S2E18: The Fall of the Aksumite Empire Part 1: Anbasa Wedem, Wise Regent or Cruel Usurper?

 

A Mural from the Dega Istefanos Monastery on Ethiopia's Lake Tana. This monastery is sometimes attributed to the reign of Del Naod, but this is highly contested.

Degna Djan is dead, and his sons, Anbasa Wedem and Del Naod, have begun a struggle for the throne. Or did they? As we dive into this episode, we examine the strange and confounding history behind the end of the Aksumite Empire

S2E17: Degna Jan, the Last Great King of Aksum

Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed the latest episode of the History of Africa podcast. This latest episode focuses on Degna Djan, one of the last kings of Aksum, and, somehow, one of the greatest kings in Aksumite history. During his rule, he oversaw an Aksumite renaissance, leading to the final period of Aksum as the hegemon of East Africa. 

Lake Hayq, one of the likely locations of the Late Aksumite capital of Ku'bar

Despite his importance to Late Aksumite history, Degna Djan is an elusive figure. There are no surviving contemporary depictions of him, and even the exact date of his rule is unknown. However, what sources we do have of his reign are composed of a combination of Coptic church records, the later works of Ethiopian monk Tekle Hayamanot, and the various oral histories of post-Askumite Ethiopia. When compiled and viewed critically, these sources form a picture of an incredibly impressive reign which revitalized the Aksumite Empire and even expanded its frontiers.

Tekle Hayamanot, a prominent Ethiopian saint, abuna, and historian, depicted in a church mural

The primary defining development of Degna Djan's reign was an emphasis on the recentralization of power. Askum, throughout the last several centuries, experienced a gradual decline in the authority of the Negus. The empire's nobility and church had increasingly gained power, with the king now essentially relying on the church as a mechanism to persuade the nobility to respect his authority. Degna Djan, however, cooked up a scheme to recentralize power in his control.

Notably, the kingdom of Aksum had lacked an abuna, or patriarch, to rule its church for several decades. The abuna was typically a foreign (usually Egyptian) bishop. Due to their lack of local connections, the abuna was incredibly dependent on the negus to legitimize his authority, and in turn the abuna gave the negus a greater degree of control over the church. In order to prevent this threat to their power, the increasingly influential priests and bishops of Aksum had long blocked the appointment of a new abuna. However, Degna Djan cleverly schemed to distract them. The Amhara and Agaw communities of the southern Aksumite territories, while technically under Aksumite suzerainty, were only loosely subjects of the empire. While their leaders paid tribute to the Aksumite king, they were largely independent in terms of governance. Many of them even continued to practice traditional religions, as opposed to the staunch Christianity that dominated the interior of the empire. Degna Djan ordered that the church officials, in order to more fully integrate the Amhara and southern Agaw into the Aksumite Empire, should convert the locals to the Orthodox Christianity practiced by the Aksumites.

However, while the majority of priests and bishops led missionaries into the Amhara region, Degna Djan used their absence to appoint a new abuna. The new abuna, Peter, was especially reliant on the king due to the unexpected nature of his appointment, so he acted essentially as a puppet of Degna Djan. With this move, Degna Djan vastly improved his power within the Aksumite state, as he now de-facto commanded the Aksumite church.

With the newly centralized state's resources at his disposal, Degna Djan raised the largest army that Aksum had seen since the era of Kaleb and began a series of conquests against the empire's neighbors. The people of the south and east were relegated into tributaries, while the territories to the north, lost to Beja raids shortly before Degna Djan's rule, were recaptured. 

However, while Degna Djan's reign may seem to be a complete success, his time as Negus would cause several problems in the long run. For starters, he struggled to establish a clear heir, a problem which will have disastrous consequences in our next episode. Next, his conquests resulted in Aksum making many enemies outside its borders. The Sultanate of Showa, Harla, and Semien, especially, were threatened by Degna Djan's aggressive revanchist conquests. These problems would compound in a crisis so great that it would eventually end the now centuries old Aksumite Empire.

S2E16: The War for the Dahlak Islands and the Aksumite Dark Age

Hello everyone, I hope you enjoyed the latest episode of the podcast. This one was admittedly a little weird because of the circumstances surrounding the history being discussed. The podcast generally tries to focus on history from a narrative perspective, telling the podcast as a linear story. I personally like this format because it makes the show more digestible, personable, and, frankly, entertaining. However, due to the fact that this episode focuses on a historiographic dark age in Aksumite history, writing in a narrative style for this episode was simply impossible. However, the era which encompassed around 600-880 AD, despite being a time with few surviving records, is a crucial era for understanding long-term trends affecting the Aksumite state, economy, and society during its waning years.

The general trend of the era in Aksum during this era was one of decentralization. Economically, the model of centralized cities as the basis of the Aksumite economy declined. Rather than the trade and sale of finished goods and exotic materials, the new Aksumite economy was dominated by subsistence farming of teff. Politically, the once autocratic power of the Aksumite negus was divided among the increasingly powerful Tewhahedo Church and local landowners.

A Village in the Dahlak Islands

In addition to the declining power of the king, the power of the Aksumite merchants also declined during this era. Facing declining influence, the Aksumite merchant class became increasingly desperate. They began waging naval campaigns to reverse their declining fortunes. The main theater of these naval wars was the Dahlak archipelago. This region had been an Aksumite territory for centuries, but had been captured and converted into a prison colony by the Umayyad caliphate. Throughout the 8th and 9th centuries, the Aksumite merchants would repeatedly capture, lose, and recapture control over the islands from various Arabian powers on the Red Sea. At one point, the Aksumite merchants even successfully seized control of some cities on the Arabian coast, with Jeddah being the most prominent.

The City of Jeddah, captured and briefly occupied by Aksumite merchants in the 8th century, is now a major city in Saudi Arabia.

However, by the end of the 10th century, the islands inhabitants had established a local power base strong enough to challenge both Arab and Aksumite domination, resulting in the creation of an independent sultanate on the archipelago. In a final effort to reassert their power, Aksumite merchants made a desperate campaign to capture the island of Socotra in the late 10th century. The initial invasion was a success, with the Aksumite state seemingly endorsing the invasion through the decision to ordain a new bishop on the island. However, less than a decade later, Al-Salt bin Malik, the ruler of Oman, decided to respond to this challenge of Omani trade power in the region. He sent a fleet which successfully dislodged the Aksumites from the island, ending Aksumite merchant power in the Arabian and Red Seas.

S2E15: The Somali Mercantile Age

 

Hello everyone, I hope you enjoyed the newest episode. This week's episode was a little bit of a weird one. Instead of focusing on a specific period in Aksumite history or Aksumite ruler, this episode focuses on one of the multiple historical trends behind the ongoing (in our show) decline of the Aksumite empire. While we've already touched on the importance of plague, climate change, unrest, and political instability, another of the factors that contributed to Aksum's decline was the increasing out competition of Aksumite merchants by their Somali rivals.

Sort of error in the episode. In this episode, I kind of admittedly exaggerate just how grim Aksumite naval affairs were. While the Aksumite capacity for naval war was essentially destroyed by the raid on Adulis, the merchants of Aksum would quickly recover in this regard. As we'll talk about next episode, Aksumite merchant fleets were, in anything, more aggressive after the fall of Adulis. They fought an extended war over the Dahlak archipelago, and successfully raided Jeddah and Socotra. This isn't to downplay the devastation of the raid either, but just to note that ending the episode on such a bleak note without further listening may lead you to the wrong impression.

The Somali people have always existed in something of a background role in this podcast, with their most significant mention coming in the episode on Kaleb's war, when a group of Somalis (likely from the Dir clan) served as mercenaries during the invasion of Himyar. This episode provides some more details on what exactly the Somali people were doing throughout this era. Those in the northern cities served as an important hub for merchants that travelled between India and Egypt, while those on the Southern coast trafficked in the exotic goods of southern Africa. However, I didn't mention what the average Somali of the inland regions were doing. The answer there was primarily living a lifestyle of nomadic pastoralism. The Somali peninsula was one of the first regions of sub-saharan Africa to make widespread use of the geel, while also herding sheep and goats. Much like how the Aksumite empire was essentially a group of cities dependent on the vast tracts of farmland in between, the same applies to Somalia except with massive herds of sheep instead of teff fields. This, however, was less true in southern Somalia, or the Shebelle region. This relatively fertile region could maintain a combination of agrarian and pastoral living.

However, while Somali cities were able to acquire a degree of wealth from trading on the Indian ocean, the potential profits of these commercial ventures were severely limited by the Aksumite domination of Red Sea trade. By dominating the only trade route through the Red Sea, Aksumite merchants were able to successfully insert themselves between Somali merchants and markets in Egypt and the Mediterranean as middlemen. Additionally, Aksumite merchants engaged in direct competition by ferrying goods from India to Egypt, offering lower princes by avoiding the tarriffs that Aksum levelled on foreigners.

However, as Aksumite power in the Red Sea diminished over the 6th century, Somali merchants were able to break the Aksumite monopoly over the Red Sea. Additionally, the conversion of many urban Somalis to Islam gave them a competitive advantage when trading with the growing Muslim powers of the middle east. Somalis could avoid the Jizya tax that the caliphate leveled against non-Muslims, while also generally achieving better relations with Muslim states through the adoption of a common faith.

A small version of a Somali woven ship, called a beden.

With Somali merchants now outcompeting Aksumite merchants, Somali city states began a golden age of economic prosperity. From the 8th until the 17th century, Somali merchants maintained a dominant grip on trade in the Western Indian Ocean.

An early modern depiction of a larger Somali ship from a European atlas

S2E14: The Rise of Islam (From the Aksumite Perspective)

 

I hope you all enjoy the latest episode of the History of Africa podcast. This episode focuses on the Rise of Islam, but from the perspective of the Aksumites.

The story of the flight of the Muslims to Aksum, while obscure in the West, is a famous story in the Islamic world. However, the political and historical context behind the migration to Aksum is fairly obscure globally.

Depiction of Armah rejecting the demands of Amr ibn al-As to turn over the Muslims illus. Rashid ad-Din Sinan

Aksum, at the time of the First Hijrah, had fallen a long way since its apex a century prior. The once dynamic mercantile economy of the empire had fallen into crisis ever since the arrival of plague and the loss of Yemen, so the countryside of Aksum reverted from a wealthy, urbanized society into an agrarian, rural society. As the economy of Aksum declined and poverty became rampant, so too did criminality. In the region of Wolqayt, a few small groups of bandits rapidly grew into large, organized armies that ravaged the countryside. Soon enough, these bandits were a threat to the city of Aksum itself. To put down these bandits, the emperor of Aksum, Armah, appointed a local noble (or possible relative) named Daniel to serve as Hatsani. The Hatsani of Aksum was a title that had long been used to describe the head military leader of Aksum during times of war. Saizana, for example, was Hatsani during the Aksumite conquest of Nubia, as was Germa during the invasion of Arabia under Datwinas. After Armah's rule, the title would be adopted by the kings of Aksum. Hatsani Daniel proved to be incredibly successful in his effort to destroy the bandits

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, I am Hatsani Danael, son of Dabra Ferem. When the people of Wolqayt devastated the land and came to Aksum, I expelled them, treated them harshly, and killed them. I captured 102 of their foals and 802 of their cattle. And I exiled the survivors. -Inscription attributed to Daniel

However, Daniel was, if anything, too successful at his task. Soon after he defeated the bandits, Daniel himself began ravaging the countryside himself, robbing the locals of their livestock. When Armah dispatched an army now to stop this looting, Daniel turned on Armah. He declared himself to be the new king of Aksum, and his looting soon transformed into an outright revolt.

Map of the two migrations of Muslims: the first to Aksum and the second to Medina

It may be confusing as to why Armah was bothering to dedicate so much attention to protecting refugees when his kingdom was falling apart around him. However, due to the study of this event usually stemming from the Arab perspective, the motives of Armah are not often considered. Armah's decision to welcome refugees from a city in Arabia that was persecuting a religious minority of monotheists closely mirrors another event in Aksumite history, and this comparison may provide us some insight into his motives. Before the invasion of Himyar, the Aksumite King Kaleb and his father welcomed Christian Himyarite refugees into his court. Later, after Kaleb's invasion of Himyar, one of these refugees, Sumyafa Ashwa, was elevated to the status of King of Himyar, ruling as an Aksumite client. Perhaps Armah sought to do a similar thing with the Muslim refugees of Mecca. Mecca, in this era, had notably stayed neutral in the competition for influence between Aksum, Rome, and Persia in Arabia. Should these Muslims ever take power, then Aksumite influence in Mecca would be secured. Others have argued that, rather than political concerns, Armah was simply drawing from a long Aksumite tradition of relative religious tolerance. This, however, is a questionable assertion, as Aksum possessed no reputation for tolerance ever since the zealot king Mehadyis had forcefully ended the remnants of Aksumite paganism in the late fourth century.

The silver coins of Armah, the last Aksumite coins ever minted

Regardless of whether Armah's decision to welcome the refugees was motivated by religious principles or geopolitical concerns, the decision certainly paid geopolitical dividends. After the Muslim refugees left Aksum to join the Islamic community in Medina, the Muslims would do a lot more than simply take power in Mecca. By the end of the life of the Prophet Muhammad, the Muslims had expanded to encompass the entire Arabian peninsula. Under the successors of Muhammad, known as the Rashidun Caliphs, the fledgling Muslim state began an expansionist streak. Sassanid Persia fell in its entirety, while Rome lost 2/3s of its territory. However, despite being in a position of weakness, Aksum remained untouched by the expanding Islamic power.

S2E13: The Aksumite-Persian War

Hello everyone. I hope you enjoy this week's episode on the Aksumite-Persian war. While this war is often overlooked by contemporary historians, it played a consequential role in world history. The Aksumite-Persian war would have a massive impact not only on Ethiopia, Persian, and Yemeni history, but would even have an impact on the rise of a certain Arabian religion whose rise would mark the end of antiquity and the beginning of the medieval age in the Near East. 

Our war begins due to dynastic fallout in the then-independent kingdom of Aksumite Arabia. In 570, Abraha, the Aksumite general who rebelled against Kaleb and created his own independent kingdom, died. Abraha struggled to designate a clear heir before his death. While he had many sons, the two who would play the most consequential role in the upcoming struggle were named Masruq and Madi Karib (sometimes also referred to by the name Yaksum).

Note: The identity of Madi Karib is sometimes contested. The mainstream scholarly opinion is that Madi Karib and Yaksum are two names for the same person, with Karib being the name used by Arabs and Yaksum being the one used by Ethiopians. However, it is worth noting that some scholars believe otherwise, and that Yaksum and Madi Karib are two distinct people. This podcast endorsed the mainstream view as espoused by Glen Bowersock in his book The Throne of Adulis: Red Sea Wars on the Eve of Islam. It's also worth noting that many accounts of the period seemingly conflate the actions of Madi Karib and the legendary king Sayf. However, because of his poor attestation in reliable histories outside of the History of Tabari, we opted to side with Bowersock's perspective that Sayf died before the invasion commenced, and that the actions attributed to Sayf during and after the invasion were instead performed by Madi Karib.

Where things went sour between two most prominent sons of Abraha is up for debate. Their struggle may have originated out of a cynical desire for the throne, or it may have been based on a staunch disagreement regarding how they would engage in diplomacy with Aksumite Africa. Masruq favored a policy of reconciliation, and sought to return Aksumite Arabia to a tributary status. Again, his motivations for why are unclear. Reconstructing the history of Masruq and Karib's feud is a bit like asking questions about the chicken and the egg. Did Masruq submit to Aksum for help against Karib's rebellion? Or did Karib rebel because Masruq submitted to Aksum? In the podcast, I chose to make something of a compromise between these views, arguing that Masruq was already planning to submit to Aksum, but that Karib's rebellion made the need to do so more urgent. However, Karib's early attempt to seize the throne failed, and he was sent into exile. 

Given that last episode focused entirely on Aksum's disastrous decline in the era preceding this war, it should not be a surprise that the Aksumite military which would fend off the Persian invasion was a far-cry from the massive armies of Kaleb and Abraha. The combined forces of Masruq's militia and the Aksumite reinforcements sent to aid him tallied approximately 10,000, a far cry from the ~120,000 raised by Kaleb in his invasion of Himyar.

Karib, on the other hand, found himself with a slight advantage. While in exile, Karib found himself in the palace of the Persian shah Khosrow II. The Persians, longtime rivals of the Aksumites, were all too happy to take the opportunity to support this rival claimant to the throne of Aksumite Arabia in an effort to undermine their enemy. There he also met Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan, a Himyarite Arab noble. Like Karib, Yazan also sought to drive Masruq out of southern Arabia. What role Yazan played in this conflict isn't very clear. Some biographies I read claimed that he played a pivotal invasion in the campaign, while others claim he actually died before the invasion succeeded. Personally, this is the theory I lean toward. The evidence of Yazan's presence in Yemen during the invasion is unreliable, and it seems to me that many biographies of Yazan seemingly blend him and Karib into the same person. Additionally, Yazan's biographies often include mythical details, such as Djinn, magic, and spirits, as well as the occasional obvious political commentary from the 15th century Egyptian authors of the biography. These details make it difficult to take the biography of Yazan seriously as a historical source compared to contemporary Persian and Aksumite writings. 

The fashion and styles of this illustration of Sayf ibn Dhi-Yazan are more reminiscent of late-medieval Egypt than late-antiquity Yemen. Look at that moustache!

While Khosrow was willing to support Karib, he clearly viewed this invasion as a huge risk. Rather than committing a true army, Khosrow instead sent an army of prisoners to accompany Karib in his war. These prisoners were from the Daylamite ethnic group, which had rebelled against Khosrow in support of a rival. The leader of these Daylamites was named Boe (pictured below with the bow in hand), who led this force of 1,000 Daylamites into Yemen. In the end, only about 800 made it to their destination (the rest were blown off course), but their forces swelled to 16,000 men with the rallying of both Karib and Yazan's supporters to the invaders' side.

This combined force met Masruq's army in Hadramawt, the eastern fringes of Aksumite Arabia. Initial clashes were mostly even, with Masruq gaining a minor advantage on his foes despite his numerical inferiority. However, the tide of the battle turned when the son of the Persian commander Boe was killed in battle. Enraged by the death of his son, Boe began targeting Masruq himself with arrowfire. One of these arrows eventually struck and killed Masruq, with the scene being depicted below in the Tārīkhnāma, a Persian manuscript.  

Similarly to the Yazan illustration, the fashion and styles depicting the death of Masruq more closely resemble the styles that the Tārīkhnāma's 10th century Persian authors would be familiar with.

Demoralized by the death of their leader, the Aksumite forces scattered. With Persian support, Karib retook the throne of an independent Yemeni kingdom, once again dominated by the region's Aksumite elites. However, the kingdom remained unstable after Karib ascended to the throne. Just three years after he retook his position, Karib's kingdom was once again invaded by an Aksumite force, allegedly led by one of Abraha's other, less prominent sons. With Karib dead, a larger Persian army led by Boe once again invaded the territory and defeated the Aksumite defenders, this time outright annexing the region into a Persian satrapy with Boe, now known by his new title of Wahriz, serving as its governor.

Earlier in the season, I realized an episode entitled the Aksumite Empire's Greatest Defeat, which focused on the failed campaign of Negus Datwinas in Southern Arabia. While I still believe that Datwinas' campaign should hold the title for Aksum's greatest defeat, the loss of Yemen to Persian invasion certainly comes close. Just as the throne of Aksum had regained its foothold in Yemen, it was lost almost immediately. Had Aksum maintained its hold on Yemen, as well as the incense monopoly and control over the Red Sea it enabled, who knows how history would have turned out. Additionally, the expulsion of Aksumite influence in Yemen would force the Aksumites to take desperate measures to maintain influence in Arabia. This leads us into next week's episode, which focuses on the rise of Islam from an Aksumite perspective, and how the actions of the Aksumite king Armah (also known as Najashi) changed the history of the world forever.

Anyways, here's a video of a guy shooting the Persian "Panjegan" bow, or at least a modern guess at what they may have looked like.

S2 E12: The Year of the Elephant and the First Plague

Hello everyone. I hope you enjoy the latest episode of the show, in which Aksum (and the whole world, really) are devastated by the First Plague Pandemic, and Abraha's kingdom of Aksumite Arabia begins to unravel.

Map of the First Plague Pandemic

If you'd like to learn more about the evidence we have for the First Plague pandemic originating in Subsaharan Africa, you can listen to the latest premium episode on our Patreon. For just $1.99, you get to access all of our premium episodes.

Depiction of an Aksumite in Zafar, Yemen. Often claimed to be a representation of Abraha, though this is debatable.

With the plague dying down in Southern Arabia, Abraha set to work repairing his kingdom's economy. The old staple industry of Yemen, the export of incenses, would struggle with the drought facing the country. While the Marib dam was eventually repaired, the newly reinvigorated farmland had to be used to eliminate the famine ravaging the countryside. Instead, Abraha placed his economic hopes in pilgrimage. He ordered the construction of an incredibly elaborate church in Sana'a, hoping that it would become an attractive destination for pilgrims across Arabia. 

The remaining foundation of the Al-Qullays Church

However, these pilgrims came only in small numbers. Most Arabian Christians stuck with the more familiar and popular pilgrimage destination: the Kaaba. The Kaaba was a cube shaped building outside of Mecca, an ancient temple used as a multi-purpose worship site by the various religions of Arabia. The various tribes of the peninsula would, once each year, set aside their feuds and disputes to peacefully worship and trade at the Kaaba. According to Islamic and Arab-Christian tradition, the Kaaba was first constructed by Ishmael, the oldest son of Abraham. Most contemporary historians assert that the Kaaba was not as old as initially claimed, and was instead built in the early centuries AD as a shrine to Hubal, one of the numerous gods of North-Arabian polytheism. Regardless, the Kaaba was already a centuries-old and pilgrimage to the site was already a well established tradition when Abraha tried to build his competing church. Realizing that he couldn't attract pilgrims while the Kaaba existed, Abraha launched an attack on Mecca in an attempt to destroy the Kaaba. While his army won the initial skirmishes on his way to the city, he was unsuccessful in his bid to enter the city. According to the Islamic tradition, Abraha was slowed by his elephant mount, Mahmud, refusing to advance. Then, he was attacked and eventually killed by a flock of birds. The modern re-interpretation of the story is that Abraha's army was either beset by plague or ran out of supplies and was forced to turn back. Soon after he returned, he passed away.

Abraha's death immediately destabilized Aksumite Arabia. In place of an established, long-time ruler, Aksumite Arabia was now ruled by one of Abraha's inexperienced sons, Masruq. To make matters worse, Masruq immediately had to contend with multiple rivals who wanted his position of power for themselves. Not only did many of the powerful Arab chieftains and nobles want the Aksumite prince out of Arabia forever, but he also found opposition from within the Aksumite elites. This latter group was emboldened further when Masruq, desperate for allies, submitted to Ella Amidas and resumed tribute payments. One of Masruq's brothers, Madi Karib, was immensely angered by this decision. He turned on his brother, and began plotting a revolt, but was exiled before it could get underway. However, Karib was not willing to give up so soon. He, as well as an Arab noble called Sumyafa Ashwa, fled to Persia, where they beseeched the Persian Shah for assistance in toppling Masruq. Next episode will focus on the inevitable war with Persia. If you'd like to make sure you catch it, follow our show on whatever platform you use to listen.