Ethiopian–Adal War

Abyssinian– Adal war
Yagbea Sion Battling the Sultan of Adal ʿUmarDīn Maḥamed.
Date 1529–1543 (14 years) Location Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea Result Status quo ante bellum Withdrawal of the Adal-Ottoman armies from the Ethiopian Highlands after the death of Ahmed ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi. Conflict continues between the armies of the and Amiric successors; Galawdewos and Nur ibn Mujahid. Continued Ottoman military presence in the region, forcing Medri Bahri to switch allegiance to Adal. Weakening of the Abyssinians and Adalites, which opened the door for The Great Oromo Migrations. The eventual collapse of Adal and Mogadishu Sultanate
Belligerents
Ethiopian Empire Medri Bahri Portuguese Empire (1542–43)	Adal Sultanate Mogadishu Sultanate  Ottoman Empire (1542–43)
Commanders and leaders
Dawit II of Ethiopia Eleni of Ethiopia Gelawdewos of Ethiopia † Cristóvão da Gama  Bahr negus Yeshaq Na'od of Ethiopia	Imam Ahmed Ibrahim † Bati del Wambara Nur ibn Mujahid Sayid Mehmed Garad Emar Imam Mahfuz †

Status quo ante bellum

The Abyssinian–Adal war was a military conflict between the Ethiopian Empire and the Adal Sultanate that took place from 1529 until 1543. Abyssinian troops consisted of Amhara, Tigrayan and Agew tribes. Adal forces consisted of Harla (Hararis) and Somali tribes.

Islam was introduced to the Horn of Africa early on from the Arabian peninsula, shortly after the hijra. In the late 9th century, Al-Yaqubi wrote that Muslims were living along the northern Somali seaboard. He also mentioned that the Adal kingdom had its capital in the city, suggesting that the Adal Sultanate with Zeila as its headquarters dates back to at least the 9th or 10th centuries. According to I.M. Lewis, the polity was governed by local dynasties consisting of Somalized Arabs or Arabized Somalis, who also ruled over the similarly-established Sultanate of Mogadishu in the Benadir region to the south. Adal's history from this founding period forth would be characterized by a succession of battles with neighbouring Abyssinia.

Between 1529 and 1543, the military leader Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi defeated several Ethiopian emperors and embarked on a conquest referred to as the Futuh Al-Habash ("Conquest of Abyssinia"), which brought three-quarters of Christian Abyssinia under the power of the Muslim Sultanate of Adal. With an army mainly composed of Somalis, Al-Ghazi's forces and their Ottoman allies came close to extinguishing the ancient Ethiopian kingdom. However, the Abyssinians managed to secure the assistance of Cristóvão da Gama's Portuguese troops and maintain their domain's autonomy. Both polities in the process exhausted their resources and manpower, which resulted in the contraction of both powers and changed regional dynamics for centuries to come. Many historians trace the origins of hostility between Somalia and Ethiopia to this war. Some scholars also argue that this conflict proved, through their use on both sides, the value of firearms such as the matchlock musket, cannons and the arquebus over traditional weapons.

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