Muslims Renegotiating Marginality in Con

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Muslims Renegotiating Marginality in

Contemporary Ethiopia
Dereje Feyissa
University of Bayreuth
Bruce B. Lawrence
Duke University
Abstract
Ethiopian Muslims have only had access to public space and opportunity for religious
self-definition and collective influence since 1991. During little more than two decades,
how have they advanced subjective agency within the political constraints of the current
government, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front or EPRDF? This
article addresses that question by backgrounding the history of Islamic expansion into
Ethiopia, tracing Muslim engagement with Christian political elites over several hundred
years, till the latter part of the 21st century. After the deposition of Haile Selasse in 1974,
the DERG assumed power and in the name of a socialist agenda, suppressed all religions
from 1975–1991. DERG socialism has been replaced by EPRDF pluralism, yet the
structural constraints of the latter have weakened the efforts of Ethiopian Muslims to find
their rightful place in the public square. Abetted and assisted by overseas immigrant
communities, in both Western Europe and North America, Ethiopian Muslims continue
to contest securitization and marginalization by the state, even as they struggle with
regional, national and transnational issues that impact all Muslim identity politics in the
second decade of the 21st century.
Introduction
E
thiopia is the least understood, and arguably the most important, of the so-called
Muslim minority communities of Africa. Not only does Ethiopia have the third
largest Muslim population in the African continent, but according to the 2007
census, Muslims constitute around 34 % of Ethiopia’s 80 million people, second only to
the country’s dominant religious group, Orthodox Christians (43%). Yet Islam has not
been recognized for its central role in Ethiopia’s socio-political landscape. It had an
auspicious beginning thanks to the hospitality that the companions of the prophet
Mohammed got from a benevolent Christian king (Najashi). The geographical proximity
of Ethiopia to Arabia and the flourishing long distance trade between the two, as well as
the disavowal of trade as a dignified vocation by the Christians, also provided a
commercial access to Ethiopia’s hinterland that benefited Muslim traders. From early on,
© 2014 Hartford Seminary.
DOI: 10.1111/muwo.12056
281
The Muslim World • Volume 104 • J ULY 2014
however, Islam in Ethiopia had to deal with a politically entrenched (Orthodox)

Christianity that flourished under the Ethiopian state and helped it succeed. It was a
political intimacy that lasted over millennia, and although Ethiopia’s secular turn during
the popular revolution of 1974 ushered in a new era of Islamic revivalism, it was not till
the 1991 regime change that a modest liberal opening appeared. Modern education and
information technology expanded, creating new fields of possibility for Islam in Ethiopia
and its global articulation. Notwithstanding these enabling structures, Muslims in
contemporary Ethiopia still face difficult constraints. Of special significance are the
caveats put on Muslim organizational and public expressions as well as the securitization
of most Muslims in a highly ideologically charged geo-political context.
This article examines the new opportunity structure and the enduring constraints
within which the Ethiopian Muslims’ agency is situated. In so doing, however, Ethiopian
Muslims are not only portrayed as subjects enabled and constrained by changing
socio-political structures but also as agents of history actively engaged in making use of
and expanding new possibilities for themselves. Surmounting durable constraints, they
contest the country’s public space through creative narratives of entitlement. Beside the
identity politics of Muslims in Ethiopia, one must also account for the active involvement
of the Ethiopian Muslims diaspora, particularly in western countries where two
organizations represent Muslim voices. In the USA it is Badr-Ethiopia (Badr) which takes
the lead while in Western Europe it is the Network of Ethiopian Muslims (NEME) that
stand out in defining the transnational politics of the Ethiopian Muslim diaspora.1 This
article draws special attention to the diaspora delegation that these organizations sent to
Ethiopia in April 2007, not least the document that it produced on prominent Muslim
rights that have to be fully implemented.
The discussion that follows is divided into five sections. Section one provides a
historical excursion into Ethiopia’s first encounter with Islam, followed by its gradual
expansion into the peripheries of the Christian kingdom and its ultimate subjugation by
the Christian political elite. Section two discusses the new fields of possibility for Islam
in Ethiopia under the most recent political regimes. Section three analyses the enduring
constraints for Islam in Ethiopia while section four identifies and analyses how Muslims
are building confidence and forging agency to surmount the challenges they face. The
last section provides an overview of the contours of Muslims identity politics in
contemporary Ethiopia.
Islam in Ethiopia: Historical Notes

Despite the strong identification of Ethiopia with (Orthodox) Christianity, Islam in
Ethiopia is as old as Islam itself. The history of Islam in Ethiopia dates back to 615 A.D
when the companions of the Prophet Mohamed (the sahaba) came to Axum fleeing
1
For more on both groups, see Dereje Feyissa, “The Transnational Politics of the Ethiopian Muslim
Diaspora,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 34:5 (2011): 788–817.
282 © 2014 Hartford Seminary.
Muslims Renegotiating Marginality in Contemporary Ethiopia
religious persecution by the Quraysh ruling elite in Mecca.2 Amidst this persecution the
Prophet advised the sahaba to migrate to Axum where they would be protected by a
righteous king, widely known in the Arab world as Najashi. Central to Najashi’s
reputation is his refusal to take bribe in return for handing over the sahaba to the
Qurayish. Appreciative of Najashi’s favor, the Prophet is believed to have made the
following politically important historic statement in a Hadith regarding Ethiopia: utruku
al-habasha ma tarakukum (“Leave the Abyssinians/Ethiopians alone, so long as they
leave you alone”). According to Islamic traditions this is the reason why the early
conquest was not extended to Ethiopia at a time when all countries in the Red Sea sub
region succumbed to the new Islamic political and military power. It is also widely
believed in the Islamic world and among the Ethiopian Muslims that Najashi not only
protected the sahaba but also ultimately embraced Islam.3
Spared conquest, either through design or by default, Islam was nevertheless
introduced to Ethiopia early on through the international trade routes that linked
Ethiopia with the Arabian world as well as through the works of indigenous Muslim
scholars.4 By the 9th century AD the Shewan Sultanate (the Makhzumite dynasty)
emerged at the periphery of the Axumite Christian kingdom in central Ethiopia and
stayed in power until the 13th century. The expansion of Islam coincided with the decline
of the Axumite kingdom. By the time the Christian kingdom was reconstituted in the
form of the so-called Solomonic dynasty in the central highlands in the second half of the
13th century, Islam had already become well entrenched in the central and south-eastern
part of the country, taking advantage of the flourishing international trade that linked the
Ethiopian hinterland with the Gulf of Aden. Towards the end of the 13th century, a more
organized and militant Sultanate of Ifat replaced the Sultanate of Shewa. Subsequently,
the 14th and 15th centuries were times of intense political and economic competition
between the Solomonic Christian kingdom and the Sultanate of Ifat and other Islamic
principalities.5
In these protracted hegemonic struggles the Christian kingdom gained the upper
hand except for a brief interlude in the 16th century when the balance of power swayed
towards Islam with the emergence of the Sultanate of Adal under its capable leader
Ahmed Ibn Ibrahim Al Ghazi, popularly known as Ahmed Gragn. So successful were his
campaigns against the Christian kingdom that for a period of fourteen years (1529–1543),
most of present-day central and northern highlands came under “the aborted Ethiopian
2
J. Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia (London: Frank Cass, 1952); H. Erlich, Ethiopia and Middle East.
(Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1994).
3
See H. Erlich, Ethiopia and the Middle East; but also H. Erlich, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia: Islam,
Christianity and Politics Entwined (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2007).
4
See Hussein Ahmed, Islam in Nineteenth Century Wollo, Ethiopia: Revival, Reform and Reaction
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2001).
5
For full details, see T. Tadesse, Church and State in Ethiopia, 1270–1527 (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1972).
© 2014 Hartford Seminary. 283
Islamic government”.6 Reacting to long term Christian political domination and assuming
a greater religious profile than his predecessors, Ahmed Gragn destroyed many centers
of Christian civilization and embarked on forceful conversion of Christians into Islam.7
The involvement of Turks on the side of the Muslims, and the Portuguese on the side
of the Christians, escalated the hegemonic struggle. If the military support Ahmed Gragn
got from the Turks was important in altering the power relations, equally crucial, even
decisive, was Portuguese support in restoring the hegemony of the Christian kingdom.
In 1543 the combined forces of the Christian kingdom and the Portuguese defeated the
forces of Ahmed Gragn and with that Islam decidedly lost its political clout in the affairs
of Ethiopia as a whole.
In fact, ever since the mid-16th century, Islam has been viewed as a “national security
threat” by the country’s political leadership and the dominant Christian population. In
the predominantly Christian northern highlands, Muslims were banned by law from
owning land or participating in national politics. By default, Muslims have come to
dominate the economy particularly the international trade since trade, as mentioned
above, was not a dignified vocation for Christians. Ethiopian Muslim traders also enjoyed
religious solidarity with their Arabian Muslim counterparts. The Christian kingdom
dominating most of the central and northern highlands while Islam progressively made
headways in the peripheries of the Christian kingdom particularly in the southern part of
present-day Ethiopia. Many communities are said to have adopted Islam as a resistance
ideology against the expansion of the Christian kingdom.8
By the 19th century once again various prosperous Islamic kingdoms or states with
Islamic orientations emerged outside of the Christian kingdom. Major cases in point are
the revitalized city state of Harar of the east, the five Oromo Gibe states in the southwest,
and the Sultanates of Guraghe in the south.9 The northern Muslims (Were Sheikh of the
Yeju and Mamadoch of Wello) even managed to dominate the Christian polity, though
their ascendancy came at the cost of political and cultural assimilation. Another section
of northern Muslims (Were Himano of southern Wello) also put up a strong resistance
against the revived Christian kingdom.10
The second half of the 19th century marked a renewed struggle for hegemony
between the Christian kingdom and these Islamic states. The revival of the Christian
6
A. Genene, Casting Gragn: The Aborted Islamic Government of Ethiopia (1529–43) (Addis Ababa:
Mega Publishers, 2008), 44.
7
J. Abbink, “An Historical-Anthropological Approach to Islam in Ethiopia: Issues of Identity and
Politics,” Journal of African Cultural Studies 11 (2), 1998: 114.
8
Abbas Haji, “Aksum in Muslim Historical Traditions.” Journal of Ethiopian Studies. XXIX/2 (1996):
47–66; Abbas Haji. “Islam, the Orthodox Church and Oromo Nationalism’.” Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines,
42/165 (2002), 99–120; H. Mohammad, The Oromo of Ethiopia: A History 1570–1860 (Trenton: Red Sea
Press, 1994).
9
Z. Bahru, History of Modern Ethiopia (London: James Currey, 2002), 128.
10
Hussein Ahmed, “Co-existence and/or Confrontation: Towards a Reappraisal of Christian-Muslim
Encounter in Contemporary Ethiopia”. Journal of Religion in Africa 36/1, (2006): 4–22.
kingdom was initiated by Emperor Tewodros (1855–1869) and Emperor Yohannes

(1872–1889). Both vigorously sought to curb the rise of Islamic power in the region.
Their collective goal was “to formally proscribe the practice of Islamic religion,
endeavoring to enforce mass conversion to Christianity to enhance national unity”.11
The revival of the Christian kingdom was completed with the emergence of the
kingdom of Shewa, an offshoot of the Solomonic dynasty in central Ethiopia. Its astute
leader, king Menelik II (1889–1913), managed to create and expand his own political
space by exploiting colonial rivalries and the internal divisions among other competing
political centers. With a differential access to the fire power of the colonial powers, king
Menelik II subjugated the various polities outside the Christian kingdom including the
newly established Islamic states. By the end of the 19th century the kingdom of Shewa
was transformed into an Ethiopian empire with larger Muslim subjects than had been the
case during the Christian kingdom of the medieval period. This historical trajectory has
given the impression for the dominant Christian population and their rulers as well as
some western observers that there was unbroken continuity of Christian rule over the
whole of present-day Ethiopia. As Markakis noted, “the official myth presented Ethiopia
as a purely Christian state. In a speech before the United States Congress, Haile Selassie
described his country as an island of Christianity in a sea of Islam. This myth was widely
accepted abroad, and was propagated by the first generation of foreign scholars who
studied this country.”12
In other words, a slogan implying dichotomous parties and a defensive identity of
the prevalent majority substituted for serious historical analysis of Ethiopia’s complex
religious past. If this image had largely defined Ethiopia’s foreign relations with its
Muslim neighbors, it has also justified the sociopolitical marginality of its Muslim
population. This recent development has certainly had a bearing on the sense of
alienation that Ethiopian Muslims experience: not compatriots but secondary citizens,
they see themselves belonging to an Ethiopian national identity whose parameters were
largely defined by its Christian heritage.
New Possibilities for Islam in Post-imperial Ethiopia

The socio-political reforms brought by the 1974 revolution and the end of the
Christian monarchy partly redressed the marginalization of Ethiopian Muslims. In the
new process of state reformation Church and State parted company and Ethiopia has
been a secular state ever since. For the first time in the history of the country religious
11
Abbink, “Hist-Anthro Approach,” 115.
12
As Makaris quotation makes clear, this myth underpins Ethiopia’s three thousand years historio-
graphical paradigm as a Biblical/Christian nation, which dates back to the 10th B.C, the time from the
visit of the Queen of Sheba to king Solomon and continuing till the constitution of the Ethiopian
monarchy by their son king Menelik. It is also equally clear that it is a constructed myth. See J. Markakis,
“Ethnic conflict in pre-federal Ethiopia”. Paper presented at 1st National Conference on Federalism,
Conflict and Peacebuilding, May 5–7, 2003, Addis Ababa, p. 3.
freedom was proclaimed and Islam has gained parity with Christianity in political
dispensation. According to Hussein “although the resurgence of Islam in Ethiopia in the
1970s was part of the worldwide revival of Islam, one of the most decisive internal factors
that contributed to the former was the outbreak of the popular revolution that toppled
the Ethiopian monarchy in 1974 and created favorable conditions for disadvantaged and
oppressed communities such as Ethiopian Muslims to demand a radical change in the
state’s policy towards them.”13
At the height of the revolutionary fervor Muslims waged a mammoth demonstration
on 20 April 1974 to bring to the attention of the incoming Derg regime the right issues
of the Muslim community. The demonstrators called for the separation of religion from
politics; publicly denounced the notion that Ethiopia was an island of Christianity
surrounded and besieged by Islam, and instead declared that Ethiopia was also the home
of the adherents of other faiths, including Islam. As an act of an important historical
concession the Derg declared religious equality and the three Islamic festivals were
observed as public holidays for the first time in the history of the country. Subsequently,
in 1976 the Ethiopian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (popularly known as Mejlis)
was established, though “throughout the period of military rule, it only functioned as a
de facto, not de jure, organization.”14
The religious reform of the Derg did not go so far as to redefine the parameters of
Ethiopia’s national identity. True to its socialist orientation, the Derg by and large
considered religion as “the opium of the masses”. It was also fervently nationalist and
that entailed, among other things, the recycling of old national (Christian) symbols.
Ethiopian historiography was left untouched with its “unbroken” three thousand year
historical paradigm (to wit, the Solomonic narrative). Ethiopian historiography, in effect,
remained populated by Christian heroes whereas the Islamic heritage of the country was
largely silenced.
The Derg and the process of state reformation that it has set in motion, however, did
have inadvertently positive effects on Ethiopian Muslims. By equalizing all religions, the
EOC, Protestants, and Muslims all began from the same starting block at the same time in
the post-Derg period, though Muslims have continued to be slowed by historical
baggage.
The regime change in 1991 brought yet another opportunity to redress the issue of
religious inequality in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front
(EPRDF) came to power as a champion of minority rights. As part of its project of
deconstructing “imperial” Ethiopia, EPRDF has made connections with various
marginalized groups, including Muslims. Several articles of the new 1995 constitution
13
Ahmed. “Co-existence”; for further background, also see Abbink “Hist-Anthro Approach,” and T.
Ostebo, “The Question of Becoming: Islamic Reform Movement in Contemporary Ethiopia,” Journal of
Religion in Africa 38 (2008): 416–446.
14
Ahmed, “Co-existence,” 18.
ushered in a mood of hope. Article 11 ensures separation of State and Religion; that State
and religion are separate (Art.11.1); there shall be no state religion (Art.11.2), and the
State shall not interfere in religious matters and religion shall not interfere in state
affairs (Art.11.3). Furthermore, Article 27 goes even further, addressing freedom of
religion, belief and opinion. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience
and religion (Art. 27.1); at the same time that believers may establish institutions of
religious education and administration in order to propagate and organize their religion
(Art. 27.2). Art. 29 further grants freedom to seek, receive and impart information
and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form
of art or through any media of one’s choice. Freedom of association (Art. 31) also meant
that Islam in Ethiopia, for the first time, could project a legal organizational expression,
while a further provision for travel, guaranteeing freedom of movement within and
outside the country (Art. 32), has enabled Ethiopian Muslims to better connect with the
Islamic World through Hajj and Umra as well as other forms of travel to Muslim countries.
Related to these constitutional provisions, the abolition of censorship has made
possible the flourishing of Islamic literature with a massive translation of works by major
global Muslim scholars. Religious equality has been expressed in the construction of
many mosques, though this has provoked in some areas strong Christian reaction.
Religious freedom has also brought confidence in practicing the Islamic dress code and
following an Islamic life style, while liberalization of the press has also meant the
emergence of vibrant Islamic publishing houses.15 These are indeed parts of the process
of state reformation in Ethiopia that have fundamentally changed the socio-political
landscape of the country, and given fresh hope to a broad spectrum of religious groups
including Muslims.
Responding to the Muslim rights movement that centers on inclusive citizenship,
EPRDF has also made some historical concessions through a greater recognition of
the Islamic heritage of the country.16 As Hussein noted, “it is a tribute to the
open-mindedness of the present government [EPRDF] . . . (that it) has in the end fulfilled
one of the cherished aspirations of Ethiopian Muslims by providing sizeable plots of land
and granting permission for the construction of mosques in many parts of the capital.
Minarets and glittering domes of newly constructed mosques have further enhanced the
visibility and prominence of Islam in the public sphere.”17 Among the fundamental rights
denied Muslims for centuries is the right to organize and establish institutions. On that
basis, the Mejlis was reorganized and a new leadership was elected. Besides, other types
15
Hussein Ahmed, “Islam and Islamic Discourses in Ethiopia (1973–93)”, in New Trends in Ethiopian
Studies. Papers of the 12th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, Harold Marcus and Grover
Hudson, eds. (Lawrenceville, N.J.: Red Sea Press, 1994), 775–801.
16
The Ministry of Culture, for instance, has proposed the Najashi Mosque to the UNESCO as a world
cultural heritage. The Ministry has also designed a project to turn Negash village into an Islamic centre
of learning with an Islamic University.
17
Ahmed, “Islam and Islamic Discourses;” Ahmed, “Co-existence.”
of Islamic associations proliferated which were not only active locally but had links with
transnational Islamic networks and communicate with the wider Islamic world.18
As such, in post 1991 Ethiopia, “Islam witnessed not only institutional rehabilitation
and religious and cultural revival, but also visibility and prominence in the public
sphere.”19
One of the fields of possibility for Islam post 1991 is the new political space created
by ethnic federalism. Among the nine regional states that constitute the Federal
Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, three (Afar, Somali and Harari) are “owned” by
Muslims; the largest part of Oromia — the most populous region of the federation — is
inhabited by Muslims; Muslims (Berta) are also the majority in the Benishangul-Gumuz
regional state, though this has not yet translated into a dominant political status there. In
the Amhara regional state, Oromia Administrative Zone (Kemisse) and Argoba special
Wereda are exclusively populated by Muslims. In the Southern Nations, Nationalities and
Peoples Regional State (SNNPR) the Silte Zone and the Alaba special Wereda are
exclusively Muslim while the Guraghe Zone is predominantly Muslim. This political
space has come about by default, not on design, however, since the Ethiopian
constitution forbids the political expression of religious identity. Thus, the Islamic nature
of these regional and local governments is de facto, not de jure. Government intentions
and constitutional theory aside, political practice shows that in these polities Muslims
have effectively exercised political power that enhances the socio-political standing of
Islam. Public expression of Islamic faith and construction of mosques (physical space),
for instance, are not contentious issues there in contrast with religiously mixed areas and
in the national capital, where both are fiercely contested. The “legality” of polygamy in
the new family law and promoting the Sharia courts’ legal mandate over criminal law in
these regions are also instances of how Islam’s informal political power can be, and has
been, translated into influence over government policy.20
Another new structural opportunity is enhanced access to education for Ethiopian
Muslims. Access to education was very limited for Muslims during the imperial period.
This was for two reasons. On the one hand, education was initially very much associated
with the Orthodox Church or run by western missionaries. Many Muslim families felt
uncomfortable sending their children to schools for fear of Christian influence or the
negative impact of “modernity” imparted through schools not aware of, or hostile to,
18
Some of these associations were the Ethiopian Muslim Youth Association (EMYA), the Islamic Da’wa
& Knowledge Association and the Ulama Association.
19
20
The 1995 Constitution (Art.34.5) relegates to religious and customary laws only personal and
family laws the particulars of which shall be determined by law: “This Constitution shall not
preclude the adjudication of disputes relating to personal and family laws in accordance with
religious or customary laws, with the consent of the parties to the dispute”. The Oromia regional
state, particularly Arsi and Harar Zones have gone furthest in creating greater legal space for Islamic
law and sharia courts.
Islamic values and practices. Those who showed interest in modern education often had
to pass as Christians by changing and modifying their names to hide their Islamic
identity. Although Muslim areas still lag behind Christian majority areas in terms of access
to social services, access to education for Muslims in the last three decades has
significantly improved. Muslims now constitute around 14 per cent of the total student
population.21 Better access to education is currently translated into the capacity to make
use of new information technologies — audio-visual media and digital devices — that
makes it possible to network with the Ethiopian Muslims in the diaspora as well as with
the wider Islamic world. Global Islamic media have become very popular among
Ethiopian Muslims — from the Qatari-based Al-Jazira to the Iranian based Press TV to the
Indian based Peace Satellite TV, all of which are readily available thanks to the affordable
Arab Sat. The new generation of educated Muslims is keen on enhancing Islam’s
standing in Ethiopia’s religious marketplace. Responding to the globally situated
Protestants’ “contextual evangelization” that targets Muslim areas, Muslim scholars and
activists have produced CDs, DVDs and other forms of audio materials in the ongoing
competition for “divine truth”. Towards that end they have tapped into the works of
global Muslim scholars and missionaries, such as the Indian-based Dr Zakir Naik (via
Peace TV) and Ahmed Deedat whose works are massively translated into Amharic.22 This
globalization of the positionality of Ethiopia’s religious groups is significant because
Islam in Ethiopia has yet to produce a strong national literary tradition.
Enduring Constraints
In the previous section we have discussed the new fields of possibilities for Islam in
Ethiopia. In this section we turn to the existing challenges for the attainment of Muslim
rights despite the changes in the political structure, social changes and the emergence of
a confident Islamic community. The continuities include two major elements: 1)
continued securitization of Islam by the dominant Christian community and the
Ethiopian government; and 2) caveats put on organizational and public expression of the
Islamic faith.
Continued Securitization of Islam in Ethiopia

Having enjoyed the status of a state religion from the 4th century until the 1974
revolution and still constituting a demographic majority with a stronger political clout,
21
Ahmed Jebel, “Ethiopian Muslims: A Community that thinks it is awake while it is in a deep sleep,”
2010. unpublished paper.
22
A medical doctor by professional training, Dr. Zakir Naik is renowned as a dynamic international
orator on Islam and Comparative Religion. Dr. Zakir Naik clarifies Islamic viewpoints and clears
misconceptions about Islam, using the Qur’an, authentic Hadith and other religious Scriptures as a
basis, in conjunction with reason, logic and scientific facts. Zakir is considered to be one of the “Top
10 Spiritual Gurus of India”. He is also fiercefully polemical in his exchanges with Christian
counterparts.
the Orthodox Church has viewed Islamic revivalism with dismay bordering on alarm. It
particularly feels threatened by the new historical and physical space Muslims have
gained in post 1991 Ethiopia, invoking what Hagai Erlich calls the “Gragn syndrome” i.e.,
the presupposition that Islamic revivalism and its political power in medieval Ethiopia
that shook the Christian kingdom to its foundation was a result of the intervention of
Muslim countries (Ottoman Turks) in support of the Ethiopian Muslims. The strategic
co-option of Muslims by the Italians during their occupation of Ethiopia (1936–40) and
some Muslims willing cooperation with the Italians to renegotiate their historic
marginality are also often referred to in order to produce “evidence” that Ethiopian
Muslims are not “reliable citizens”. One form of Christian resistance is discursive;
labeling all aspects of Islamic revival in Ethiopia as if it were a manifestation of so-called
global Islamic fundamentalism whose “command center” is supposed to be in Saudi
Arabia. Externalization of Islamic revivalism in Ethiopia has been forcefully argued by an
Orthodox Christian diaspora in the following manner:
Lately, there has been a new development in the country [contrary to the country’s
commendable history of religious tolerance], which, unless timely measures are
taken to check it, could ultimately be a destabilizing factor in the region. This
destabilizing factor, which, next to oil, has become the major export item of Saudi
Arabia — is called Wahhabism [. . .] Hundreds of mosques have been built in
Ethiopia in the last seven years with Saudi finance with all the paraphernalia of
madrassas — supposedly Muslim religious seminaries where students sit
cross-legged on the floor to memorize the Koran. But in actual fact, madrassas are
brain washing sessions and jihad factories nurturing potential bin Ladens, where
students are taught not to live under “infidels”, and to hate Christians and Jews as
a matter of religious duty.23
It is unclear how many resources from global Islamic establishments have actually been
flowing into Ethiopia, and to reduce the complex process of Islamic revivalism to a Saudi
“master plan” would be denying the agency of Ethiopian Muslims, and their own desire
as well as capacity to be mobilized as a community. Although Saudi investments did
finance the construction of some Ethiopian mosques especially in the early 1990s, many
more mosques were also built by contributions from rich Ethiopian Muslims, particularly
members of the business community. Statements of concerns such as those listed in the
above quotation are readily uttered by many Orthodox Christians both at home and in
the diaspora; they evidence the anxiety that surrounds the process of repositioning
Orthodox Christianity which has confronted the Church within Ethiopia’s changing
socio-political landscape.
Ethiopian governments across political regimes have also tended to link Islamic
revivalism in Ethiopia with external players, as if Muslims were a perennial source of
23
Alem Zelalem, “Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabism and the threat to Ethiopia’s national security:”
www.Ethiomedia.com September 2003, accessed on September 29, 2003.
national security threats. The securitization of Islam in Ethiopia was at its height during
the imperial period when foreign policy making was heavily informed by religious
considerations. The ideology of Ethiopia as an Island of Christianity had produced a
siege mentality; a country surrounded by belligerent Muslim Arab countries, which were
bent on destabilizing the Ethiopian polity for which Ethiopian Muslims would serve as
“fifth columnists”. This siege mentality had continued during the Derg period, though its
secularist turn reduced the degree of securitization. There are indications, though, that
the Derg tended to view Islam and Ethiopian Muslims as a “national security threat”
especially in times of conflict with neighboring countries such as the Sudan and Somalia
which are predominantly Muslims. As Braukemper noted, the “so-called Gragn syn-
drome was recalled at occasions when Christian Ethiopia felt threatened by the Muslims
of the Horn of Africa . . . It was used, for instance, during the Ethiopian–Somali war of
1978 to unify and mobilize the Christian highlanders against the invasion of enemies
from the east.”24
As one of the principal authors of the process of state reformation in Ethiopia, EPRDF
itself is at once ambiguous and ambivalent about how to manage the transition.
Ethiopia’s transition to secularism and democratization is complicated by geopolitical
considerations; the securitization of Islam in Ethiopia seems to have started since the
mid-1990s. The growth of the Islamic Jihad in Eritrea; the military confrontations
between Al-Ittihad — a Somali based Islamic group actively operated in the Ogaden
region — and the Ethiopian government, and the hostility between EPRDF and the
National Islamic Front of Sudan in the mid-1990s — all seem to have brought about a
change in EPRDF’s attitude towards Muslims.25 The perfect causus belli was found in the
Sudanese backed failed attempt to assassinate the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarek,
in Addis Ababa in 1995. Deeming it to be an act of terrorism and a violation of its
sovereignty, the government subsequently cracked down on Islamic associations and
NGOs with links with the wider Islamic world.
The main geo-political factor that has shaped EPRDF’s policy towards Islam in
Ethiopia, however, has been the “global war on terrorism”. Although the discourse on
Islamic terrorism in Ethiopia already started in the mid-1990s, it is largely a post 9/11
phenomenon. Enthusiastically joining Bush’s “coalition of the willing”, the Ethiopian
government sought to reposition itself and regain its strategic importance to the US
led post-cold war global order26. For their part, western powers have signified the
strategic importance of Ethiopia in what appears to be a new search for the Prester
24
U. Braukämper. Islamic History and Culture in Southern Ethiopia: Collected Essays (Münster,
Hamburg & London: Lit Verlag. 2002), 4.
25
A. de Waal, ed. Islamism and its Enemies in the Horn of Africa (London: Hurst & Company, 2004).
26
In post 9/11 the US has established counterterrorism programs in east Africa. The Djibouti based
Combined Joint Task Force — Horn of Africa (CJTF-HoA) is part of US Africa command. It consists of
1,100 US military and civilian personnel. Ethiopia is one of the key actors in this new US security
architecture in the region (Radical Islam in East Africa, Rand Project, 2009).
John of the Crusades.27 Adapting and reacting to this global discourse, the Ethiopian
government has managed to extract tremendous resources and much needed political
legitimacy from the west, despite its poor record on human rights and political
repression.28 Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia in 2007 on the basis of “immanent and
real danger” from the Somali Islamists (the Union of Islamic Courts) also must be
situated within this larger geo-political context. Externalizing Islamic revivalism in
Ethiopia and labeling it “fundamentalism” has created a rift between EPRDF and
Ethiopian Muslims, one of its strategic allies. As Hussein noted, “in the Ethiopian
situation, fundamentalism is a misleading concept which distorts, and thus hardly
applies to, the process of changes in the self-perception of, and assertion of rights by,
Ethiopian Muslims. Revivalism is a more proper term to describe the process of
transformation of the status and image of Islam in Ethiopia.”29 In a similar vein,
Ostebo has convincingly shown in his in-depth analysis of the dynamics of religious
identification in contemporary Ethiopia that although Islam does not have a political
agenda in Ethiopia, the perception that it has informed government policy and needs
to be corrected: “An increased number of mosques and higher representation of
Muslims in public life can hardly qualify as evidence for a politicization of Islam in
Ethiopia. It has not been uncommon, however, to equate Muslim demands of better
representation with a politicization of Islam.”30
Much in line with their western counterparts, various Ethiopian governments have
pursued a de-radicalization strategy that highlights intervention in the internal debate
within the Muslim community. The effort is to promote a de facto endorsement of the
so-called moderate Sufi position vis-a-vis the reform movements. In fact, Emperor Hailie
Selassie appeared a patron of Sufi shrines, evident, for instance, in his visits to prominent
Sufi shrines in Harar and Bale regions. Similarly, the EPRDF government on the whole
tends to favor what it calls hagerbeqel islimina (home-grown Islam) or nebaruislimina
(indigenous Islam), euphemisms that refer to the “tolerant” Sufi as opposed to the
“foreign” and “militant” Wahhabism (Salafiyya). In a meeting with the youth in Addis
Ababa in February 2009 the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi referred to this distinction
and noted the need to protect the hagerbeqel islimina, a distinction which the premier
underlined more emphatically in his April 2012 parliamentary speech clearly securitizing
the fundamentalist thrust within Salafiyya by making a link with Al-Qaeda: “Although not
all Salafis are Al-Qaeda, all al-Qaeda are Salafis”.
27
Prester John is the name given to a mythical medieval Christian priest-king of a vast empire in Central
Asia, and later in Ethiopia. Medieval Europe hoped that Prester John might become an ally of the
European princes fighting to stop the Muslim advance in Mediterranean areas during the crusades. In
fact, the Portuguese support of the Christian kingdom against the army of Ahmed Gragn was a
reflection of the Europeans search for the Prester John.
28
Human Rights Watch reports on Ethiopia. (2007; 2008; 2010).
29
Ahmed, “Islam in Ethiopia,” 106
30
Ostebo, “The Question of Becoming,” 416–446.
Since 2008, EPRDF has sought to co-opt the “moderate” and Sufi-oriented organi-
zations such as the Al-Ahbash; a transnational Islamic organization based in Lebanon
and founded by an Ethiopian Sheikh from Harar; Sheikh Abdella al-Harari. In fact, in
March 2008 Prime Minister Meles Zenawi “agreed to officially invite Sheikh Abdallah
al-Harari to return to Ethiopia”,31 a plan which did not materialize because Sheikh
Abdalla died in the same year. Instead, the Ethiopian government has invited fifteen
Lebanese Ahbash ulema to provide training in July 2011 to promote what it regards as
the “authentic” Islamic teachings of Sheikh Abdalla for nearly a thousand officials and
ulema from the federal, regional and local offices of the Mejlis. On the other hand, the
Ethiopian government has alleged that “Wahhabiya” is moving towards forming an
Islamic government and labeled it as an “extremist” organization with a military wing
operating inside Ethiopia.32 This has triggered a heated debate among Ethiopian
Muslims on the nature of Ethiopia’s secularism. It has threatened Article 27 of the
Constitution, which guarantees the separation of state and religious institutions. If the
Al-Ahbash phenomenon has helped to cement Muslims solidarity, it has also
re-opened the sectarian divide along the Sufi-Salafi line that was gradually but steadily
healing. Government intervention in the internal debate among Muslims has
reopened old wounds, throwing many Sufi Sheikhs on the side of the government in
an effort to redress atrocities committed by Salafi militants at the height of their power
in the 1990s.
The Caveat Put on Organizational Expression of Islam in Ethiopia

The quest for an autonomous, legitimate and functional national Islamic organi-
zation shapes Muslim identity politics in Ethiopia and in the diaspora. Islam, despite
its antiquity, had found no institutional expression in Ethiopia throughout the imperial
period.33 The first organizational expression of Islam in Ethiopia dates back to the
mid-1970s. Linking up with the revolutionary fervor of the period, hundreds of
thousands of Ethiopian Muslims took to the street in Addis Ababa on April 20, 1974
claiming religious freedom and equality. The demonstrators also demanded the right
to establish a nationwide organization that would represent Ethiopian Muslims and
allow them to run their own affairs as well as to enable them to meaningfully
participate in the affairs of the country. Though the Mejlis was formally established in
1976, it could not be constituted as legally throughout the period of military rule.34
31
H, Erlich Islam and Christianity in the Horn of Africa: Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan. (Boulder & London:
Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2010), 178.
32
Statement by Dr Shiferaw Tekle Mariam, Minister of Federal Affairs during a discussion organized by
the Ministry of Federal Affairs on religion-related issues at the Federal Police Headquarters,September
13, 2011.
33
Markakis, “Peace-building,” 87
34
True to its goal of exercising total control over all aspects of Ethiopian society, the
Derg had sought to influence the leadership of the Mejlis to ensure its grip over the
Muslim population. In any case, the strong secularist thrust of the Derg would not
have allowed any meaningful organizational presence of Islam in Ethiopia during
their rule. The 1995 Constitution, on the other hand, generously provided for religious
freedom. Taking advantage of the constitutionally enshrined religious and
associational rights, the Mejlis was reorganized; it attained legal recognition, and
elected a new leadership. Other types of Islamic associations proliferated as well. The
mid-1990s, however, brought government repression of Islamic organizations and the
tighter control of the Mejlis. Following the 1995 “Mubarak incident” many Islamic
associations and NGOs were closed down except for the Mejlis. Within the Mejlis itself
a power struggle led to violent conflict between the police and the worshippers
within the grand Anwar Mosque in Addis Ababa on February 21, 1995. Nine people
were killed and 129 people wounded. Ever since, EPRDF has tightly controlled the
Mejlis leadership, under the pretext of avoiding similar incidents in the future. Yet for
the entire next decade the Mejlis came to be represented by a leadership lacking
popular legitimacy.
One of the leading issues, which the 2007 delegation of Ethiopian Muslims from the
diaspora raised to the Prime Minister, was the right to organizational autonomy. The
same right has been persistently noted in the various diaspora media outlets:
Among the fundamental rights Muslims denied off for centuries is the right to
organize and establish institutions. One of the 13 demands raised during the 1966
Muslims demonstration was this basic right. To this date this demand is awaiting
proper response. Worse, the sole institution that claims to represent Muslims and
operates in their name has so far proved to rather work against Muslims
themselves. It is now understood that the so called Islamic affairs councils from the
federal level down to Woreda are serving as extensions of the security service, with
the mission to suppress all forms of right claims by Muslims and to pre-empt any
such future aspirations35
There are many reasons that have been adduced in support of an autonomous national
Islamic organization. For one, Muslims seek to overcome ethnic divisions. Such divisions
have long undermined the construction of a pan-Ethiopian Islamic identity. A strong
national Islamic organization could, and hopefully would, succeed in overcoming
sectarian divisions within the Muslim community. Muslims’ relative sense of deprivation
also derives from the better organizational status of the Christian groups as well as
government complacency and desecuritization of their articulation with global Christian
establishments. All these practices and reflexes, for Orthodox Christians and against
35
Dilemma of Ethiopian Muslims amidst Mounting Right Abuses; Posted on April 20th, 2009 by OJ
Negash. (http://blog.ethiopianmuslims.net/negashi/?p=353).
Muslims, provide important factors in tipping the balance of power in inter-faith

competition at the religious marketplace.36
In 2009 popular pressure finally led to a change of the Islamic leadership. The new
leadership, however, has largely failed to generate legitimacy or to reconstitute the
mejlis as a representative and effective institution. The issue of legitimacy, as noted
above, was further complicated since 2011 when the government sought to promote
the “moderate” Ahbash through the Mejlis.37 A new Islamic leadership came to power
in 2012 at the wake of the sustained Muslim protest against what they consider
unconstitutional government interferences in religious matters. It remains to be seen
whether the new leadership would fare better than the previous leaderships in getting
popular legitimacy.
Limits to Public Expression of Islamic Faith in Ethiopia

Although Islam’s visibility in Ethiopia’s public sphere has significantly increased in
post-1991 Muslims are still claiming a greater physical space for the construction of
Mosques commensurate with their demographic size. As Hussein noted, “the construc-
tion of almost all the major mosques in Addis Ababa (and those elsewhere in the
country) was invariably preceded by opposition from the Christian residents and
churches of the areas in which the mosques were intended to be built, and by a
protracted legal battle with the government departments responsible for granting the
plots of land, issuing the necessary title deeds and the permission for construction”.38 In
fact, many of the recent religious conflicts in various parts of the country are in one way
or the other related to the competitive, conflicting claims over physical space among the
various religious groups. Ahmed Jebel describes the imbalance in physical space among
the religious groups as follows:
How many mosques do we have? Allah only knows! Many of our mosques are
pint-sized. These mosques are constructed with much hardship though some
[Christians] are accusing that the number of mosques has increased. If we consider
the number of churches, Protestants have 12,000 churches and 30,805 preaching
sites. The Orthodox Church has 500,000 priests, 40,000 churches and 2,000,000
religious students39
36
The 2007 delegation of the Ethiopian Muslims diaspora, for instance, mentioned in the document it
issued as talking points with the highest level of the country’s leadership, the use of public offices to
promote sectarian religious interest by taking the example of the leadership of the Benishangul-Gumuz
regional state. A born-again Christian, the president, Yaregal Ayisheshim, is said to have invited US
based evangelicals to “spread the Gospel” in the region.
37
For foreign scholars’ participation in the advocacy of Al-Ahbash, see Bruce Lawrence, “Islam in the
Public Sqaure: Minority Perspectives from Africa and Asia” (Youngstown, Ohio: Youngstown State
University Center for Islamic Studies, 2009): 29–33.
38
39
Jebel, “Ethiopian Muslims”.
A more contentious issue regarding the competition for physical space among reli-
gious groups is the Ethiopian Orthodox Church’s (EOC) monopolistic closure in
Axum and other northern towns. So far neither a Mosque nor a Protestant Church is
allowed to be built within 18 kms radius in all directions of the town. Attempts by
local Muslims to build mosques were violently blocked by the EOC with silent
compliance, if not open consent, from the leadership of the Tigray regional state.
Referring to the hegemonic position of the EOC in the northern part of the country,
the Muslim diaspora delegation has raised the issue of religious pluralism in Axum,
declaring that the EOC’s exclusive claim could provoke reactive exclusive claims in
areas where Muslims are the majority and cities such as Harar, which are historic
centers of Islamic civilization in Ethiopia. The EOC’s justification, to wit, that “Muslims
could build mosque in Axum only when Christians are allowed to build churches in
Mecca”, is challenged by Muslims: the multi-ethnic and multi-religious structure of
Ethiopia brooks no comparison with monolithic, rigidly Sunni Saudi Arabia. Religious
pluralism in Axum is also defended in reference to the history of Axum: it is also a
sacred place for Islam in general and Ethiopian Muslims in particular, “the city of
Najashi”.
One must also wonder out loud about the supposed neutrality of Ethiopia’s
secularism. The assertive nature of EPRDF’s secularism has become evident in the
Ministry of Education’s 2008 directive that seeks to regulate religious practices in
educational institutions. The objectives and the constitutional bases of the directive were
outlined as follows:
This directive is made in order to implement Article 90/2 of the Constitution that
stipulates that education shall be provided in a manner that is free from any
religious influence; political partisanship or cultural prejudices. Besides, one of the
main objectives of the educational training policy is to provide secular education
for all students regardless of their religious affiliation. The objective of this directive
is to ensure that educational institutions will be a place where the
teaching-learning process occurs peacefully, and that educational institutions’
main objective is to impartially provide the youth with knowledge. Regarding the
dress code, all students are obliged to wear school uniforms. Female Muslim
students could wear hijab that resembles the uniform of the schools they attend but
they are not allowed to wear niqab. Students are also not allowed to practice a
communal worship within educational premises. Unless approved by the admin-
istrations it is also not allowed to organize religious events in the schools and
universities. Boarding schools and universities do not set up separate dining rooms
on the basis of religion.40
The terms of the debate in the veiling controversy that followed the directive revolves
around defining the boundaries of Muslim norms, and security implications of wearing
40
Feyissa’s translation from Amharic.
the niqab in educational institutions. The government and the Mejlis leadership argue
that niqab is not compulsory in Islam except for the Hanbali madhhab to which the
Salafiyya subscribes. The government has also outlawed niqab in educational institu-
tions for two alleged purposes: to ensure public safety while also discouraging fraud
during exams.
Muslims from Subjects to Agents

Political Signification of Integrative Narratives
Narratives, especially sacred narratives, play a crucial role in identity formation.
They can also be invoked and used to legitimize a cause. It was the projection of EOC’s
self understanding in reference to sacred narratives (cf. the Solomonic narrative) onto
the Ethiopian state which had long defined the parameters of the Ethiopian national
identity. Various religious groups currently contest Orthodox Christians’ historical
“ownership” claim of the Ethiopian nation.41 As such, Muslims have been actively
engaged in contesting the parameters of Ethiopian national identity and in renegotiating
their “foreignness” as presented by Orthodox Christians and implicit in the thinking of
the various Ethiopian governments. Many Muslims at home and abroad have focused in
their writing on deconstructing the image of Ethiopia as a Christian island. They have
reasoned that such a representation is not only historically unfounded; it also seriously
undermines the process of state reconstruction and democratization of the Ethiopian
polity. In one of its commentaries, the Network of Ethiopian Muslims in Europe (NEME)
has contested the Orthodox Christians’ claim of indignity while asserting Islam’s long
presence in Ethiopia in the following manner:
It is to be noted that the Ethiopian state preceded all the Abrahamic religions. Well
before the introduction of Christianity to Ethiopia in the 4th AD the Axumite had
already built a sophisticated non-Christian civilization. Like Christianity, Islam was
also introduced to Ethiopia from the Middle East at the same time when it was
being established in Saudi Arabia. Any ownership claim of the Ethiopian state and
its history is thus not only ahistorical but also poses danger to the peace and
security of the country. Instead of engaging in the fruitless debate on first-comer/
late-comer we should combat all forms of religious extremism and build our
common nation.42
41
For the Protestant counter narratives that depicts Ethiopia as the Land of the Reformation, see Dereje
Feyissa,- Integration through conflict: the proliferation of sacred “Great traditions” by Ethiopia’s
religious communities. Paper presented at Honoring Professor Gunther Schlee, Max Planck Institute for
Social Anthropology, June 12, 2011.
42
“NEME Statement on the Current Religious Tension in Ethiopia.” Negashi-OJ, 2009. http://
blog.ethiopianmuslims.net/negashi/?p=336 2009 (Feyissa’s translation from Amharic) (accessed April
12, 2009)
Ahmadin Jabal, an activist and a leading Muslim intellectual in Ethiopia, has forcefully
made a similar argument in his recent book. Deconstructing the EOC’s nativist claim, he
highlights how the Orthodox Church, in its origin and expansion, is also indebted to
Arab missionaries:
The Arabs had played an important role not only for the expansion of Islam in
Ethiopia but also for Christianity as well. To cite just two evidences: the person who
converted the first Ethiopian king to Orthodox Christianity in the 4th century AD
was the Syrian Bishop Frumentius. Similarly, the nine saints who introduced
Christianity to the masses in the 5th century were also Syrians.43
Throughout the imperial period Muslims were not referred to as Ethiopian Muslims but
“Muslims in Ethiopia”, despite the fact that the foreign element in Ethiopian Islam is very
minimal.44 They have reasoned, rightly, that such representation is not only historically
unfounded but also seriously undermines the process of state reconstruction and
democratization of the Ethiopian polity. Their discursive practice — deconstructing the
official Ethiopian history in order to facilitate an inclusive national reconstruction — is
focused on the Najashi narrative, prestigiously referred to as the “First Hijra”. The coming
of the sahaba and the hospitality they received is well established by many scholars.45
Ethiopia stands forth as one of the first countries where Islam was introduced outside
Arabia. What is contested is whether the Axumite king embraced Islam or not.46 Various
Arabic sources have documented Najashi’s conversion to Islam, yet early scholars of
Ethiopian studies have ruled out the possibility of the king’s conversion on the basis of
“lack of evidence” as well as degree of plausibility and logical possibility.47 Muslim
scholars counter by referring to Arabic sources, which mentioned the existence of
clerical opposition to Najashi’s conversion.48 Recent scholars of Ethiopian studies with a
specialization on Islamic history suggest leaving the issue open-ended instead of taking
a definitive position49 Yet some Muslim scholars and activists at home and aborad go so
far as to characterize the scholarly “denial” as but one more effort to re-establish Christian
hegemony in Ethiopia.
43
Ahmed Jebel, “Ye Muslimoch Ychiqonana ye Tigil Tarik,” Nejashi publishers, 2011: 87. with Feyissa’s
translation from Amharic.
44
Except for a small trickling of Arab missionaries and traders, the vast majority of the Muslims are
indigenous people. In fact, with the exception of the western Nilotes in all ethnic groups there are
Muslims.
45
See several references in Erlich, Ethiopia and Middle East; Tadesse, Church and State in Ethiopia; and
Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia.
46
In the Ethiopian Orthodox Church tradition this king has long been recognized as king Armha.
47
The argument against Najashi’s conversion is the absence of a major social upheaval of the scale the
country had witnessed during king Susneyos’s reckless adoption of Catholicism as the state religion in
the 17th century.
48
For a comprehensive exposition of the debate over Najashi’s conversion, see Ibrahim Mulushewa,
“When our history is narrated”, Addis Neger Newspaper, April 12, 2009.
49
See Ahmed, “Co-existence.”
Despite the conflicting accounts surrounding Najashi’s conversion, the first

chapter of Islamic history was closely connected to Aksum, and “for Islam this was a
vital episode”.50 The special relationship between early Islam and Ethiopia is of two
kinds. The first is related to the stronger socio-economic ties between Axum and the
Arab world before but also during the rise of Islam. This tie had a political expression
in the form of Axum’s occupation and administration of southern Arabia (Yemen) in
the 6th A.D. It was also expressed in the form of the existence of many slaves of
Ethiopian origin in the Arab world. ‘Umm Ayman and Bilal bin Rabah, two very
important Ethiopian companions of the Prophet Mohammed, are cases in point. ‘Umm
Ayman was the Prophet’s nurse who looked after him from his birth, throughout his
boyhood and until his marriage.51 Bilal bin Rabah (the slave of a prominent Meccan
citizen) was the third convert to Islam after the Prophet’s wife and Abu Bakr. In fact,
Bilal became the first mu’adhdhin, the caller for prayer in Islam.52 The second event
that accrues a prestigious connection between Islam and Axum (Ethiopia) is related to
the coming of the sahaba (earlier discussed). Included among the sahaba who came
to Axum were persons very close to the Prophet such as Uthman bin ‘Affan (his son
in law and the first caliph); Ruqayya (his daughter), Umm Ayman (his nurse) and Jafar
(his cousin and the brother of the future Caliph Ali).53
The central act of historicl intimacy between early Islam and Ethiopia is, of course,
Najashi’s benevolence towards Islam and the belief in his ultimate conversion. Najashi’s
benevolence is said to have been reciprocated by the Prophet not only in the form of the
declaration: utruku al-habasha ma tarakukum (“leave the Ethiopians alone as long as
they leave you alone”) but also the Prophet issued Islam’s especial funeral prayer in
absentia (salat al-ghaib) to King Najashi upon his death. As Hussein noted, “Ethiopian
Muslim tradition has canonized the Aksumite king as a Muslim saint under the honorific
name, Ahmad al-Najashi, Ahmad being the name believed to have given to him by the
prophet who also offered a special prayer (on his behalf )”.54
Whether myth or reality, the issue of King Najashi’s conversion to Islam is a very
strong tradition among Muslims in general and Ethiopian Muslims in particular. The
existence of a Mosque at a place called Negash in Wiqiro, Tigray, named after King
Najashi, further underscores the salience of the Najashi narrative in local traditions.
50
Erlich, Ethiopia and Middle East, 5.
51
It was said that Mohammed loved “Umm Ayman like a mother and confessed to that in public”.
52
Associated with Bilal, the prophet is believed to have said — “who brings an Ethiopian man or an
Ethiopian woman into his house, brings the blessings of God there”. Cited in Erlich, Ethiopia and
Middle East 9; Ahmed “Co-existence,” 16.
53
Najashi is also believed to have betrothed ‘Umm Habib, former wife of ‘Ubaydalla, the sahaba who
was converted to Christianity to the prophet. This act was very important because ‘Umm Habib’s father,
Abu Sufian, was a Quraish leader.
54
Hussein Ahmed, “Current Trends in Islamic Literature in Ethiopia (1995–96),” paper presented at the
Fourth International Conference on the History of Ethiopian Art, Trieste (Italy), September 24–27
(1996), 59.
It is no wonder, therefore, that the Najashi narrative provides a fertile ground for Muslims
to construct an alternative “Great Tradition” for Ethiopia and a secure basis for their own
national identity. Contemporary Ethiopian Muslims invoke the Najashi narrative not to
use it as part of their struggle for “the political victory” of Islam in Ethiopia,55 but rather
to foreground it as an integrationist rhetoric — to repudiate the charge of their
foreignness.
As part of Ethiopia’s religious landscape, the Najashi narrative serves the purpose of
repositioning the Ethiopian Muslims vis a vis a national identity. Accordingly, Ethiopia is
not only a special country for Christians (as indicated in the Solomonic narrative) it is also
vital for Muslims in general and Ethiopian Muslims in particular. Construed this way,
Islam is indebted to Ethiopia for its very survival. The hospitality and the tolerance the
sahaba received in Ethiopia was arguably critical to the survival and expansion of Islam.
In this narrative, therefore, the idea of Ethiopia is positively redevised from one of the
least likely corners, ironically by one of its historic minorities. If that is the case, Ethiopian
Muslims can as easily identify with “Ethiopia the land of the First Hijra” as do EOC
members with “Ethiopia an island of Christianity”. The double facility of the Najashi
narrative, as a religious and nationalist marker, is succinctly depicted in the delegation’s
document:
Although we do not have a conclusive evidence to claim that Ethiopia is the first
country to grant asylum to the persecuted we understand that Najashi could have
well set precedence for the contemporary human right conventions that include
protection of the vulnerable and the persecuted. What makes Ethiopia unique in
the annals of Islamic history is that the Muslim refugees had lived peacefully with
other Ethiopians and this was the basis for the flourishing of Islam in the country
to the level it has reached now. King Asmha’s (Najashi’s) acceptance of Islam
makes Ethiopia not only a land of justice and enlightenment but also the first
country where Islam got recognition by a head of state56
Commenting on the new representation of Ethiopia propounded from the diaspora, one
of our Muslim interlocutors in Addis Ababa said: “it is for the first time that we Ethiopian
Muslims started reconciling being Muslim and being Ethiopian. For our forefathers
reconciling both sounded (like) a contradiction in terms.”. Tracing the history of Islam to
King Najashi thus helps Ethiopian Muslims to negotiate, and reduce, their “foreignness”;
it provides a new foundation myth in reconstructing a national identity.
Juridification of Protest
Also important in the identity struggles of Ethiopian Muslims is the emergence of
human rights as an international norm. It has led to a new form of protest, which is called
55
As has been suggested in the writings of Haggai Erlich Ethiopia and Middle East, Islam and
Christianity, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia.
56
See the diaspora delegation document, p. 9.
juridification (Eckert 2012). Accordingly, various actors have used the language of
human rights to reframe older claims and make new ones vis a vis the state or against
neighbors. Ethiopian Muslims have, therefore, found a new reference point to validate
claims or contain pressures from the government as well as the dominant Christian
population.
Previously Ethiopian Muslims had used other political strategies. Throughout the
imperial period Muslims had sought to protect their community interests and frame their
demands in a very humble way through traditional forms of lobbying government
officials or the Emperor in person. The situation got worse during the Derg period when,
despite some measures were taken in the area of religious reform, rights issues were
taboo topic. In post-1991 Ethiopian Muslims have gradually shifted from traditional
lobbying of the imperial period to a rights-based approach. Muslim rights have been
reframed in line with the country’s constitution and international human right conven-
tions and treaties that serve as the new referents. A more conscious section of the Muslim
community, particularly in the western diaspora, takes the human rights language as a
globally recognized legitimizing discourse. They emphatically embrace it in the follow-
ing terms:
Comparing previous governments with the current one and saying this is better
than the previous one does not do any good for the Muslims. What Muslims
deserve is not something better than what they had earlier but uncompromised
rights like any other citizens. The internal debate whether the current government
is better or worse is tantamount to shooting at one’s own feet. What is needed
rather is to stop the normative debate and be united to press for our
uncompromised rights.57
The rights language also underscores particular practical needs, such as the need and the
right to build mosques in Axum. The Network of Ethiopian Muslims in Europe, for
instance, framed this issue in the language of rights as follows:
The Muslims in Aksum are totally refused by the regional and federal government
their basic right to exercise their religion in their own country. These are Ethiopians
who are demanding for a respect of their constitutional right for years. The
response they have got so far from the government is “as it is a century-long
problem they shall wait with patience until the right time comes”. The paradox is
the government does nothing for emergence of the “right time”. The “right time”
cannot and will never arrive by itself unless through institutional citizen’s
involvement. Those residents of Aksum, who are against for equal right of their
Muslim countrymen, need to go through such institution and learn about the
history of Islam in Aksum and told Aksum is equally for the Muslims as for the
57
See Najashi, OJ, 2009.
Christians. They have to be taught respect and tolerance is the key for harmonic
co-existence that lead to democratic and prosperous Ethiopia.58
While contesting the secularist directive issued by the Ministry of Education in 2008,
Ethiopian Muslims have embraced the language of rights that it provides. Muslim
students have criticized the directive for conflating secularizing the curriculum (neces-
sary) with secularizing students (offensive and unnecessary). They have reasoned that
imposing a secular worldview is in contravention of the religious right enshrined in the
Constitution. In the petition they wrote to the office of the Prime Minister, they have
mentioned that the directive threatens to undermine the gains that Muslims have made
in the field of education. They have also reserved the right to define which religious
practice is central or optional is best left for the believers.59
Appropriating the Language of Development

In recent years, especially after the contested May 2005 election, EPRDF has changed
the core basis of its political legitimacy, shifting from ethnicity to development.
Subsequently it has styled itself as a champion of the developmental state and embarked
on a collision course with the neo-liberalism of western financial institutions and
donors.60 Alert to the tension with western countries and the financial institutions
attached to them, EPRDF has sought to diversify its financial dependence. This is
translated into the emergence of new players on the Ethiopian economic scene,
particularly China, India and Turkey. At the same time, EPRDF has sought to tap into
Islamic finance, though this has entailed a more pragmatic shift in its foreign policy. With
the Ethio-Saudi financial tycoon Sheikh Mohammed Alamudi serving as a catalyst,
EPRDF has forged strong economic ties with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries
through what has been dubbed as “land grabbing”, land leased for large scale
commercial agriculture aimed at ensuring food security in these countries. Hence
Ethiopia’s new political economy has created a novel structure of relevance for Muslims,
providing them with a new language to press for their rights and network with the wider
Islamic world: the language of development. The diaspora delegation, for instance,
proposed to the Prime Minister the economic rewards if Ethiopia joins the Organization
of Islamic Countries (OIC) in a following way:
Given the country’s larger Muslim population as well as the historical intimacy
between Ethiopia and Islam there is no reason why Ethiopia should not be a
58
http://blog.ethiopianmuslims.net/negashi, “Reflection on the 7th Badr International Ethiopian
Muslims Conference”, Posted on August 2nd, 2007.
59
They have defended hijab as an expression of female modesty and as an integral part of the Islamic
way of life. The code for modest behavior for believing women is given in the Holy Qur’an, Sura an-Nur
(24:31).
60
Dereje Feyissa, “Aid negotiation: the uneasy ‘partnership’ between EPRDF and the donors”, Journal
of Eastern African Studies November 5/4 (2011): 788–817.
member of the OIC. Islam was introduced to Ethiopia even before it was publicly
declared in Mecca and seven years before the beginning of the Islamic calendar
associated with the hijra to Medina. In that sense Ethiopia is the first country, which
embraced Islam. Membership to the OIC will enable Ethiopia not only to accrue
economic and political benefits, which it has forfeited in the past but also to reclaim
its glory in Islamic history.61
The economic benefit to which the delegation alluded if Ethiopia joins the OIC is access
to the Islamic Development Bank (IDB).62 The membership of the IDB comprises 56
countries and it is contingent on first being a member of the Organization of the Islamic
Countries63. Nearly 50% of the OIC are African countries; ranging from predominantly
Muslim countries such as Algeria or Nigeria, to countries with a less sizeable Muslim
population such as Uganda (12%) or Mozambique (15%).
Muslim scholars have also increasingly used the language of development to justify
the creation of an Islamic political space. In a paper he gave at the forum on Ethiopia —
Vision 2010, a paper entitled “Islam and Development in Ethiopia” (2007), Mohamed
Ahmed Sheriff argued for the creation of an eastern economic block that consists of
Eastern Oromiya, Harari, Afar and Somali all part of the historic Sultanates, with a shared
Islamic heritage which could be effectively used to connect Ethiopia with Middle Eastern
markets. Similarly, the need to establish an interest-free Islamic bank in Ethiopia is being
justified in terms of the economic benefits that this would accrue to the “developmental
state” by tapping into a huge amount of money currently operating outside of the
country’s banking system. Preparations are well under way to establish Zemzem, the first
Islamic bank in Ethiopia.
Ethiopia’s increasingly assertive posture in hydro politics and the simmering tension
with Egypt have also created a new sense of relevance to Ethiopian Muslims in their
identity politics. Egypt has for long depicted Ethiopia as an anti-Islamic country bent on
“starving” millions of Muslims by threatening to dam the waters of the Nile. Ethiopia
contributing more than 85 % of the waters of the Nile Egypt has securitized any
development interventions in the upstream country. In a recent documentary featured
on Aljazeera, Egypt’s religious discourse on Nile politics was made abundantly clear with
images showing Muslims in the Sudan and Egypt suffering from lack of water, as if there
are no Muslims in Ethiopia, who, like their Christian co-citizens, also suffer from water
61
Ethiopian Muslims Diaspora Delegation. 2007. Questions Raised by the Ethiopian Muslims diaspora
to the Prime Minster Meles Zenawi. Unpublished paper, Addis Ababa.
62
IDB is a South-South multilateral development institution, which operates in accordance with the
principles of Shari’ah (Islamic law) to foster economic development and social progress of its member
countries as well as Muslim communities in non-member countries. In its endeavors to address the
strategic challenges confronting the Muslim world, the IDB’s Vision is to become a world-class
development institution by the year 1440H [2020] inspired by Islamic principles’ ( Jumad Awwal .Islamic
Development Bank: Thirty — Five Years in the Service of Development, May 2009. http://adfimi.org/
dosyalar/seminerler/128/pdf/23.pdf).
63
See http://www.isdb.org/irj/portal/anonymous/idb_membercountries_en.
related problems. While participating enthusiastically in fund raising for the Ethiopian
Grand Hidase (Renaissance) Dam, Ethiopian Muslims apportion for themselves a new
sense of mission in deconstructing Egypt’s religious discourse while advancing the
legitimate right of Ethiopia to make use of Nile waters for their own developmental
purposes. The June 2010 issue of Be-ir, “the Pen”, one of the influential Muslim monthly
Amharic magazines, featured an article on the subject which severely criticized
Aljazeera’s reportage on the issue as if it were a religious row between “Christian”
Ethiopia and Muslim Egypt:
Al Jazira prepared a documentary on the Nile issue; highlighting water-hungry
Egyptian and Sudanese Muslims and contrasting this with the mega hydro electric
dams Ethiopia has recently built. The intended message of the documentary was
to give an impression to a global audience that Christian Ethiopia does not care for
the suffering of Muslims and Arab countries from the lack of water. Even if there is
no single Muslim in the country Ethiopia is entitled to its right to use its water
resources for development. Islam is about social justice. The reality on the ground
is also far from what was represented by Al Jazira. There are at least 25 million
Muslims in Ethiopia. Probably there are also more poor people in Ethiopia than in
the two countries. Making use of the Nile will go far in reducing poverty and
contributing to the development process. A developed Ethiopia means of course
improved living conditions for a multitude of Muslims.64
It remains to be seen how much EPRDF’s developmental model of the state leaves space
for non-state actors such as the private sector and community based organizations in the
development process. At the very least, the adoption of the rhetoric of development by
Muslims, both in instrumentalist and patriotic registers, enhances their appeal to the
government as a crucial, supportive community, at once religious and patriotic, not
foreign but native to the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.
Conclusion
During the past four decades the Ethiopian polity has gone through a rapid process
of socio-political changes. A heightened rights consciousness among the country’s
marginalized communities is part and parcel of this process of change. The recognition
politics of Ethiopian Muslims has been enabled by the 1974 revolution but also by the
country’s turn to multiculturalism. Especially crucial has been the adoption of ethnic
federalism as a new model of political order since 1991. Minority groups in Ethiopia are
not, however, merely enabled or constrained by changing political structures. They
have, in fact, actually seized new fields of possibility and employed creative strategies of
entitlement.
What has yet to be noted, much less analyzed, is the degree to which Muslims in
contemporary Ethiopia are now actively engaged in contesting their age-old
64
See Feyissa’s translation from Amharic to English. Bier/The Pen 1/8, ( June 2010):15.
socio-political marginalization. This paper for the first time has examined five new bases
of entitlement in the recognition politics of Ethiopian Muslims. Firstly, they have used a
narrative strategy, foregrounding the Najashi narrative that enhances religiously inclu-
sive citizenship while at the same time constructing a new “Great Tradition” for Ethiopia
as the land of the first hijra. Secondly, Ethiopian Muslims have gone beyond the
traditional forms of lobbying governments to reframing the issue of religious equality in
a globally recognized language, the language of human rights that refers not only to the
country’s Constitution but also to international human rights conventions and treaties.
This, in turn, has the effect of leading to juridification of protest while eschewing the
language of violence as advocated by some fringe groups. Thirdly, Muslims in
contemporary Ethiopia have begun to present their rights to the government in the
language of development. In so doing they seek to affirm, and engage with, EPRDF’s
new basis of political legitimacy, i.e. the developmental state. While deconstructing the
deeply rooted siege mentality in Ethiopian foreign policy-making regarding Arab
Muslims, Ethiopian Muslims have encouraged EPRDF to diversify its dependence on
Western financial institutions, They urge their political leaders to tap into alternative
financial resources from neighboring Arab states, while at the same time seeking further
integration into the wider Islamic world. Fourthly, Ethiopian Muslims are contesting
EPRDF’s assertive secularism that limits religion to the private domain. By bringing to
light the contested nature of secularism and its local variations, they advocate a
“Muslim-friendly” secularism, not denying the state or its instruments but relying on them
for religious expression as a citizen right. Last, but not least, there is an incipient form of
political mobilization among Ethiopian Muslims in the context of electoral politics. In this
trajectory, Muslims, along with other religious communities, are playing an increasingly
bigger role as voting blocs. Whatever the outcome of these initiatives, they bode well for
a redefinition of Ethiopian Muslims both within and beyond the arc of the EPRDF.

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Muslims Renegotiating Marginality in

however, Islam in Ethiopia had to deal with a politically entrenched (Orthodox)

Islam in Ethiopia: Historical Notes

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Continued Securitization of Islam in Ethiopia

The Caveat Put on Organizational Expression of Islam in Ethiopia

Muslims, provide important factors in tipping the balance of power in inter-faith

Limits to Public Expression of Islamic Faith in Ethiopia

Muslims from Subjects to Agents

Despite the conflicting accounts surrounding Najashi’s conversion, the first

Appropriating the Language of Development

© 2014 Hartford Seminary. 305

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