During the Middle Ages there were six Beja kingdoms that were established. These kingdoms stretched from the lowlands of Eritrea to Aswan in Egypt. The Beja kingdoms occupied much of the former territory of the Aksum empire. [1] [2] These kingdoms were first noted by the famous Arab historian Al-Yaqubi during the 9th century A.D. [2] The names of the kingdoms were Nagash, Tankish, Belgin, Bazin, Jarin and Qita'a. These kingdoms bordered each other and the powerful Nubian Alodia kingdom. [2] To the south of the Beja kingdoms was a Christian kingdom called Najashi. [1] Gold, precious stones and emeralds were found in many of the kingdoms. Al-Yaqubi noted that Muslim Arabs visited the kingdoms for trading purposes. He also noted that Arabs worked in the mines of the kingdoms. [1]
The rise of the Beja tribes was one of the main reasons for the demise of the Aksumite empire in the 7th century. Raids and invasions by the Beja tribes weakened the state of the Aksum empire. Also due to the rise of Islam they lost control of their trading routes on the Red Sea coast. The Beja capitalized on this and managed to take over much of Aksum's territory. Towards the end of the 7th century A.D, a powerful Beja tribe called the Zanafaj acquired a unified structure and penetrated the Eritrean plateau through the valley of Gash-Barka and raided the Aksumites. Much of the Eritrean Highlands were overrun by Beja tribes and many of the dispersed Aksumites fled southwards. After the fall of Aksum the coastal regions were occupied by the Beja. [1]
The Beja kingdoms were subdivided by tribes and clans. These clans were noted by Al-Yaqubi to be the Hedareb, Suhab, Amarar, Kubir, Manasa, Ras'a, Arbari'a and Zanafaj. It is also noted that the Kunama were a part of the Bazin kingdom, due the fact that they are called Bazen by Abyssinians. [1] [2] The Beja tribes were on good terms with Muslim Arabs that worked and visited their kingdoms. [1] At the time that Al-Yaqubi visited the kingdoms, the Bazin kingdom was at war with the Nubian kingdom of Alodia. [2] The Beja kingdoms were warlike and powerful nations who were skilled at warfare. There was a Beja tribe that was described as a warrior clan. The name of the clan was Dar As-Sawa. The young men of this particular tribe were sent to military training school, where they were trained for war and combat. [2]
The inhabitants of the kingdoms that were located in Eritrea were agriculturalist and pastoralist. These kingdoms established some of the modern day cities. After 600 years, [3] the former Beja kingdoms were replaced by the powerful Belew kingdom (also called Mezega/Bellou/Kelew) whom were also Beja (Balaw). [3] [4] [5]
The Beja people are a Cushitic ethnic group native to the Eastern Desert, inhabiting a coastal area from southeastern Egypt through eastern Sudan and into northwestern Eritrea. They are descended from peoples who have inhabited the area since 4000 BC or earlier, although they were Arabized by Arabs who settled in the region. They are nomadic and live primarily in the Eastern Desert. The Beja number around 1,900,000 to 2,200,000 people.
Makuria was a medieval Nubian kingdom in what is today northern Sudan and southern Egypt. Its capital was Dongola in the fertile Dongola Reach, and the kingdom is sometimes known by the name of its capital.
Banu Kanz, also known as Awlad Kanz, was a semi-nomadic Muslim dynasty of Arab descent that ruled the border region between Upper Egypt and Nubia between the 10th and 15th centuries. They were descended from the sons of sheikhs of the Arab Banu Hanifa tribe who intermarried with the princesses of the Beja Hadariba tribe. They gained official control over the region of Aswan, Wadi Allaqi and the frontier zone in the early 11th century when their chief, Abu al-Makarim Hibatallah, captured a major rebel on behalf of the Fatimid authorities. Abu al-Makarim was accorded the title Kanz al-Dawla by Caliph al-Hakim and his successors inherited the title. The Banu Kanz entered into conflict with the Ayyubids in 1174, during which they were defeated and forced to migrate southward into northern Nubia, where they helped accelerate the expansion of Islam in the mostly Christian region. They eventually assumed control of the Nubian Kingdom of Makuria in the early 14th century, but by the early the 15th century, they were supplanted by the Hawwara tribesmen dispatched by the Mamluks to combat the Banu Kanz. Their modern-day descendants are a Sudanese tribe known as the "Kunuz", who live in the far north of the country.
Alodia, also known as Alwa, was a medieval kingdom in what is now central and southern Sudan. Its capital was the city of Soba, located near modern-day Khartoum at the confluence of the Blue and White Nile rivers.
Abu Muhammad Abdallah ibn Ahmad ibn Salimal-Aswani was a tenth-century Egyptian diplomat and Shia Muslim dāʿī (missionary) in the service of the Fatimids. Following the Fatimid conquest of Egypt, he was dispatched to Nubia by the Fatimid governor Jawhar al-Siqilli in 975 AD (365 AH) or perhaps a little earlier. He left a written record of his mission, the Kitāb Akhbār al-Nūba waʾl-Muḳurra wa ʿAlwa waʾl-Buja waʾl-Nīl. This is the only surviving eyewitness description of medieval Nubia other than the very brief account in Ibn Ḥawqal.
Habesha peoples is an ethnic or pan-ethnic identifier that has been historically employed to refer to Semitic speaking and predominantly Oriental Orthodox Christian peoples found in the highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea between Asmara and Addis Ababa and this usage remains common today. The term is also used in varying degrees of inclusion and exclusion of other groups.
ʾAbū l-ʿAbbās ʾAḥmad bin ʾAbī Yaʿqūb bin Ǧaʿfar bin Wahb bin Waḍīḥ al-Yaʿqūbī, commonly referred to simply by his nisba al-Yaʿqūbī, was an Arab Muslim geographer.
The Islamization of the Sudan region (Sahel) encompasses a prolonged period of religious conversion, through military conquest and trade relations, spanning the 8th to 16th centuries.
The Kunama are an ethnic group native to Eritrea. They are one of the smallest ethnic communities in Eritrea, constituting only 4% of the population. Most of the estimated 260,000 Kunama live in the remote and isolated area between the Gash and Setit rivers near the border with Ethiopia. The Kunama people have ancient ancestry in the land of Eritrea. In the 2007 Ethiopian census, however, the number of Kunama in Tigray has dropped to 2,976 as the remaining 2,000 or so members of this ethnic group have migrated into the other regions of Ethiopia.
The migration to Abyssinia, also known as the First Hijra, was an episode in the early history of Islam, where the first followers of the Islamic prophet Muhammad migrated from Arabia due to their persecution by the Quraysh, the ruling Arab tribal confederation of Mecca. They sought and were granted refuge in the Kingdom of Aksum, an ancient Christian state that was situated in modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea, in 9 BH (613 CE) or 7 BH (615 CE). The ruling Aksumite monarch who received them is known in Islamic sources as Najashi, the Negus of the kingdom; modern historians have alternatively identified him with the Aksumite king Armah and Ella Tsaham. Some of the Sahabah exiles returned to Mecca and made the migration to Medina with Muhammad, while the others remained in Aksum and arrived in Medina in 628.
Tigray Province, also known as Tigre, was a historical province of northern Ethiopia that overlayed the present day Afar and Tigray regions. Akele Guzai borders with the Tigray province. It encompassed most of the territories of Tigrinya-speakers in Ethiopia. Tigray was separated from the northern Tigrinya speaking territories by the Mareb River, now serving as the state border to Eritrea, bordering Amhara region in the south.
The Banu Abs are an ancient Bedouin tribe that originated in central Arabia. They form a branch of the powerful and numerous Ghatafan tribes. They still inhabit the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa but have spread to many other regions of the world, as well. Their descendants today include the large Al Qubaisat tribe located in United Arab Emirates, Bani Rasheed tribe located in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Yemen, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Sudan, Eritrea, and Jordan, and the Banu Rawaha located mostly in Oman and the UAE. They are known to be the second strongest tribe after The Prophet's Tribe. Parts of the Mahas tribe of the Butana region in Sudan are also linked by blood to the Banu Abs due to intermarriage between the Sudanese Rashaida tribe and the Mahas peoples. One of the earliest stories concerning this tribe was the famous classical love and war story of Antar and Abla.
The terms African civilizations, also classical African civilizations, or African empires are terms that generally refer to the various pre-colonial African kingdoms. The civilizations usually include Egypt, Carthage, Axum, Numidia, and Nubia, but may also be extended to the prehistoric Land of Punt and others: Kingdom of Dagbon, the Empire of Ashanti, Kingdom of Kongo, Empire of Mali, Kingdom of Zimbabwe, Songhai Empire, the Garamantes the Empire of Ghana, Bono state, Harla Kingdom and Kingdom of Benin.
The Kingdom of Aksum, also known as the Kingdom of Axum, or the Aksumite Empire, was a kingdom in East Africa and South Arabia from Classical antiquity to the Middle Ages. Based in what is now Northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, and spanning present day Djibouti and Sudan, it extended at its height into much of Southern Arabia during the reign of Kaleb, King of Axum.
Bāḍiʿ was a medieval African port on the Red Sea. It was the first port established by the Arabs in the Bilād al-Sūdān and flourished between about 600 and 1100. It was a merchant settlement conducting trade between its hinterland and Arabia. It does not appear to have fallen under the authority of any established state.
Tulayha ibn Khuwaylid ibn Nawfal al-Asadi or Tulayha Al-Kaddab Arabic: طليحة الكذاب was a wealthy Arab clan chief and military commander during the time of Muhammad; he belonged to the Banu Asad ibn Khuzaymah tribe.
The Kingdom of Bazin was an early medieval kingdom centered in Northeast Africa. According to Al-Yaqubi, it was one of six Beja polities that existed in the region during the 9th century. The kingdom's territory was located between Aswan and Massawa.
The Kingdom of Jarin was an early medieval kingdom centered in Northeast Africa. According to Al-Yaqubi, it was one of six Beja kingdoms that existed in the region during the 9th century. The kingdom's territory was located between Gash-Barka and Massawa. The king of Jarin rule extended from Massawa on the Red Sea coast, to the frontier of Gash-Barka having borders with the Baqlin kingdom.It was one of the five Beja kingdoms noted by Al-Yaqubi.
Balī is an Arab tribe present in northwestern Saudi Arabia, Jordan and historically in Egypt and Sudan and a major component of the Quda'a tribal grouping. In the pre-Islamic period, the southern branches of the tribe inhabited northwestern Arabia and developed close ties with Jewish communities resident in its oases, while the northern branch established itself in Transjordan and served as auxiliaries of the Byzantine Empire. With the advent of Islam, Bali townspeople in Medina embraced the new religion and several were slain fighting the Quraysh of Mecca.
The history of Ethiopia in the Middle Ages roughly spans the period from the decline of the Kingdom of Aksum in the 7th century to the Gondarine period beginning in the 17th century. Aksum had been a powerful empire during late antiquity, appearing in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and mentioned by Iranian prophet Mani as one of the "four great kingdoms on earth", along with the Sasanian Empire of Persia, the Roman Empire, and China's Three Kingdoms. The kingdom was an integral part of the trade route between Rome and the Indian subcontinent, had substantial cultural ties to the Greco-Roman world, and was a very early adopter of Christianity under Ezana of Aksum in the mid-4th century. The use of "Ethiopia" to refer to the region dates back to the 4th century. At its height, the kingdom spanned what is now Eritrea, northern Ethiopia, eastern Sudan, Yemen and the southern part of what is now Saudi Arabia. However, by the 7th century, the kingdom had begun a slow decline, for which several possible political, economic, and ecological reasons have been proposed. This decline, which has been termed the "Post-Aksumite Period", saw extreme loss of territory and lasted until the ascension of the Zagwe dynasty.
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