Ethiopia’s Increasing Vulnerability to Islamic Extremism and What That Means for the Horn of Africa
Ethiopian Orthodox priests. Creative Commons photo.
(ANALYSIS) Ethiopia, situated in the Horn of Africa with the second largest population in Africa (over 100 million), is a heavily religious country. About 98% of the population identifies with either Islam or Christianity (35% Muslim; 63% Christian). It is also a country blessed with natural beauty and incredible ethnic and ecological diversity.
Yet, Ethiopia remains one of the poorest nations on earth. For the last two millennia, Ethiopia’s history of progress and human flourishing has been characterized by one step forward and two steps back. In the 20th century, the progress made during the era of Emperor Haile-Selassie was almost completely wiped out by a military-communist regime.
Over the last two decades, the country has experienced some signs of progress, but those gains have been dwarfed by complex ideological, economic, administrative and ethnic challenges. In fact, the country was on the verge of civil war three years ago. Then hope burst forth in April 2018 with the installation of a new Prime Minister, Dr. Abiy Ahmed, who initiated sweeping and staggering reforms. Still today, the country’s future as a nation-state is threatened by ethno-political and religious extremism, specifically Ethiopia’s vulnerability to Islamic extremism.
Fifty years ago, J.S. Trimingham asserted that the Christian state in Ethiopia is a “beleaguered fortress in the midst of the sea of Islam” (in his book Islam in Ethiopia). While some accept this assertion, others have challenged it or even sought to speak about the “beleaguered Muslim fortresses” whereby historical relations between the medieval Christian kingdom of Ethiopia in the north and Muslim Sultanates in the South East was one of aggressive expansion by Christian kings. How one understands Ethiopia’s history of state formation and its religious journey determines one’s position in relation to these opposing views and indeed one’s perspective on the impact of Islam on Christianity in Ethiopia. I would argue that while the 13 centuries-long history of Christian-Muslim relations in Ethiopia is characterized by the juxtaposition between positive interactions and periodic conflicts, the current internal socio-political and religious dynamics, and the geopolitical and religious roles external forces from the Middle East in particular continue to play make Ethiopia vulnerable to religious extremism.
Ethiopia as the ‘Land of Islam’
There are some forces within and outside Ethiopia who claim that Ethiopia’s “historical” position as dar al Islam or “land of Islam” must be recovered. This claim refers to the famous encounter in the 7th century between followers of Mohammed from Mecca and the Aksumite kingdom in the north of Ethiopia, where Christianity had already been in existence for three centuries. The story, in brief, is that an Ethiopian King, the Negus (614-631), gave shelter to early Muslims from Mecca, who were seeking refuge from persecution.
This journey has shaped Islamic attitudes towards Ethiopia for centuries. But there is no agreement on the kind of relationship that developed from this encounter. The general view is that the whole event was characterized by royal benevolence, hospitality and, as a result, lasting friendship. Against this, it has been argued that the Aksumite Ethiopians were hostile to the pioneers of Islam and, ever since, have joined hands with the infidels to destroy Islam. The third view is that the Ethiopian king converted to Islam following Mohammed’s written invitation and ultimatum and, therefore, Ethiopia was part of dar al Islam and must, therefore, be reclaimed as such.
It is widely accepted that Mohammed wrote a letter to the king, in which he invited him to follow God and him as the Messenger of God. But did the king of Aksum convert to Islam? Some Muslims claim that he did, while others vigorously reject such a claim. What we can be certain on the basis of the Hadith is that Mohammed orders Muslims to “leave the Abyssinians alone as long as they leave you alone.” Had the Ethiopian king and his subjects converted to Islam, Hadith would not have contained this. However, radical Islamic elements within and outside Ethiopia have continued to assert that Ethiopia used to be part of the “land of Islam.” This claim is linked to the geopolitical situation.
Geopolitical Forces: Turkey, Egypt, Sudan and Arabia
Turkey
Nowadays, outside forces seek to clandestinely cement the fictitious claim that Ethiopia was a land of Islam. The notable example is Turkey, who, like the Ottomans particularly in the 16th and 17th centuries, has developed an interest in the Horn of Africa in general and in Ethiopia in particular. President Erdogan a few years ago received an honorary doctorate from the University of Addis Ababa and commissioned the restoration of an ancient mosque and a tomb purported to be that of the King (the Negus or Nejashi), who was hospitable to the Meccans. Having successfully carried out the restoration project to the tomb by adopting Ottoman architectural style, the Turkish government has now proposed that the king’s tomb be added as a route of umrah, the non-mandatory pilgrimage made by Muslims. This will probably contribute to the tourism industry of Ethiopia, but I seriously doubt that it would contribute to the mutual trust between Christians and Muslims in the region.
There are some who hope that Turkey’s proposal, along with other activities, would pave the way for Ethiopia to reclaim her status as a land of Islam and Ethiopia’s historic enmity to Islam would end. Some might also go so far as to say that this would remove once and for all the fear that remains in the Arab psyche about the prophecy in the Hadith of the “lean-legged” Ethiopian destroying the Ka’ba. The resulting effect is that Islam would be able to march towards southern Africa unhindered. Turkey’s effort in restoring an ancient mosque and a tomb purported to be that of the famous Aksumite King is cementing these fictitious claims. This makes Ethiopia vulnerable to religious extremism.
But Turkey’s ambition goes beyond restoration projects of ancient sites. The effort has intensified particularly since General Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi overthrew Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi and cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Erdogan, who is believed to follow the teachings of Muslim Brotherhood movement, continues to harbor deep antagonism towards Al-Sisi’s government and seeks to undermine it. So, for example, Turkey sides with Ethiopia when it comes to the dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). President Erdogan, in my view, overtly uses democracy in order to covertly promote his Islamist agenda, epitomized by his recent decision to turn the Hagia Sophia, formerly a cathedral and then a museum, into a mosque. So both Egypt’s antipathy toward Ethiopia and Turkey’s friendly relations with Ethiopia make this poor nation vulnerable to Islamic extremism.
Egypt and Sudan
Egypt’s hostility to Ethiopia goes almost as far back as its relationship with Ethiopia. Like most neighboring nations, Egypt and Ethiopia have had a love-hate relationship for millennia, but it was since the introduction of Christianity to Ethiopia in the 4th century AD and the beginning of Islam in the 7th century AD that the relationship became much more complicated. Even after Egypt became an Islamic state, three common spheres of interest bridged both Egypt and Ethiopia: the Red Sea basin, the Nile River and the connection between the Coptic Orthodox Church and Ethiopian Orthodox Church, where the latter depended on the former for the provision of its head bishop until 1950s.
But the relationship was bumpy, as Egypt displayed its hostility to Christian Ethiopia by delaying appointments of bishops for the Ethiopian Church, punishing Ethiopian Christians in Jerusalem and persecuting Coptic Christians in Egypt. Egypt has also had an enduring interest in maintaining absolute control over the Nile, expanding its empire and spreading Islam. In response to Egypt’s hostility towards Christian Ethiopia, some Ethiopian kings threatened to block the Nile, which, of course, was not taken seriously by Egypt. The relationship worsened in the 19th century, when the Muslim caliphate of Egypt conquered an important Islamic Emirate of Harar in the east of Ethiopia and militarily engaged with Ethiopia at the battle of Gura in the north. Egypt lost both, which partly redefined the relationship between the two countries and reinforced the fear in Ethiopia of Middle Eastern Islamic empires. This was compounded by the emergence of Messianic Islam in Sudan called Mahdiyya. Mahdists attacked Ethiopia with a jihadist vision to Islamize Ethiopia.
There are many in Ethiopia now, who, like the emperors in the 19th century, believe that Egypt and Sudan’s contribution to the growth and revival of an extremist form of Islam is a great danger to the unity and integrity of Ethiopia. There are also many who would disagree with this view. It is true that a Caliphate does not exist in Egypt any more. Nor are there organized Mahdists in Sudan anymore. However, until recently, Sudan was ruled under a Sharia law and Egypt has had very strong radical Islamic movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Jihad. Currently, radical Islamists within Egyptian government, opposition political parties and other groups seem to be capitalizing on the current tension between Egypt and Ethiopia over GERD and internal political discontent. The main goal in all this is not only in undermining the GERD project, but rather it is promoting an extremist religious vision, at the center of which is seeing an Islamic state in Ethiopia.
Arabian Peninsula: Dream of Repeating the Past
There are many in Ethiopia, who interpret the activities of the geopolitical forces discussed above in terms of history repeating itself in the sense that the ascendancy of Islam in the 7th and 8th centuries became a cause for the decline of the politically and economically powerful Christian Empire in Axum. Arabian forces destroyed the Ethiopian trading post in a Red Sea port, and successive battles between Ethiopian naval forces and the new Islamic state took place. It should be noted here that the antagonism between Ethiopia and Arabia was pre-Islamic, because in 570 AD (the year Mohammed was born) an Ethiopian king had attempted to Christianize Mecca by force. He had also sought to undermine the Ka’ba as a pagan pilgrimage site by building a church in Sana’a in Yemen. The attempt failed and later on Muslim armies overran Yemen and controlled Ethiopia’s islands and ports. This made it possible for Muslim traders from Arabia to move freely and set up commercial settlements. All of this facilitated for the ascendancy of Islam and further weakening of Aksum.
One might say that weakened Aksum could represent weakened Christianity, but that did not turn out to be the case. However, external forces capitalized on Aksum’s political and economic weakness and spread Islam, which was becoming religion and state in Arabia and the newly Arabized nations such as Egypt. Islam was never religion and state in Ethiopia, but there are currently some radicals within and outside Ethiopia, who are creating Ethiopia’s imagined past as a land of Islam in order to turn it into an Islamic state.
Forces in the Arabian Peninsula have also had the same vision for centuries. The event that continues to define and shape this vision took place in the early 16th century, when the South Eastern Muslims engaged in a renewed battle with the Christian Empire with a new spirit of jihad and the support of external forces. The battle was led by an ambitious Turkish-backed imam called Ahmad ibn Ibrahim el Ghazi (also known as Ahmad Gragn [“left-handed”]). Muslim “learned men” from Arabia had convinced him that God had called him to “bring peace and Islam to the land of the Habasha.”
Imam Ahmad defeated Christian forces, reclaimed Muslim territories, overrun most of the northern Christian territories, destroyed churches, burned biblical manuscripts and executed priests and monks. Large numbers of people converted to Islam. Those who did not convert to Islam were either killed or treated as dhimmis (second class citizens with a right to live and retain their faith) with jizyah tax levied on them. The forces of Emperor Gelawdewos, with the backing of the Portuguese, defeated the jihadist forces and killed the imam.
This, I think, remains the single most important chapter in the Ethiopian history of Christian-Muslim relations. The key point here is that Imam Ahmad’s jihadist ideals were fueled by the theological conviction of Arabian forces and the territorial ambition of the Ottoman Empire. Imam Ahmad’s dream of turning Ethiopia into an Islamic state did not come true, but he remains a great hero for many Muslims in Ethiopia and his dream lives on in radical Islamist forces within and outside Ethiopia.
Wahhabism in the Horn of Africa and Internal Dynamics
Islamic extremism is a growing reality in Sub-Saharan Africa too. In Nigeria, Boko Haram is active. In West Africa’s Sahel region (Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, and Burkina Faso), Ansaroul Islam (AI), Boko Haram (BH), Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), and Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wul-Muslimin (JNIM), which is affiliated to Al-Qaeda, are operating. Islamic State has staged many attacks in Mozambique. Wahhabism through al-Shabaab continues to threaten Kenya.
Over the last 30 years, Islam has grown in confidence and in number in Ethiopia. Tens of thousands of mosques have been built in the country, Muslim businesses have grown, and an Islamic bank was established recently. Extremist tendencies, centering on Wahhabist teaching, have also grown. Indeed, one of the biggest threats to Ethiopia’s survival, in my view, is Wahhabism, which has been funded by the massive oil wealth of Saudi Arabia and its neighbors over the years. Since the early 20th century, Wahhabism has been exported to the Horn of Africa through the provision of support to mosques, Qaranic schools, imams and, nowadays, to various government and humanitarian projects. All this is consistent with the Saudi Kingdom’s long-term project, which is explained in Yaroslav Trofimov’s The Siege of Mecca.
I wish to inject a personal anecdote here. I once had a conversation with my relative Hajji Ahmed, who worked at the Grand Mosque in Mecca until he died a few years ago. Hajji Ahmed funded a large number of mosques in my area in the South of Ethiopia. In so doing, he explained to me, he was fulfilling the wish of the Kingdom to spread not just Islam but the Wahhabist version of Islam to which the Kingdom has been forced to subscribe since the 1970s. What he told me made huge but chilling sense to me after I read Trofimov’s book.
Arabian and indeed all Muslim states view Ethiopia as the most strategic state in the Horn of Africa. It is in the same way that radical Islamists view Ethiopia. Now a centuries old moderate form of Sufi Islam is endangered by the ascendancy of al-Shabaab in Somalia. Eritrea, who used to support the Houthi rebels in Yemen and was, therefore, friendly with Iran, has switched sides and is now a strong ally of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. A struggle for influence between Riyadh and Tehran is evident not only in Eritrea but also in Somaliland and the semi-autonomous Somali region of Puntland.
The Sunni-Shiite battle in Yemen has made it possible for the Saudis and their allies to establish military bases in the region and draw Eritrea and Sudan into the battle against the Houthis. And a couple of years ago, Riyadh and its allies appeared to be the chief brokers of the peace agreement signed between the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the Eritrean President Isayas Afeworki. Whether this makes Ethiopia less vulnerable to radical Islamist forces is a question. In fact, IS and al-Shabaab have been active in Ethiopia’s eastern borders over the last couple of years and their plans to attack several targets in 2020 were foiled by the Ethiopian security forces. One could argue that Abiy Ahmed’s positive diplomacy may be making Ethiopia more vulnerable to Islamic extremism.
Of course, Ethiopia cannot afford to severe its diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, but the fact that the Kingdom’s wealth is behind the increasing assertiveness of Wahhabist Islam in the region is deeply worrying. Before Prime Minister Haile Mariam Desalegn resigned in 2018, the Ethiopian government attempted to combat Wahhabism in Ethiopia through jailing Wahhabist leaning leaders and stealthily promoting a moderate form of Al Ahbash Islam, which is basically a more sophisticated form of Sufi Islam, whose guiding principle is clerical pacifism. However, all these attempts failed. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed released the jailed Wahhabist leaders. Moreover, he has had Muslim factions reconciled and facilitated for the Ethiopian Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs to gain a legal personality through parliamentary proclamation. That Islam in Ethiopia is treated equally with Christianity, and Muslims are no longer officially portrayed as evil and enemies of righteousness, which used to be the case a century ago, should be seen as a positive development. The prime minister’s attempt to treat Christians and Muslims equally and make Ethiopia a haven of religious tolerance is also commendable.
The exploitation of ethnic tensions
However, inter-ethnic tensions and political discontent are enabling internal and external forces to use the prime minister’s good intentions to promote their radical vision. Ahmed is an Oromo. While he is a Christian, the majority of Oromos are Muslims. The history of the Oromos in relation to the Christian-Muslim relations in Ethiopia is a very complicated one. Some believe that historically the survival of Ethiopia as a nation state was tested by the violent expansion of the Oromos, who embraced Islam and greatly benefited from the devastating effect of Ahmad Gragn’s jihadist campaign. Their successful military campaigns, their population growth through mass adoption and procreation, and their ability to penetrate the Christian highlands forced Christian kings to adopt a moderate attitude towards Muslims. That facilitated the growth of the Muslim population exponentially. This, coupled with the military campaigns of the Egyptian Caliphate and the Sudanese Mahdists, led the Ethiopian Christian Empire to adopt the policy of coerced mass conversion and baptism, which largely targeted the Oromo Muslims. Many Oromos embraced Christianity but such a coercive action had little effect in Christianizing the masses and uniting the country. This historic action of the emperors, which is now assessed as a mistake, has left fear and bitterness in the psyche of the Muslims particularly amongst the Oromos.
Nowadays, Ethiopian Muslims in Oromia and other regions have no reason to feel marginalized or persecuted. There is constitutional provision for religious freedom and equality. Many Muslims have assumed political and administrative positions. However, there are many within the Oromos, who believe that political processes must center on the fusion of ethnic identity with Islam. These are ethno-religious extremists for whom a true Oromo is a Muslim. Radical elements have used this misguided perspective to incite violence against Christians. As a result, since 2015, many Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches and institutions in the Oromia region have been destroyed. Hundreds of Christians, including Oromos, have been brutally murdered. It is alleged that these radical elements within Oromia are supported by outside forces particularly in Egypt.
While the violence in Oromia region seems to be targeting all Christians, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church (EOTC) feels that it is the chief target of ethno-religious extremists and has not been adequately protected by the Ethiopian government security forces. It has now resolved to defend its members and institutions within the country through “non-violent” means. It is important to note here that there was a time when Orthodox Christianity was both religion and state in Ethiopia. That is, there was a theocratic government that not only defended but also served as a vehicle to spread the Orthodox Christian faith. Even after Ethiopia ceased to be a religious state, for the majority of those in the northern and central parts of Ethiopia, Orthodox Christian faith continues to be the foundation of patriotism, nationalism and personal identity. There are now signs that radicalism amongst the Oromo Muslims is inspiring radicalism amongst Orthodox Christians in the country.
Where does this leave Ethiopia and her people now? I don’t think that a theocratic state that defends the Orthodox Christian faith will return. Nor do I think that the dream of some radical elements to establish a political government that sustains puritanical Islamic doctrine through a strict application of Sharia will come true in Ethiopia. But as ethno-centric politics is on the ascendancy, ethno-religious forces that fuse ethnic and religious identities with political goals are getting stronger, and national uniting symbols have increasingly diminished, any success of a fundamentalist form of Islam in Ethiopia could inspire militant elements within the Orthodox Christian faith and other Christian traditions and then lead to religiously inspired civil war. Without urgent internal and external effort, the result, God forbid, would be potential disintegration of Ethiopia and end of any hope of peace, stability and progress in the Horn of Africa.
Desta Heliso studied at King's College London and London School of Theology and served as lecturer and director of the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology (EGST). He currently resides in London but continues to coordinate the Centre for Ancient Christianity and Ethiopian Studies at EGST in Addis Ababa. He is also a fellow of the Center for Early African Christianity (New Haven) and a visiting lecturer at the London School of Theology (London).