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History

Antiquity

[ notes & new ]

Trade Islam and Christianity in the Horn of Africa until the rise of the Solomonic Dynasty

The Horn of Africa was known for old for its luxury products such as gold, ivory, precious skins, incense and slaves. Some of the earliest trading expeditions, sent by the Pharaohs, are thought to have gone to the area of present-day Ethiopia and Somalia, and colonies of foreign merchants, Greek, Egyptian, Arab and possibly Indian are reported along the Ethiopian coast as early as the end of the first millenium BC The lucrative character of some of Ethiopia's products, and the secrecy surround transactions in such merchandise, were the cause of the myth concerning the size and value of this trade. In reality the less glamorous but voluminous exportation of Ethiopian foodstuffs to Arabia, carried by in consequential merchants, may have been more important than the trade in luxury products. [13] However slaves more than anything else contributed to the fame of Abyssinia's commerce and dominated it throughout history.

Young Habsha[14] males were always sought in the markets by the rulers of Arabia, the Persian Gulf and India, who trained them as soldiers for their armies. In addition to their warlike qualities, the Abyssinian slaves were reputed for their loyalty. Therefore, many were brought up and educated in the houses of their masters and later became their trusted servants, guards or commercial representatives. Known for their beauty and sensuality young Habsha females, suitable as concubines, were highly prized and considered superior to all other female slaves with the exception of white concubines imported from the Caucasus. Consequently, the demand for them in the slave markets of the Muslim world was nearly insatiable.

The sources of most of the Horn of Africa's luxury products as well as of the majority of the Abyssinian slaves were the southern and western parts of Ethiopia. Thus, caravan trade in Ethiopia, which transported the produce of the interior to the coast and northwards to Egypt, began to develop already in earliest times. The 'city states' of northern Ethiopia, including Axum, probably owed their rise, to a large extent, to their being important centres of trade or in control of a major route of the extensive caravan trade, which went through northern Ethiopia to Adulis on the coast[15] or to Dongola or Egypt. The rise of the coastal and the Harar-Chercher principles should also be attributed to their involvement in the caravan trade of the highlands. All this notwithstanding, the trade of the Horn of Africa was only a minor branch of the international trade going through the Red Sea, especially when the latter developed its full volume by the beginning of the second millenium A.D. Developments in the Red Sea and especially in Yemen were, however, closely related to the economic and political dynamics in Ethiopia.[16]

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Sources:

[13] Andrea Corsali, Letter to Duke Guiliano de Medici, in Ramusio, G.G., Delle Navigationi e viaggi, Venice, 1563, Vol. I, pp. 183, 186.

[14] A term used by Arabs for Abyssinian slaves.

[15] In a latter period the coast between Massawa and Sawakin.

[16] Heyd, Vol. I, pp. 444-6; Serjeant, p. 23: Adler, Jewish Travellers, p. 276; pp. 60-1, according to Benjamin Metudela - on Jewish Adenai merchants in Ethiopia at the end of the 12th century. On Aden's trade relations with Christian Ethiopia-- Abir, International Conference. On Jewish merchants from Aden trading in Zayla - Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia 1270-1527, Oxford, 1972, p. 66.

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I have to write about Postmodern Ethiopia...

Yes, it's possible to find yourself in post-history, without experiencing history of Modernity (Europe XVI-XX century)

...