Islam in Ethiopia
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According to the latest 1994 national census, Islam is the second most widely practiced religion in Ethiopia after Christianity, with approximately one third (32.8%) of Ethiopians adhering to Islam[1], having arrived in Ethiopia in 615. The CIA World Factbook places Islam as the second most widely practiced religion in Ethiopia, stating that some 45 percent of the population are adherents.[2]. Islam is the majority religion for the Somali, Afar and Oromo peoples in Ethiopia, with roughly 60% of the people in those groups adhering to it. Islam is also practiced by some of the Amhara, Tigray and Gurage.
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[edit] History
The first Muslims in Ethiopia were refugees from Mecca, persecuted by the new leading tribe, the reactionary Quraysh. They were received by the ruler of Ethiopia, whom Arabic tradition was named Ashama ibn Abjar, and he settled them in Negash. Located in the northern Tigray province, Negash is the historical center of Islam in Ethiopia and parts of East Africa. The Quraysh sent emissaries to bring them back to Arabia, but the King of Ethiopia refused their demands. The Prophet himself instructed his followers who came to Ethiopia, to respect and protect Ethiopia as well as live in peace with Ethiopian Christians.[3] However, it would be the city of Medina, north of Mecca, that was ultimately decided to be the new home of the exiles from Mecca. Also, Bilal, one of the foremost companions of the Prophet Muhammad and the first muezzin, or the caller to prayer, was from Ethiopia.
Islam later developed more in the coastal regions of the southern horn of Africa, particularly among the Somali. This was challenged by the mostly Christian northern people of Abyssinia, including Amhara, Tigray and north western Oromo. However the north and northeastern expansion of the Oromo, who practiced mainstream traditional Waaqa, affected the growth of Islam in its early days. Historian Ulrich Braukamper says, "the expansion of the non-Muslim Oromo people during subsequent centuries mostly eliminated Islam in those areas." However, following the centralization of some Oromo communities, some of them adopted Islam and today constitutes over 40% of their population.[4]
Under the former Emperor Haile Selassie, Muslim communities could bring matters of Personal and Family Law and inheritance before Islamic courts; many did so and probably continued to do so under the revolutionary regime. However, many Muslims dealt with such matters in terms of Customary Law. For example, the Somali and other pastoralists tended not to follow the requirement that daughters inherit half as much property as sons, particularly when livestock was at issue. In parts of Eritrea, the tendency to treat land as the corporate property of a descent group (lineage or clan) precluded following the Islamic principle of division of property among one's heirs.
[edit] Muslims in Contemporary Ethiopia
Much as the rest of the Muslim world, the beliefs and practices of the Muslims of Ethiopia are basically the same: embodied in the Qur'an and the Sunnah. There are also Sufi brotherhoods present in Ethiopia. The most important Islamic religious practices, such as the daily ritual prayers (Salat) and Fasting (Arabic صوم, Sawm, Ethiopic ጾም, S.om or Tsom - used by 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.
In Ethiopia's Muslim communities, as in neighboring Sudan and Somalia, many of the faithful are associated with, but not necessarily members of any specific Sufi order. Nevertheless, formal and informal attachment to Sufi practices is widespread, the emphasis seems less on the contemplative and disciplined mysticism and more on the concentration of the spiritual powers possessed by certain founders of the orders and the leaders of local branches.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Berhanu Abegaz, "Ethiopia: A Model Nation of Minorities" (accessed 6 April 2006)
- ^ World Factbook: Ethiopia
- ^ Ofcansky, Thomas P.; LaVerle Berry (1991). Ethiopia and the Early Islamic Period (HTML) (English). A Country Study: Ethiopia. Federal Research Division, Library of Congress. Retrieved on 2007-09-25. “According to Islamic tradition, some members of Muhammad's family and some of his early converts had taken refuge with the Aksumites during the troubled years preceding the Prophet's rise to power, and Aksum was exempted from the jihad, or holy war, as a result.”
- ^ # Ulrich Braukamper, Layers Islamic History and Culture in Southern Ethiopia (2003)
- This article contains material from the Library of Congress Country Studies, which are United States government publications in the public domain.
- J. Spencer Trimingham. Islam in Ethiopia. Oxford: Geoffrey Cumberlege for the University Press, 1952.
