Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi

Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi (c.1507 - February 21, 1543) was a Somali Imam and General who defeated several Ethiopian emperors and wreaked much damage on that nation. He is also known as Ahmad Gragn (or Gurey), "Ahmed the left-handed".

He was born near Zeila, a port city located in northwestern Somalia, and married Bati del Wambara, the daughter of governor Mahfuz of Zeila. When Mahfuz was killed returning from a campaign against the Ethiopian emperor Lebna Dengel in 1517, the Adal sultanate lapsed into anarchy for several years, until Imam Ahmad killed the last of the contenders for power and took control of Harar.

In retaliation for an attack on Adal in 1527-8 by the Ethiopian general Degalhan, Imam Ahmad invaded Ethiopia in 1529. Although his troops were fearful of their opponents, and attempted to desert upon news that the Ethiopian army was approaching, Imam Ahmad relied on his elite company armed with matchlocks, and defeated emperor Lebne Dengel at Shimbra Kure that March.¹

Imam Ahmad campaigned again in Ethiopia in 1531, breaking Emperor Lebna Dengel's ability to resist in the Battle of Amba Sel on October 28, then marched north to loot the island monastery of Lake Hayq and the stone churches of Lalibela. When the Imam entered the province of Tigray, he defeated an Ethiopian army that confronted him there, and on reaching Axum destroyed the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion, in which the Ethiopian emperors had been coronated for centuries.

The Ethiopians were forced to ask for help from the Portuguese, who landed at the port of Massawa on February 10, 1541 in the reign of the emperor Gelawdewos. This force was led by Christovão da Gama, and included 400 musketeers and a number of artisans and other non-combatants. Da Gama and Imam Ahmad met on April 1, 1542 at Jarte, which Trimingham has identified with Anasa, between Amba Alagi and Lake Ashenge.² Here te Portuguese had their first glimpse of Ahmad, as recorded by Castanhoso:

While his camp was being pitched, the king of Zeila [Imam Ahmad] acended a hill with several horse and some foot to examine us: he halted on the top with three hundred horse and three large banners, two white with red moons, and one red with a white moon, which always accompanied him, and which he was recognized.³

After the two unfamiliar armies exchanged messages then stared at each other for a few days, on April 4 da Gama formed his troops into an infantry square, and marched against the Imam's lines, repelling successive waves of attacks with their muskets and cannons. This battle ended when Imam Ahmad was wounded in the leg by a chance shot, and seeing his banners signal retreat, the Portuguese and their Ethiopian allies fell upon the disorganized Muslims, who suffered losses but managed to reform next to the river on the distant side.

Over the next several days, Imam Ahmad was reinforced by new arrivals of troops, and understanding the need to act swiftly on April 16 da Gama again formed a square which he led against Imam Ahmad's camp. Although the Muslims fought with more determination than two weeks before — their horse almost broke the Portuguese square — an opportune explosion of some gunpowder tramatized the horses on the Imam's side, and his army fled in disorder. Castanhoso laments that "the victory would have been complete this day had we only one hundred horses to finish it: for the King was carried on men's shoulders in a bed, accompanied by horsemen, and they fled in no order."⁴

Reinforced by the arrival of the Bahr Negash Yishaq, da Gama marched south after Imam Ahmad's force, reaching sight of him ten days later. However, the onset of the rainy season prevented da Gama from engaging Ahmad a third time, and on the advice of Queen Sabla Wengel made a winter camp at Wafla near Lake Ashenge, within sight of his opponent.⁵

Knowing that victory lay in the number of firearms an army had, the Imam sent to his fellow Muslims for help. According to Abbé Joachim le Grand, Imam Ahmad received 2000 musketeers from Arabia, and artillery and 900 picked men from the Ottomans to assist him. Meanwhile, due to casualties and other duties, da Gama's force was reduced to 300 musketeers. After the rains ended, Imam Ahmad attacked the Portuguese camp, and through weight of numbers killed all but 140 of da Gama's troops. Da Gama, badly wounded, was captured with ten of his men and, after refusing an offer of converting to Islam in return for his life, was executed.⁶

The survivors and Galawedos were afterwards able to join forces and, drawing on the Portuguese supplies, they attacked Ahmad on February 21, 1543 in the Battle of Wayna Daga, where their 9,000 troops managed to defeat the 15,000 soldiers under Imam Ahmad. The Imam was killed by a Portuguese musketteer, who was mortally wounded in avenging da Gama's death.

His wife Bati del Wambara managed to escape the battlefield with a remnant of the Turkish soldiers to Harar, where she rallied his followers. She agreed to marry his nephew Nur ibn Mujahid on the condition that Nur would avenge Imam Ahmad's defeat.

"In Ethiopia the damage which [Ahmad] Gragn did has never been forgotten," wrote Paul B. Henze. "Every Christian highlander still hears tales of Gragn in his childhood. Haile Selassie referred to him in his memoirs. I have often had villagers in northern Ethiopia point out sites of towns, forts, churches and monasteries destroyed by Gragn as if these catastrophes had occurred only yesterday."⁷ While acknowledging that many modern Somali nationalists consider Ahmad a national hero, Henze dismisses their claims, stating that the concept of a Somali nation did not exist during Ahmad's lifetime.

Sources

Ahmad's invasion of Ethiopia is described in detail in the Futuh al-habasa ("The Conquest of Ethiopia") written in Arabic by Ahmad's follower Sihab ad-Din Admad ibn 'Abd-al-Qadir, and covers the story up to March 19, 1537. This history was translated into French by René Basset, and Richard Pankhurst has made a partial translation into English.

Primary sources of the Portuguese expedition under Christovão da Gama have been collected and translated by R.S. Whiteway,The Portuguese Expedition to Abyssinia in 1541-1543, 1902 (Nendeln, Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint Limited, 1967).

References

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1. Futuh al-habasa, translated by Richard K. P. Pankhurst in The Ethiopian Royal Chronicles (Addis Ababa: Oxford University Press,1967), pp. 53f.
2. J. Spencer Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia (Oxford: Geoffrey Cumberlege for the University Press, 1952), p. 173.
3. Translated in Whiteway,The Portuguese Expedition, p. 41.
4. Whiteway, The Portuguese Expedition, p. 51.
5. Whiteway, The Portuguese Expedition, p. 53.
6. Described in terms worthy of a saint's life by Jeronimo Lobo, who based his account on the testimony of an eye witness. (The Itinerário of Jerónimo Lobo, translated by Donald M. Lockhart [London: Hakluyt Society, 1984], pp. 201-217).
7. Paul B. Henze, Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia (New York: Palgrave, 2000), p. 90.

External link

• Muslim Invasion in Ethiopia (in German language)

de:Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghasi

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