THE CONQUEST OF ABYSSINIA

This book is the first ever complete English translation of the Arabic account on the campaigns of Imam Ahmad b. Ibrahim al-Ghazi (popularly known as Gran) as written by the Yemeni jurist, Shihab al-din Ahmad b. Abd al-Qadir b. Salim b. Uthman (also known as Arab Faqih)... it is a welcome addition to the rich corpus of Arabic literary and historical sources relevant to the sixteenth-century Ethiopia and the Horn. It is particularly useful for English-speaking researchers and established scholars who cannot read either the Arabic text or the authoritative French translation prepared by Rene Basset...both Stenhouse and Pankhurst, and the publisher, deserve high commendation, respectively, for producing such a valuable work that represents a major contribution to the history of Ethiopia and the Horn, and for making it available to the wider English-speaking readership and scholarship. -- Hussein Ahmed is a Professor of History at Addis Ababa University. He is a leading historian of Islam in Ethiopia. * * * In the history of conflict in Africa and beyond, few stories of drama and human tragedy equal Imama Ahmad s conquest of the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia (1529-1543). His short lived spectacular victories and determination to replace Christianity by Islam and the remarkable survival of Christianity in Ethiopia is a story of epic proportions which still generates strong emotion among both the Christian and the Muslim population of Ethiopia. In other words, Imam Ahmad s jihadic war besides being legendary was a major turning point... This is truly a wonderful work, which is destined to remain an indispensable source for the history of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa during the first half of the tumultuous sixteenth century. Anyone interested in understanding the intensity and brutality of religious war will be rewarded by reading this classic. -- Mohammed Hassen is an Associate Professor of African history at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He is the au