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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 under the power of the Muslim Kingdom of Adal from 1529-43.

Ethnicity

Imam Ahmad has traditionally sometimes been interpreted as being an Arab in Ethiopia, though he is more often represented as Somali native. 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." Richard Pankhurst has postulated that the general may have in fact been Afar.

His ethnicity is never explicitly mentioned in the Futuh al-Habasha of Sihab ad-Din Ahmad bin 'Abd al-Qader (otherwise known as 'Arab Faqih), the primary work regarding his conquests, possibly because it was not important or because the author assumed it was known to his readers. There are a number of clues in the Futuh worth considering.

• Many of Imam Ahmdad's relatives are identified. His sister Fardusa is said to be married to Mattan, identified as a Somali chieftain unlike her. Another is his brother Muhammad bin Ibrahim, who was chieftain of the tribes of Shewa and Hargaya before joining the Imam against Ethiopia. He has a nephew Muhammad bin Ali, whose mother was the Imam's aunt; Muhammad was the Sultan of the Somali tribe of Zarba. Last is his cousin Emir Zeharbui Muhammad, of whom the Futuh has little to say about his background.
• The Futuh mentions one Ibrahim bin Ahmad as a ruler of the Adal Sultanate for three months, whose name suggests that he may be the Imam's father. This Ibrahim is described as one of the Belew people and previously having been the ruler of the town of Hubat. The possible connection between the two is strengthened by the fact Hubat is later mentioned as one of the power bases of Imam Ahmad (the other being Za'ka).
• Then there are numerous occasions where the Futuh supplies evidence for an argument from silence. There are numerous passages in the Futuh where Imam Ahmad and the Somali people are mentioned together, and never once does 'Arab Faqih mention the ethnic connection. Further, the Somali warriors are described as having fled during the Battle of Shimbra Kure; had the Imam been Somali, would the Futuh which otherwise praises the Imam at every turn, would this embarassing detail have been mentioned?
• So far these argue against the Imam being descended from Somali ancestors (although in any case there are undeniably Somali families who can claim to be his descendants). In favor of this connection, there is the fact that after disagreeing with Sultan Umar Din over the alms tax, Imam Ahmad retired to live amongst the Somali -- which can be used to argue that he was a Somali.

One could use the evidence of the Futuh to argue that Imam Ahmad was not a Somali. However, Franz-Christoph Muth identifies him as Somali, as do most historians, who have access to more historical materials.

Early years

Imam Ahmad was born near Zeila, a port city located in northwestern Somalia Somaliland (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 the previous year 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, Ahmad Gragn maintained the discipline of most of his troops and defeated emperor Lebna Dengel at Shimbra Kure that March.

Invasion of Ethiopia

Imam 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. Here the Portuguese had their first glimpse of Ahmad, as recorded by Castanhoso:

While his camp was being pitched, the king of Zeila 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.

After 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 -- their horse almost broke the Portuguese square -- 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."

Reinforced by the arrival of the Bahr negus Yeshaq, 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 Wofla near Lake Ashenge, within sight of his opponent.

Knowing 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.

The 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, and they made their way back to Harar, where she rallied his followers. Intent on avenging her husband's death, she married his nephew Nur ibn Mujahid, but only on the condition that Nur would avenge Imam Ahmad's defeat.

"In Ethiopia the damage which Gragn did has never been forgotten," wrote Paul B. Henze. "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." 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.

Sources

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, but in its current version is incomplete, covering the story up to 1537, narrating the Imam's raids on the islands of Lake Tana. Richard Burton the explorer claimed that the second part could be found "in Mocha or Hudaydah", but despite later investigations, no one has seen a copy of this second part. This work was translated into French by René Basset and published 1897-1901. Richard Pankhurst made a partial translation into English as part of his The Ethiopian Royal Chronicles (Addis Ababa: Oxford University Press, 1967), but a complete translation of the Futuh al-habasa by Paul Lester Stenhouse has been published by the Tsehai in 2003 (ISBN 0-9723172-5-2).

Primary sources of the Portuguese expedition under 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). Moreover, the Solomonic side of the story is represented in the royal chronicles of Emperors Libne Dingil and his son Gelawdewos.

References

1. Franz-Christoph Muth, "Ahmad b. Ibrahim al-Gazi" in Siegbert Herausgegeben von Uhlig, ed., Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: A-C (Wiesbaden:Harrassowitz Verlag, 2003), pp. 155.
2. Lewis, I.M., "The Somali Conquest of Horn of Africa", Journal of African History, 12
3. Ewald Wagner, "`Adal" in Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: A-C, pp.71.
4. Sihab ad-Din Ahmad bin 'Abd al-Qader, Futuh al-Habasa: The conquest of Ethiopia, translated by Paul Lester Stenhouse with annotations by Richard Pankhurst (Hollywood: Tsehai, 2003), p. 44
5. Futuh, p. 51. Pankhurst identifies this Hargaya as a location inside modern Ethiopia, and different from the modern city of Hargeisa.
6. Futuh, p. 44
7. First mentioned in Stenhouse's translation of the Futuh at p. 54, and occasionally afterwards.
8. Futuh, p. 8
9. Futuh, p. 14
10. Futuh, p. 81
11. Recounted at Futuh, pp. 101-105.
12. Wagner, "`Adal", pp. 71.
13. The battle is described in the Futuh, pp. 71-86.
14. J. Spencer Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia (Oxford: Geoffrey Cumberlege for the University Press, 1952), p. 173.
15. Translated in Whiteway, The Portuguese Expedition, p. 41.
16. Whiteway, The Portuguese Expedition, p. 51.
17. Whiteway, The Portuguese Expedition, p. 53.
18. 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 , pp. 201-217).
19. Paul B. Henze, Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia (New York: Palgrave, 2000), p. 90.

External links

• The Ethiopian Muslim and Christian War (1528-1560)
• Somalia: From The Dawn of Civilization To The Modern Times: Chapter 8: Somali Hero - Ahmad Gurey (1506-43)

• 1506 births
• 1543 deaths
• History of Ethiopia
• Somali military leaders
• Somali religious leaders