The Intellectual history and scholars of the northern Horn of Africa ca. 900-1900 CE. (Patreon)

After centuries of Ottoman rule, political life in Egypt was briefly interrupted by an episode of French adventurism when Napoleon seized Cairo in 1798. Among the scholars appointed by Napoleon to make French rule more palatable was a historian named Abdul Rahman al-Jabarti. Hailing from the prestigious university of Ahzar, al-Jabarti turned out to be very critical of the French, and even composed a chronicle about French rule as one of his three voluminous works on Egypt's history.

While al-Jabarti's work is held in high regard by later Egyptian nationalists, it is often overlooked that the ancestral origin of the famous historian was not in Egypt but in the northern horn of Africa near the city of Zeila in Somalia. For centuries, scholars from this region created intellectual networks that extended across Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan and eventually reached Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula where they established diasporic communities and founded settlements such as the town of Luhayya in Yemen.

Like the Wangara of West Africa and the Swahili of East Africa, the Jabarti diaspora of North-east Africa greatly contributed to the emergence and development of a rich literary tradition in Arabic and Ajami across the region. Their scholarly production makes up the bulk of the manuscript collections found in the region's intellectual capitals and private libraries, from the city of Harar in Ethiopia to the collections of Mamluk-Egypt.

This article outlines the intellectual networks and scholars of the northern Horn of Africa from the 9th to the 19th century, focusing on the most notable scholars and their contributions to the literary traditions of North-Eastern Africa.

17th-century manuscript from Harar, Ethiopia

The old city of Zeila, ca. 1896

Background on the history of the northern Horn of Africa and the emergence of the region's Muslim states.

The northern Horn of Africa is home to some of the continent's oldest societies and intellectual traditions, the most famous of which is the Aksumite kingdom. Famous for creating one of the oldest scripts in Africa, the Aksumites are also credited with successfully repelling the early Arab invasions of this region in the mid-7th century. As a consequence of this defeat the religion of Islam and its associated Arabic script was only gradually adopted by societies on the Aksumite frontier on their own accord, for various social and political reasons.

From its emergence in the 7th century to the present day, Islam and writing in Arabic and Ajami have formed an integral part of the history of what are today Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somalia. The old notion of Aksum and Ethiopia as "an island of Christianity in the sea of Islam" has been abandoned, for recent scholarship has shown that the history of the interactions between Muslim societies and the Christian societies of Aksum and Ethiopia were inextricably interwoven.

(History of Islam in Africa pg 227)

Map showing the political landscape of the northern Horn during the 13th-16th century

The earliest Muslim societies in the northern horn were the sultanate of Shewa (896-1295) and the coastal city of Zayla. Zayla is first mentioned by al-Yaʿqūbī (d.897), as a small independent port exporting agricultural commodities from its immediate hinterland. It wasn't until the 13th century that the port city reappeared in documentary record as a significant Muslim settlement linked with long-distance trade into the Ethiopian interior and as an important stopping place for African pilgrims traveling to the Hejaz.

(A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia pg 97)

The emergence of Zayla as a significant Muslim port city coincided with the development of Muslim cities and polities in the northern Horn of Africa, such as the settlements of Haarla and Harar, and their associated kingdoms such as Shewa's successor; the sultanate of Ifat (1285-1415) and the latter's successor, the Adal empire (1420-1560). Contemporary sources mention the circulation not only of merchants but also of scholars, pilgrims, mercenaries, and diplomats between the Red Sea region and the mainland, via the port of Zayla.

(Islamic principalities in southeast Ethiopia pg 17-35, Le sultanat de l’Awfāt, sa capitale et la nécropole des Walasma)

Importantly, more detailed descriptions of the 'land of Zayla' in the 14th and 15th centuries are contained in Mamluk-Egyptian accounts, whose authors obtained their information from resident Zayla scholars in Cairo. According to Al-ʿUmarī there were six other Muslim kingdoms in the northern Horn besides Ifat. They included; “Dawāro, ʿArābabni, Hadiyya, Šarḫā, Bāli and Dāra.” He specified that this whole area of Muslim states in the northern Horn was known as “the country of Zaylaʿ” to external writers in Egypt and Syria, even though it “is however only one of their cities on the sea whose name has extended to the whole.” He mentions that most Muslims in the region practiced Ḥanafī Islam, but Ifat’s rulers practiced Shāfiʿism.

(A companion to Medieval Ethiopia pg 98-99, 106)

Indeed, Rasulid-Yemen sources from the 14th century mention that while Zayla was the largest of the Muslim cities along the coast and handled most of the trade from the mainland, there were several other Muslim settlements such as Barbera (in Somaliland), Awan/Assab (In Eritrea), Dahlak (in Eritrea), and Suwakin (in Sudan).

(L'Arabie marchande prg 40-43)

The old mosque of Zeila

Inscriptions from the elite cemetery of the Ifat capital, dated to the 14th/15th century

The 14th-century mosque of Beri in the Ifat Capital

The emergence of an intellectual tradition in the northern Horn of Africa.

The inhabitants of these towns are variously described as Muslim habashi ('Abyssinians') which was a catch-all term for various peoples of the northern horn such as the Beja of Suwakin, the Tigrinya, Saho, Afar, and Hararis in the interior and the Eritrean coast, and the Somalis of Barbera and Zayla. Their complex political relationship with the Christian empire of Ethiopia is well documented in Ethiopian chronicles, where they are often presented antagonistically.

(History of Islam in Africa pg 228-229)

A few contemporary sources describe the population of some places. For example, the city of Zayla, which was visited by the globe-trotter Ibn Battuta is described as the 'capital of the Barbara' (presumably a Somali group) a black people of the Shafi'ite rite who inhabit the desert between Zayla and Mogadishu. According to the 13th-century traveler Ibn al-Muğāwir. The city's inhabitants also possessed their own ships which sailed across the Red Sea, carrying passengers and goods to the Hejaz and Aden.

(L'Arabie marchande prg 44-49)

Like Zayla, the scholarly community of the northern Horn was of diverse origins and was closely linked to the scholarly communities of Yemen and the Hejaz, with both communities regularly exchanging notable figures. One such figure was the Yemeni scholar Aḥmad b. Abī Bakr (d.1349) who is known to have visited the Ifat capital and briefly resided there, he was generously hosted by the Christian Ethiopian king as well. Various local traditions especially in the city of Harar also indicate that the region regularly hosted migrant scholars from Yemen, who contributed to the growth of Muslim societies in the region

(L'Arabie marchande prg 76-77)

Recent discoveries of extensive ruins of towns with mosques, koranic schools, and elite residences with Arabic inscriptions attest to the efflorescence of the region's intellectual life between the 11th and 15th centuries. The population of cosmopolitan urban settlements such as Haarla, Awfat and  in North Eastern Ethiopia included merchants and craftspeople from different regions and ethnicities, many of whom adopted Islam, studied and taught in local schools, and traveled to the Hejaz for pilgrimage and to other Muslim societies like Egypt.

(Material cosmopolitanism: the entrepot of Harlaa, A History of Derbé Belanbel Historical and Cultural Site, Le sultanat de l’Awfāt, sa capitale et la nécropole des Walasma)

ruins of Harla, dated to between the 11th-15th century

Derbé Belanbel, dated to between the 12th-16th century

The Jabarti and Zayla scholarly diaspora in the northern Horn, Rasulid Yemen and Mamluk Egypt between the 14th and 16th century

The first among the known scholars from the northern horn of Africa was Ahmad b. 'Umar al-Zayla'ī, an 'Abyssinian Holy-man' who in the year 1304, established the town of al-Luhayya on the western coast of Yemen, and became its "master" and protector. He was buried in a local mosque which attracted more settlers and grew into a large town that was later transformed into an important red-sea port.

(L'Arabie marchande, prg 29)

Such intellectual links and exchanges by scholars in the northern Horn extend beyond the red sea coast to Egypt, where many of them went to study in the University of al-Ahzar. It's in this context that a number of scholars with the nisba of al-Zayla'ī, al-Habashi and al-Jabarti appear in Egyptian records, especially from the Mamluk era. This intellectual tradition of al-Zayla'ī scholars in Cairo flourished in large part due to the establishment of the riwaq al-Jabartiyya hostel for 'Jabarti' students at the al-Azhar University

(ALoA Vol 3 pg 19, Meanings of Timbuktu pg 337)

The term Jabarti is mentioned by Arabic historiographers as the original homeland of the Ifat sultanate in the region of Zayla, before it gradually expanded farther inland. Afterward the term "Jabarti" was transferred to all the entirety of the Ifat state and the Muslims south of Christian Ethiopia, and finally, it became more or less a synonym for all Muslims from the northern Horn of Africa when they were abroad, especially in Egypt. Several 'Jabarti' groups are presently found among the Somalis of the Ogaden region of Somalia, as well as some neighboring Oromo and Afar groups, indicating that many of the Jabarti scholarly diaspora came from this region.

(Islamic principalities in southeast Ethiopia pg 31)

Both terms 'zayla' and 'jabarti' referred to Muslims from the northern Horn of Africa and its scholarly community, and are likely to have been endonymous terms used by the people of that region. Just like the Takruri of West Africa, the scholars of this region were known as Jabarti while in Egypt and adopted the nisba (family name) of al-Zayla'ī or al-Jabarti to indicate their ancestral origins.

The earliest among these was Uthman al-Zayla'ī (d. 1342), a scholar from Zayla who settled in Cairo in 1305 where he taught for the rest of his life. He was a specialist in the Hanafi school of Sunni-Islamic law and its associated hadith literature and must have acquired his remarkable expertise in his homeland. Atleast four of his works survive as they were widely circulated in Egypt and relied upon by later scholars. The hanafi school of thought and its hadith literature became a particular specialty of many scholars from the northern Horn of Africa, many of whom became important jurists in Cairo.

(ALoA vol3 pg 19)

Another was Jamal al-Din al-Zayla'ī al-Hanafi (d. 1361). He was also a Hanafi jurist who was the main informant of al-Umari regarding the latter's description of the kingdoms in the northern Horn. Originally from Zayla, he moved to Cairo in the early 14th century accompanied by other scholars from his region, a lot of whom appear in contemporary biographies as important Hanafi scholars.

(ALoA Vol3, pg 20)

The aforementioned Uthman al-Zayla'ī was one of Jamal al-Zayla'ī's teachers and likely moved to Cairo around the same time as his student. But Jamal al-Zayla'i also had several Mamluk-Egyptian teachers and students of his own. His work titled Nasb al-raya fi takhrij ahadith al-Hidaya stands out as one of the clearest and most accessible works of hadith literature. It became an indispensable work for later jurists who further built upon it.

(The canonisation of al-Bukhari pg 237-256)

Other notable scholars include Sharaf al-din Isma'il al-Jabarti (d. 1403) a charismatic sufi scholar and administrator in Zabid in Rasulid-Yemen. Like many of his peers, al-Jabarti was part of the Qadiriyya brotherhood and eventually became its leader, and a close confidant of the Rasulid sultan Al Ashraf Ismail (r. 1377-1401). Al-Jabarti taught many students who became prominent in their own right and were considered influential sufi scholars of Yemen.

(Ibn 'Arabi in the Later Islamic Tradition pg 241-269)

There are several scholars from the northern horn of Africa in the biography compiled by the Mamluk-Egyptian scholar al-Sakhawi during the 15th century who were famous sufis; among whom were former slaves, especially those with the nisba al-Habashi. The most remarkable in this respect are three pious women: Khadija al-Sahrawiyya (d. 1480) who came from the Zayla hinterland; as well as Safiyya bint Yaqut al-Habashi (d. 1468) and Yahib Allah al-Habashiyya (d. 1477), the last two of whom were formerly slaves. All three became scholarly authorities and transmitted their ijazat to al-Sakhawi himself.

(History of Islam in Africa pg 428-429)

Old mosque in the town of Luhayya, Yemen, 19th century engraving

Mosque in the city of Berbera, Somalia, ca. 1921. 

Intellectual networks in the northern Horn of Africa from the 16th to 18th century: the Hanafi school of Harar, the al-Jabarti family of Egypt, and the itinerant Oromo scholars.

Between the 16th and 18th century, the city of Harar, became the most important commercial and religious center in southern Ethiopia, famous for its saints and Islamic schools. The recently discovered manuscript collection of Harar reveals the city's importance as a major center of scholarship in the northern Horn of Africa, with hundreds of Arabic and Harari documents that include devotional works, didactical and instructional works in theology and law, as well as poetry, grammar, and mysticism. Some of the oldest manuscripts in the collection digitized by the Hill and Manuscript Museum date as far back as 1701.

(The Emergence of Multiple-Text Manuscripts pg 59-72)

Other collections from Harar include works by several works by the scholar Hāšim al-Hararī (c.1711–1765), and Hamid b. Siddiq's Tanbīh al-nāʾimīn, a work of the Hanafi school that was composed in 1756. The intellectual rivalry between Hanafites and Shafi'ites schools in Harar -appears in Hamid's work where he lamented that his school was disappearing from the cultural and social landscape of the city and that Safi'tes had become the strongest group. He defended his old school against its neglect by the moderns, echoing controversies common elsewhere at this time

(Education Materialised: Reconstructing Teaching and Learning Contexts pg 355, A History of Islam pg 429)

Similar to Harar, a brief survey of Somaliland conducted in the 1950s revealed a significant corpus of manuscripts in private libraries, that were written by scholars in Zayla and Berbera. The manuscripts include works of hagiographical poetry regarding Sufi saints, as well as clan ancestors who were venerated as saints. While many of them appear to date from the 19th century, they represent an old tradition of writing that likely dates back to the heyday of the Ifat and Adal sultanates.

(New Arabic documents from Somalia pg 39-56)

Harar and its hinterland in 1944, quai branly

17th-century manuscript from Harar, Sherif Harar City Museum

The northern horn continued to produce important Hanafi jurists in the 18th century, who traveled to Egypt to teach and study. One of the most prominent figures of this period was Hasan al-Zayla'ī al-Jabarti al-Hanafi. His family was originally from the northern horn of Africa, vaguely described by his nisbas. But they had long been established in Cairo in the early 16th century where his great-grandfather was the head of the jabarti hostel at al-Azhar. He became a professor in Cairo and a man of many talents who was well-versed in Islamic sciences with an interest in astronomy, mathematics, and geometry.

(The historian al-Jabarti and his Background pg 237-242, History of the Arabic Written Tradition Volume 2 pg 414, Ottoman Egypt and the Emergence of the Modern World pg 99)

His son was the famous historian of Ottoman Egypt, Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti (d. 1825). The latter's four-volume chronicle titled 'Ajâ'ib al-Àthàr is an exceptional document of its kind from the period, providing a detailed account of Ottoman-Egyptian history from 1688 to 1821. He also wrote a short chronicle titled Mazhar al-Taqdis for the 1798-1801 period when Napoleon occupied Egypt. His criticism of the Ottoman-Egyptian governor Muhammad Ali initially constrained the circulation of his chronicles, but they have since become the most important source of history for the Ottoman period.

(The writing of history in nineteenth century Egypt pg 43-61)

Treatise on scales, measures, and weighing instruments by  Ḥasan al-Jabartī, 1780, Library of Congress 

Incidentally, the 18th-century mathematician Muhammad al-Kishnawi from the city of Katsina in Nigeria, resided in the home of al-Jabarti, which earned the former a mention in Jabarti's chronicle.

Returning to the northern horn of Africa during the 18th century, several Oromo groups adopted Islam and became central actors in its propagation in the societies east and south of Christian Ethiopia. Traditions from the Oromo of Wallo emphasize the role played by migrant 'Jabartis' who moved inland from Zayla into the regions of Ifat, Tigray, and Wallo and were hosted by local rulers and subjects.

(Islam in Nineteenth-Century Wallo, Ethiopia pg 60-62)

It's important to note that 'Christian Ethiopia' was itself comprised of a diverse population of whom an estimated thirty percent were Muslims. The most prominent of these were settled in Gondar and other important urban centers as merchants, craftsmen, and envoys in service to the Ethiopian monarchs. Some of them were prominent scholars whose intellectual influence was felt across the region, especially after the Gondarine state collapsed and the Oromo Muslim dynasty of Wallo placed its puppet at Gondar in 1798.

(The Historiography of Islam in Ethiopia pg 15-46, In the Shadow of Conquest pg 104-105)

Regarding the prominent Muslim societies of the Oromo, these included the chiefly families of the Afran-Qallu, Rayya, and Wallo who were in close contact with the Muslim scholars of Harar and Gondar, gave patronage to clerics and appointed Islamic judges. In Wallo, where there were six Muslim dynasties, the ruling elite of the Warra Himano Oromo, in particular, articulated the legitimacy of their rule, their expansion, and their efforts at regional integration in Islamic terms. Like Harar in the south, Wallo became a center of Islamic learning, overshadowing Gondar, especially for scholars who sought advanced learning.

(History of Islam in Africa pg 231, In the Shadow of Conquest pg 107-112)

One of the most prominent Oromo scholars of this period was Muhammad Shafi b. Muhammad (b. 1743, d. 1806) was born at Dure near Lake Hayq. He was initiated in the Qadiriyya by faqih Zubayr of Gwagur in Yajju, who gave him an ijaza (certificate) to teach it in the territories south of the Mille River. He became a prominent scholar and military leader, establishing several zawiyas in Dawway, Jamma in Borana, and Albukko. He then traveled to Mecca in the early 1800s before returning to Albukko where he died. His shrine at Jama Negus attracts many pilgrims each year. He is known to have composed several works.

(AloA Vol3 pg 55-57)

Intellectual networks and scholars of the northern Horn of Africa in the 19th century during the age of reformist movements.

Reformist movements of the 19th century helped sustain and further propagate Islamic scholarship in the region. These were often associated with orders such as the Qadiriyya, Sammaniyya, Tijaniyya, Salihiyya, and Idrisiyya which were popularized in the region as a result of extensive contacts with the Hejaz, Yemen and Egypt. Contemporaneous trends included the production of praise literature for both local and 'foreign' saints, and the production of popular poetry in Arabic and local languages.

(Meanings of Timbuktu pg 338)

In Wallo, the Qadiriyya was introduced by Shaykh Muhammad Shafi b. Askari Muhammad (1783-1806); the Sammaniyya came via al-Hajj Bushra Ay Muhammad (d. 1823). The more militant teachings of these scholars were influenced as much by intellectual movements in the Hejaz and Yemen, as by local threats such as the reunification of Christian Ethiopia under Tewodros and Yohannes.

(History of Islam in Africa pg 223-224)

A notable scholar of this later period was the Oromo shaykh Tahla b. Jafar (b. 1850, d. 1934), who was born in Argoba. His grandfather was an important shaykh named Aba Asiyya whose shrine is at Doddota. Tahla revolted against Emperor Yohannes (r. 1872-1889) who sent clerics and troops to forcefully convert the Muslims of Wallo to Christianity in 1878. For seven years, Tahla's revolt received support from the Mahdists of Sudan and was only quelled when Shaykh Nuriyye Umar of Yajju brokered a peace agreement between Tahla and Menilek II (r. 1889-1913). Tahla wrote a considerable body of poetry in Amharic for a wider dispersion of his teachings to ordinary people in the region.

(The Life and career of shaykh Tahla, ALoA vol 3, pg 62-63)

Similarly in northern Somalia, the 19th century saw the emergence of intellectual movements associated with established orders such as the Qadirriya.

The most notable scholar of this order was Shaykh Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad al-Zayla'ī (b. 1820, d. 1882). Born either in Luhayya (in Yemen) or in Gilde (in Somalia). al-Zayla'ī was of humble origins, he studied in Mogadishu under a renowned scholar Ismail al-Maqdashi and Sayyid al-Awsi in the region of Awsa near Zayla where he received his ijaza. He travelled to Mecca and returned home via Harar where he was well received by local scholars and composed several writings. He later settled at Kolonkol in Ogaden and established a Qadiri movement before his death. A shrine was built above his grave and it remains a minor pilgrimage center to this day.

(In the Shadow of Conquest pg 12-19)

But among all these scholars, few had a career that perfectly represents the cosmopolitan nature of the intellectual networks of the northern Horn like the scholar Abd Allah al-Harari, who flourished in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Al-Harari was a highly learned scholar who had visited Mecca when he was in the service of the sultan of Zayla, Abu Bakr Muhammad (r. 1855-1875). He later became the agent of Menilek II of Ethiopia who occupied Harar in 1887. He traveled to Istanbul where he met the Ottoman Sultan Abd al-Hamid (r. 1876-1909) and also traveled across Europe, America, and India as Menilek's ambassador. He later returned to Ethiopia where he was later appointed a sub-governor of Ogaden in 1914 where he'd later pass away.

(ALoA vol3 pg 21)

Zeila beachfront in 1885, BNF Paris

Zeila streetscene, ca. 1921 

Conclusion:

The above outline of the intellectual traditions of the northern Horn of Africa shows the history of Arabic and Ajami literature in the region was just as robust as the better-known Ge'ez literature of Ethiopia and arguably more widespread.

The region's Jabarti diaspora were active agents in the emergence and growth of its intellectual centers and traditions from Zeila to Harar to Jimma. Far from a precarious existence on the frontier of the Islamic world, the Jabarti were part of the scholarly communities of the Muslim heartlands of Yemen and Egypt. And it was from their scholarly diasporas that remarkable figures like the historian Abdul Rahman al-Jabarti.

References

ALoA Vol 3, The writings of the Muslim peoples of northeastern Africa by John O. Hunwick, Rex Seán O'Fahey

History Of Islam In Africa by Nehemia Levtzion, Randall L. Pouwels

A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea by Samantha Kelly

L’Arabie marchande: État et commerce sous les sultans rasūlides du Yémen by Éric Vallet

The Meanings of Timbuktu by Shamil Jeppie, Souleymane Bachir Diagne

The Canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim: The Formation and Function of the Sunnī Ḥadīth Canon by Jonathan Brown

Ibn 'Arabi in the Later Islamic Tradition by Alexander D. Knysh

The Emergence of Multiple-Text Manuscripts by Alessandro Bausi, Michael Friedrich, Marilena Maniaci

Education Materialised: Reconstructing Teaching and Learning Contexts through Manuscripts by Stefanie Brinkmann,

History of the Arabic Written Tradition Volume 2 by Carl Brockelmann

Ottoman Egypt and the Emergence of the Modern World: 1500-1800 by Nelly Hanna

Islam in Nineteenth-Century Wallo, Ethiopia: Revival, Reform and Reaction by Hussein Ahmed

In the Shadow of Conquest: Islam in Colonial Northeast Africa edited by Said S. Samatar

The historiography of Islam in Ethiopia by H. Ahmed

The Life and career of shaykh Tahla B. Ja'far by Ahmed Hussein

The historian al-Jabarti and his Background by D Ayalon

New Arabic documents from Somalia by BW Andrzejewski

Material cosmopolitanism: the entrepot of Harlaa as an Islamic gateway to eastern Ethiopia by Timothy Insoll

Islamic principalities in south east Ethiopia Between the Thirteenth and Sixteenth Centuries by U Braukämper

A History of Derbé Belanbel Historical and Cultural Site by Wagaw Bogale

Le sultanat de l’Awfāt, sa capitale et la nécropole des Walasma by François-Xavier Fauvelle

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