Gondar had a historic Islamic community. Yet both Ethiopian and foreign historians tend to view Ethiopia as a Christian country. If they are at all conscious of Islam in Ethiopia, they see it as a geographically distinct and politically marginal phenomenon. In this view Ethiopia consists firstly of a solid dominant block of Christians who live in the highland plateaus and secondly of disparate groups of pastoral lowlanders who follow Islam. The history of Ethiopia then becomes in part the account of tensions and conflicts between these two elements. There are many inadequacies in this view. This study seeks to correct the one concerning the religiously monolithic character of the highlands.

While it is true that the highlands were dominated by Christianity, it is equally true that the highlands possessed a permanent, indigenous Muslim minority, a minority whose native language was either Tigriña or Amharic. As was so frequently the case elsewhere in Africa, the ongoing life of the highland Ethiopian Muslims was closely connected to trade. My concern in this article is to demonstrate the relative economic importance and the survival of the few Gondarine Muslims amidst the christian majority which looked at their mercantile job with contempt and considered their religion inferior.

Trade and weaving were the major occupations opened to the Muslims of Gondar. Trade, both local and international, was the main occupation of the Muslims. Muslims merchants of Gondar dominated the trade of the wider Red Sea region and mastered the techniques involved in long-distances trade and thereby came to preponderate in the commerce of Gondar (1). Perhaps as an extension of their principal role as traders in the cotton that came from Gallabat a good number of the Muslims of Gondar became weavers (2).

In Gondar, there were Christian merchants who mastered the techniques involved in commerce as well. However, Christians had many other opportunities which were basically closed to the Muslims: farming, the military profession, court and legal appointments, etc. In the main, Christians had a general prejudice against commerce. Nonetheless, this did not stop some Christians in the least from taking part in commerce when they wanted to (3). Yet, it is also true that Muslims, excluded as they were from the magistral posts in the political life of Christian Ethiopia, enjoyed success in commerce when dealing with their co-religionists at Matamma and Massawa (4). Muslims were the most important elements of the economy of Gondar. The importation of foreign goods from the coast and the export of rare commodities like gold, ivory, civet and slaves were in the hands of the Muslim merchants. They played an important role in making Gondar the center of wholesale trade for much of northwestern Ethiopia (5).

Gondar's Commercial Relation with Yemen

The establishment of Gondar as the imperial capital, during the reign of Fasiladas (1632-1667), coincided with the return of relative peace to a kingdom wrecked for a hundred years by warfare and rebellion. The policy of Fasiladas to collect customs dues and protect the trade routes favored the expansion of trade, and Gondar may have emerged as the first true urban centre of the Christian kingdom (6). This is clear from an account of a journey to Gondar by the Yemeni Qadi Sharaf al-Din al-Hassan. In response to this visit, Fasiladas sent an embassy to Yemen to negotiate trade relations between Ethiopia and Yemen in 1642. Some five years later, in 1647, he sent a second embassy to Yemen. This time he sent a Gondarine Muslim by the name of al-Hajji Salim b. 'Abd al-Rahim and a Christian whose name was not mentioned (7). Here again, the Christian kings delegated the Muslims of Gondar to establish commercial relations with the Muslims of Yemen.

The Yemeni embassy Al-Haymi noted that the Muslims of Gondar resided in a quarter outside the city, although the inhabitants were not exclusively Muslims (8). Al-Haymi preferred to stay in the house of a Muslim in Gondar (9). The expansion of trade apparently favored the Muslims, who were a significant component of the town's population (10), and were described as being rich (11). This gave impetus to the development of commercial activities throughout the highlands (12). Along with their Muslim peers, there were many well-established Christian merchants in Gondar and elsewhere in the Christian highlands. Hence, while Muslims were generally restricted to trade and generally dominated that activity, they did not monopolize it.

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* I had the opportunity to present a paper on Muslims of Gondar 1900 -1935 to the Spring Symposium of the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, April 2-3,1984. In due course, I was able to conduct further field work on the Muslims of Gondar and their relations with the Christian elite. An earlier version of this paper was published in Katsuyoshi Fukui, Eisei Kurimoto and Masayoshi Shigeta (editors), Ethiopia in Broader Perspective: Papers of the XIIIth International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, vol. 1, Kyoto: Japan, 1997, pp. 128-137.

1 Informants: Aligaz Yimar, Garima Taffara, Mitiku Kasse, Nure Ambaw and Yussuf Ahmad. Aligaz was an excellent local historian. He was interviewed at Dabra Tabor on 5 March 1982 and was 87 at the time of interview. The manuscript was in the hands of abba Garima Taffara. The late abba Garima compiled the manuscript in 1978. He was a major local historian in Gondar. He kindly made the typed manuscript available to me, while I conducted my research in Gondar in the summer of 1979. The manuscript had a wealth of information on Gondarine politics, the church, trade and crafts in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Mitiku and Nure were merchants interviewed at Addis Zaman on 16-17 Sept. 1979. Mitiku was 80 and Nure 82 at the time of interview. Yussuf was a merchant and an outstanding historian. He was interviewed at Gondar on 14-15 Sept. 1979. He was 61 at time of interview. I had the opportunity to interview him at Gondar on 10-15 January 1988 and at Addis Ababa on 17-30 June 1990. See also Vinigi L. Grottanelli, Ricerche Geografiche e Economiche Sulle Popolazioni, Reale Accademia d'Italia, Missione Di Studio al Lago Tana, v. l. II, Rome: Centro Studi per l'Africa Orientale Italiana, 1939. p. 154. Mordechai Abir, Trade and Politics in the Ethiopian Region 1830-1855, Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1964, p. 17.

2 Informants: Aligaz Yimar, Garima Taffara, Mitiku Kasse and Yussuf Ahmad, cited supra.

3 Ibid

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Donald Crummey, Gondarine Rim Land Sales: An Introductory Description and Analysis, in Robert L. Hess (editor), Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference of Ethiopian Studies. Chicago: 1979, p. 469.

7 Emeri Johannes Van Donzel, Foreign Relations of Ethiopia 1642-1700, Leiden: 1979. pp.4-5 Idem (edit. and trans.), A Yemenite Embassy to Ethiopia 1647-1694: Al-Haymi's Sirat Al-Habasha. Stuttgart: 1986, p. 61.

8 A Yemenite Embassy to Ethiopia 1647-1694. p.61. For a parallel that the Muslim quarter of Adwa was not exclusively inhabited by Muslims, see Merid Wodle Aregay, Gondar and Adwa: A Tale of Two cities: in Taddese Beyene (editor), Proceedings of the Eight International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, vol. 2, Addis Ababa: Institute of Ethiopian Studies, 1989, p.61.

9 Van Donzel, A Yemenite Embassy to Ethiopia 1647-1694: Al Haymi's Sirat Al-Habasha, pp. 61-62.

10 Van Donzel, Foreign Relations of Ethiopia 1642-1700, p. 7. The Yemenites who arrived with al-Hajj Salim saw a Muslim village next to the royal court.

11 Ibid., p. 10.

12 Ibid