians were forced to ask for help from the
Portuguese, who landed at the port of
Massawa on
February 10,
1541 in the reign of the emperor
Gelawdewos. This force was led by
Christovão da Gama, and included 400 musketeers and a number of artisans and other non-combatants. Da Gama and Imam Ahmad met on
April 1,
1542 at
Jarte, which Trimingham has identified with
Anasa, between
Amba Alagi and
Lake Ashenge.
2 Here the Portuguese had their first glimpse of Ahmad, as recorded by Castanhoso:
While his camp was being pitched, the king of Zeila [Imam Ahmad] acended a hill with several horse and some foot to examine us: he halted on the top with three hundred horse and three large banners, two white with red moons, and one red with a white moon, which always accompanied him, and which he was recognized.
3After the two unfamiliar armies exchanged messages then stared at each other for a few days, on
April 4 da Gama formed his troops into an
infantry square, and marched against the Imam's lines, repelling successive waves of attacks with their muskets and cannons. This battle ended when Imam Ahmad was wounded in the leg by a chance shot, and seeing his banners signal retreat, the Portuguese and their Ethiopian allies fell upon the disorganized Muslims, who suffered losses but managed to reform next to the river on the distant side.
Over the next several days, Imam Ahmad was reinforced by new arrivals of troops, and understanding the need to act swiftly on
April 16 da Gama again formed a square which he led against Imam Ahmad's camp. Although the Muslims fought with more determination than two weeks before an opportune explosion of some gunpowder tramatized the horses on the Imam's side, and his army fled in disorder. Castanhoso laments that "the victory would have been complete this day had we only one hundred horses to finish it: for the King was carried on men's shoulders in a bed, accompanied by horsemen, and they fled in no order."
4Reinforced by the arrival of the
Bahr Negash Yishaq, da Gama marched south after Imam Ahmad's force, reaching sight of him ten days later. However, the onset of the
rainy season prevented da Gama from engaging Ahmad a third time, and on the advice of Queen
Sabla Wengel made a winter camp at
Wafla near Lake Ashenge, within sight of his opponent.
5Knowing that victory lay in the number of firearms an army had, the Imam sent to his fellow Muslims for help. According to Abbé
Joachim le Grand, Imam Ahmad received 2000 musketeers from Arabia, and artillery and 900 picked men from the
Ottomans to assist him. Meanwhile, due to casualties and other duties, da Gama's force was reduced to 300 musketeers. After the rains ended, Imam Ahmad attacked the Portuguese camp, and through weight of numbers killed all but 140 of da Gama's troops. Da Gama, badly wounded, was captured with ten of his men and, after refusing an offer of converting to Islam in return for his life, was executed.
6The survivors and Emperor
Gelawdewos were afterwards able to join forces and, drawing on the Portuguese supplies, they attacked Ahmad on
February 21,
1543 in the
Battle of Wayna Daga, where their 9,000 troops managed to defeat the 15,000 soldiers under Imam Ahmad. The Imam was killed by a Portuguese musketteer, who was mortally wounded in avenging da Gama's death.
His wife Bati del Wambara managed to escape the battlefield with a remnant of the Turkish soldiers to Harar, where she rallied his followers. She agreed to marry his nephew
Nur ibn Mujahid on the condition that Nur would avenge Imam Ahmad's defeat.
"In Ethiopia the damage which [Ahmad] Gragn did has never been forgotten," wrote Paul B. Henzeg. "Every Christian highlander still hears tales of Gragn in his childhood.
Haile Selassie referred to him in his memoirs. I have often had villagers in northern Ethiopia point out sites of towns, forts, churches and monasteries destroyed by Gragn as if these catastrophes had occurred only yesterday."
7 While acknowledging that many modern Somali nationalists consider Ahmad a national hero, Henze dismisses their claims, stating that the concept of a Somali nation did not exist during Ahmad's lifetime.
Ahmad's invasion of Ethiopia is described in detail in the
Futuh al-habasa ("The Conquest of Ethiopia") written in
Arabic by Ahmad's follower
Sihab ad-Din Admad ibn 'Abd-al-Qadir, and covers the story up to March 19,
1537. This history was translated into
French by René Basset, and Richard Pankhurst has made a partial translation into English.
Primary sources of the Portuguese expedition under Christovão da Gama have been collected and translated by R.S. Whiteway,
The Portuguese Expedition to Abyssinia in 1541-1543, 1902 (Nendeln, Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint Limited, 1967).
#
Futuh al-habasa, translated by Richard K. P. Pankhurst in
The Ethiopian Royal Chronicles (Addis Ababa: Oxford University Press,1967), pp. 53f.# J. Spencer Trimingham,
Islam in Ethiopia (Oxford: Geoffrey Cumberlege for the University Press, 1952), p. 173.# Translated in Whiteway,
The Portuguese Expedition, p. 41.# Whiteway,
The Portuguese Expedition, p. 51.# Whiteway,
The Portuguese Expedition, p. 53.# Described in terms worthy of a saint's life by
Jeronimo Lobo, who based his account on the testimony of an eye witness. (
The Itinerário
of Jerónimo Lobo, translated by Donald M. Lockhart [London: Hakluyt Society, 1984], pp. 201-217).# Paul B. Henze,
Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia (New York: Palgrave, 2000), p. 90.# Lewis, I.M. "The Somali Conquest of Horn of Africa." Journal of African History, I 2
*
Muslim Invasion in Ethiopia (in German language)*
The Ethiopian Muslim and Christian War (1528-1560)
