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The Abridged History of Al-Habashah: From Axum to Abyssinia

By Taym Ansary

Visitors from the West

Fortunately, for the Portuguese their arrival in the Indian Ocean coincided with a nebulous time for the Habashabs and the Al-Habashah as a whole. The issue was succession, as the elderly Negus Umar Muhammed had come to the throne late in life, succeeding his own brother, and had begun to suffer from maladies due to his advanced age. Primarily memory loss and dementia. Subtle at first it became more and more apparent as he demanded orders that had already been given and replaced court officials with ones he had already removed or were dead. In one fit of dementia induced rage he lashed out at everyone around him with a whip forcing out the royal court.

Succession soon became an issue as his sons sought to replace their father and at the same time out do each other. This lead to small civil conflicts and politicking that saw Habashah draw inward on itself. It was during this time that the Portuguese entered the Indian Ocean with remarkable speed and vigor in 1497. Vasco de Gama’s voyage not only found a stable route to the lucrative spice markets but quickly established trading ties that the Portuguese used to hook themselves into the region.

In short order between 1497 and 1506 the Portuguese has established an overseas empire of forts and tributary states from East Africa to India. Always playing on the animosity between local rulers and meting out bloodshed to any Muslims they found (spilling the bitter legacy of the wars between Christians and Muslims of the Mediterranean World into the Indian Ocean).

Mired in their internal struggles the Habashabs were slow to respond to the Portuguese threat. The Portuguese had begun to raid up the Coast of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian sub-continent. Their brutal attacks on Muslim traders brought them more and more attention. Despite this as a practical there was little the Habashabs could do to stop the Portuguese. Their navy was not as prized as the armies of the sultanate, it was maintained to protect shipping in the Red Sea, blunt any attempts by the Mamluks to take control, and project their power into southern Arabia. It could not chase the Portuguese across the Indian Ocean. Negus Jamal ud-Din Umar came to the throne in 1504 and even despite being an improvement on his father the Habashabs did not face the Portuguese until they attacked.

In their investigations about the Powers-That-Be along the Indian Ocean, mostly from Malindi allies, the Portuguese had become aware of the Habashabs. They did know within al-Habashah existed Christian minorities and that their armies were known for their size and ferocity. Perhaps, the Portuguese thought they would eventually liberate these Christian cousins, but for now at least the Portuguese decided to stick to their naval strength.

The Portuguese having captured Ormuz under Alfonso de Albuquerque in 1506 next looked to gaining a stronghold at the mouth of the Red Sea. The plan was to gain control of strategic locations throughout the Indian Ocean by which the Portuguese could completely control the spice trade. By capturing Ormuz they planned to prevent the route from the Persian Gulf, capturing the Moluccas they controlled trade with China, and finally by capturing territory around the Red Sea’s straits they could control the spice trade to Egypt. However, time was of the essence for them as it became clear not just Muslim but other European powers were moving against them. The Venetian Republic, once having the monopoly on the spice trade for Europe was finding itself undercut by the Portuguese, their actions sending prices skyrocketing. They sought out the aid of the Mamluks of Egypt and the Habashabs to curtail the Portuguese. The Mamluks aware that the Portuguese were also undercutting their role in the spice trade, and the Venetian willingness to supply the land-oriented Mamluks with shipwrights, saw them agree to help end the Portuguese threat. It was the Habashabs that were still unconvinced. Still recovering from the misrule of his father and the conflict with his brothers; as well as seeing the Mamluks as a greater threat Negus Jamal ud-Din initially rebuffed the Mamluks and Venetian ambassadors asking for their support.

At least, until the Portuguese attacked.

Keeping with their policy of obtaining defendable strongholds that they could use as strategic chokepoints the Portuguese initially identified the sparsely populated Socotra Islands at the tip of the Horn of Africa as the perfect staging ground for controlling the Red Sea trade routes. The island despite being mostly Christian was also nominally under Habashab rule, receiving tribute from the islanders. Thus, when the Portuguese sent a small fleet to occupy the islands in 1506 Jamal ud-Din was convinced to act against them.

The Battle of Soq was a victory and defeat for Habashah. Their fleet, despite being larger was decimated by the Portuguese ships-which were mostly larger than the majority dhows and the cannons equipped to the Habashab fleet were few and small. Despite this the Portuguese suffered enough casualties that forced them to withdraw from the islands, more so because it became apparent that the islands of Socotra were poor for agriculture and could not support Portuguese ambitions. The battle was also a wakeup call for the Habashabs, where before their strong army had been able to defeat mostly any foe now a strong navy was needed if they were to maintain their interests in the world. Jamal ud-Din immediately began a campaign to revamp his navy for the next fight against the Portuguese.

The efforts of the Habashabs notably brought in a new influx of Somali leaders into the Habashab government, mostly as the admirals and sailors of the new navy as Jamal ud-Din turned to the ocean-adjacent born Somalis for their experience. The Somali leaders were also useful as spies and innovators, as Jamal ud-Din put out a bounty for whatever shipwright could successfully re-create the ship designs of the Portuguese. Portuguese ships becoming more common in the ports across the Indian Ocean were carefully studied, but the Habashabs were years away from building a ship on full part with the Portuguese, the logistics would develop but only with time.

The next step for the Anti-Portuguese alliance was to go on the offensive, to clear out Portuguese forts and factories in the Indian Ocean. In this effort, the Habashabs and Mamluks were joined by the Zamorin of Calicut and the Gujarat Sultanate (India’s growing naval power). In 1508 the Alliance worked to attack Portuguese forts in Ormuz and Kerman, removing the Portuguese control from the Persian Gulf. Next, they went on the offensive against Portuguese territory in India where the main Portuguese armada in the Indian Ocean was stationed.

The campaign to rid the Portuguese from India was a failure. The ships of the alliance again were fairly smaller than the Portuguese despite being more numerous, and were still underequipped by Portuguese standards of naval armament. Further, the alliance had no single command leading to the Portuguese being able to split the alliance’s order of battle. The Habashab ships though did do better than during the Battle of Soq, now manned by Somali sailors and with proper Habashab cannonry they were able to surprise the Portuguese. The Portuguese were stopped from expanding their influence into Gujarat waters but they had yet to be kicked out of India by the time both sides had to retire for monsoon season. The Alliance did also manage to grant a resumption of the Islamic spice trade until the Portuguese once again counterattacked in 1511 raiding up and down the African and Arabian coasts.

Habashah fought in Aden, Kerman, and Mogadishu. The first two as part of the Anti-Portuguese alliance to prevent the Portuguese from regaining their stranglehold on the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. The last was much more personal for the Habashabs as the Portuguese encouraged rebellion in the southern Somali cities. This was a direct attack on the rule of the Negus that Jamal ud-Din would not allow to stand. The Habashab army managed to incur hundreds of Portuguese casualties as the Portuguese soldiers that landed in Mogadishu underestimated the strength of the Habashabs. Fighting the Portuguese and the Ottomans would also provide a powerful catalyst for the transformation of the Habashab army, by this point a mostly feudal entity into a modern fighting force worthy of a gunpowder empire.