Religious Coercion of the Minority

Things began to take a different turn in the latter part of the nineteenth Century. Emperor Tewodros II (1855-1868) issued a decree in 1864 commanding his Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity or leave his country (38). Tewodros also commanded his soldiers to sack the city under the pretext that its inhabitants refused to pay taxes. Following this, inhabitants of Gondar, Christians as well as Muslims, fled the town and sought shelter elsewhere (39). Tewodros' troops sacked the churches and plundered the merchants of Gondar. By ravaging Gondar, he brought to an end the politico-economic preeminence and the commercial importance of the town which had begun, under Emperor Fasiladas, to encourage large numbers of Muslims, Falasha and Qimant into its immediate vicinity some two hundred and thirty years earlier (40). The destruction wrought by Tewodros and his attempt at forcible conversion resulted in almost the total temporary abandonment of Gondar (41). Emperor Tewodros' decree bore heavily on the Islamic population of Gondar. The majority of the Muslims became Christians under duress. Those who did not want to convert dispersed to the outlying regions and maintained their religion and customs. According to the French traveller Guillaume Lejean, a rich Muslim by the name of Adem Kourman left for Massawa, leaving behind a good fortune and beautiful wife, both of which were taken by Tewodros (42). Lejean also vividly expressed that The Islam Bet, center of Abyssinian commerce and a stranger to all revolutions, was sacked and almost destroyed.(43) In the final analysis, Tewodros' efforts to promote religious unity in the empire were ineffective (44).

Emperor Yohannis IV (1872-1889) employed religion to fortify state authority. Yohannis was not unique. He simply shared the idea of his predecessor Emperor Tewodros who regarded the unity of religion as a viable method of unification in the Christian highlands (45). In May/June 1878, Yohannis summoned the Council of Borumeda to bring to an end the doctrinal disputes which had disrupted the clergy of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church for over a century (46). Yohannis proved especially harsh towards the Muslims of Wallo, both in the service of his beliefs and as an instrument of political unification. He concentrated his evangelical efforts in Wallo province whose location between Tigray to the north, Bagemdir and Gojjam to the west and Showa to the south separated the core Christian highlands (47).

Four months after the Council of Borumeda, in October 1879, Emperor Yohannis confirmed to Nebura Ed Iyasu, governor of Aksum in Tigray that no Muslim might be allowed to remain in the holiest city of the empire. Yohannis declared that any Muslim who did not want to be baptized, had to leave his country. The Emperor also ordered that books about Islamic exegesis should be burned (48). On the other hand, the Emperor promised to converts that they would be given inheritable landed property together with the Christians (49). Although the offer of inheritable lands to Muslims who were almost wholly bereft of landed property was attractive, Muslims in Aksum and Adwa persisted in their Islamic practices (50). In 1881, Emperor Yohannis proceeded to Gondar and razed the mosque at the Muslims quarter. In its place, he built a church (51). The Emperor, as he had done before for the holiest city of Aksum, offered the Muslims of Gondar two choices either to embrace Christianity or to leave his domain (52). Those who refused to be baptized had to flee to Omdurman in Sudan and to Wallo where they joined the resistance movement of shaykh Talha Ibn Ja'far (53).

Following the death of Yohannis in his wars with the Mahdist state in March 1889, Minilik II (1889-1913) began to show moderate attitudes towards Muslims. Needless to say however, as Richard Caulk convincingly argued "the apparently moderate attitudes prevailing once Menilik became Emperor in 1889 need not represent a complete break" (54). By the turn of the century, a convert from Islam by the name of shaykh Zakaryas began to advocate the primacy of Christianity in Dabra Tabor. His activities troubled the Muslims of Gondar (55). Emperor Minilik issued a proclamation permitting shaykh Zakaryas to teach in any Muslim area (56). Minilik also granted him one hundred rifles, four thousand Maria Theresa Thalers from the imperial treasury and the fief of Hawarya Abo parish in Bagemdir (57). In such a manner, Minilik also tried to exploit religion for political purposes and encouraged converts from Islam. Nonetheless, Minilik's aim was not so much to promote Muslim conversion as to contain the advance of Islam in his empire-state (58). In Gondar itself, the preaching of shaykh Zakaryas coupled with the attraction of owing inheritable lands did not bring about a mass Muslim conversion to Christianity (59).

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38 Trimingham, p.118; Richard Pankhurst, History of Ethiopian Towns From the Mid-Nineteenth Century to 1935. Stuttgart 1985, p. 45.

39 Harmuzd Rassam, Narrative of the British Mission to Theodore, King of Abyssinia, vol.1, London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1869, p.35; Sven Rubenson, The Survival of Ethiopian Independence. London: Heinemann, 1978, p. 241.

40 Pankhurst, pp.45-50.

41 Pankhurst, p. 54.

42 Guillaume Lejean, Theodore II; Le Nouvel Empire d'Abyssinie et les Intérêts Francais dans le Sud de la Mer Rouge. Paris: 1865, pp. 167-78.

43 Ibid, p.168; see also. L. Fusella, Le Lettere del Dabtara Assaggakhan, Rassegna Di Studi Ethiopici. Rome: vol.XII, 1954, p.82; also indicated that the Muslim quarter in Gondar was noted for its commerce, p. 83.

44 John Markakis, Ethiopia Anatomy of a Traditional Polity. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1974, p. 67.

45 Richard A. Caulk, Religion and the State in Nineteenth Century Ethiopia, Journal of Ethiopian Studies, vol. X, n°.1, Addis Ababa: January 1972, p. 23; Trimingham, p. 118; Pankhurst, p.45.

46 Caulk, p. 23. For the Council of Borumeda, see Gabra Silassie, Tärikä Zämän Zä-Dägmawi, Minilik Nigus Nägäst Zä-Itiyopya. Addis Ababa: Artistic Printing Press, 1959 E.C. pp. 86-92.

47 Zewde Gabre Sellassie, Yohannes IV of Ethiopia: A Political Biography. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975, p. 100; Hussein Ahmed, The Life and Career of Shaykh Talha B. Ja'far (c.1853-1936), Journal of Ethiopian Studies, vol.XXII, November, 1989, p. 17.

48 Caulk, p. 28, taken from a letter Yohannis wrote to Nebura Ed Iyasu, Sämära, 17 Teqemt 1872/27 October 1879.

49 Ibid.

50 Ibid., p.29

51 Informants: Garima Taffara and Yussuf Ahmad, cited supra. See also Gabira Madhin Kidane, Yohannis IV: Religious Aspects of His Internal Policy, Senior Essay, Department of History, Addis Ababa University, May 1972, p.25.

52 Caulk, p.28. See also Simon David Messing, The Highland Plateau Amhara of Ethiopia, Ph.D. dissertation in Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, 1957, pp.184-85; mentions that the Amhara Christians considered the Muslims in the midst of the highlands as foreign as Arabs. Ethiopian Muslims, on their part, referred to Amhara Christians as Kaffir to mean infidels.

53 Informants: Garima Taffara and Yussuf Ahmad, cited supra; Zewde Gabre-Sellassie, pp. 196-97; Hussein Ahmed, p. 21.

54 Caulk, p.41

55 Donald Crummey, Shaikh Zakaryas: An Ethiopian Prophet, Journal of Ethiopian Studies, vol.X, n°1, Addis Ababa: Jan. 1972, pp. 57, 59-60; Asfaw Tasamma Warqe, Ya Ras Gugsa Wale Tarik, Institute of Ethiopian Studies: Photocopy of the unpublished manuscript, MS, n°998, June 1977, folio. 87.

56 Crummey, p. 61.

57 Ibid., pp.63-64, 66.

58 Ibid., p.64; Caulk, p. 41.

59 Manuscript in the hands of Abba Garima Taffara, cited supra; Informants: Aligaz Yimar, Garima Taffara, Mitiku Kasse, Nure Ambaw and Yussuf Ahmad, cited supra; Grottanelli, p.149.