Ali II of Yejju

Ali II of Yejju (c. 1819 – c. 1866) was a Ras of Begemder and Enderase (Regent) of the Emperor of Ethiopia. He was the son of Alula of Yejju (sometime governor of Damot and then of Gojjam) and Menen Liben Amede (later Empress of Ethiopia through her marriage to Emperor Yohannes III) and nephew of Gugsa of Yejju.

In July 1831, after the death of his cousin, Ras Dori, Ali was appointed Ruler of Begemder and Imperial Regent at the age of 12 in a meeting of the chief nobles of the Yejju at the dynastic capital of Debre Tabor. As Ali was a minor, a council of regents was appointed from these nobles. However, his mother, Menen, soon came to control this council and exerted much influence over political decisions for the next decade.

Ras Ali was officially a Christian but his contemporaries doubted the sincerity of his faith and suspected that he was a secret Muslim. Some modern scholars consider him as indifferent to religion as he was to the problems of ruling his portion of Ethiopia, although Trimingham observes that he attempted to revive the cult of Ahmad Gragn by requiring pilgrimages to his tomb. In any case, the morale of the Ethiopian Church reached its lowest point in the 1840s and 1850s.

For much his reign Ras Ali was constantly at war, either putting down rebellions in his core territories, or defending his territory from rival warlords. In one of these continual campaigns, Ras Ali II plundered the imperial capital, Gondar, in 1838.

Ras Ali made Sahle Dengel Emperor in 1832, but the clergy of Azazo disapproved of the new Emperor's religious beliefs, and convinced Ras Ali to remove him. Sahle Dengel was sent to Zengaj, and Ras Ali recalled Gebre Krestos from Mitraha, an island in Lake Tana, and restored him as Emperor. However, Gebre Krestos died after three months, and Sahle Dengel met with Ras Ali in the village of Tsagur where he convinced Ras Ali to restore him to the throne once again (October, 1832).

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