The term "Horn of Africa" has quite recently attracted the attention of scholars, experts, students, travelers, journalists and the mass media at large. It became popular in the mid 1970s and now has earned a status bigger and weightier than a mere cartographic term. So far there is no agreement among researchers about the content of this term. Some use it as a cartographic concept (equating it with the term Northeast Africa);1  others interpret it as widely as possible,2  while the third group uses it in a narrower way.3  In this study, the term is used neither as a cartographic, nor in its widest interpretation, nor in its narrow sense, but as a term that more or less accurately reflects the contours of the existence for centuries of a unique4  regional and historical entity, an entity different from both of its neighboring civilizations—Arab-Islamic and African. The Horn of Africa is clearly a geographical, anthropological and cultural entity, but, in its own way, it is a diversified entity. More than that, it is the ‘umbilical cord’ of the last two major and ever-rejuvenating civilizations—Arab-Islamic and African.

The current territory of the Horn has been, and to a large extent remains, a homeland for Cushitic peoples. But in the mid-first millennium B. C. "large groups of soil tillers and traders from various tribes, including the Sabaeians"5 , moved to the northern part of the region from south Arabia. Their migration went on for many centuries (from the 5th century B.C to the 1st century A. D.) The Horn of Africa region was attractive to the south Arabians for its essential commodities (ivory, spice, etc.). There was a thriving trade across the Red Sea even in those early centuries. These commodities were important for the south Arabian states (mainly for their trade with other countries—from Zanzibar in East Africa to India and further east). The majority of the colonists from south Arabia settled in present day Eritrea and the Tigray province (state) of Ethiopia where in the 1st century A. D. they formed their own independent province. At the same time, they intermingled with the local Cushitic ethnic communities. After few centuries, a new civilization—Axumite—sprang from this cultural and social intermingling. The language of that civilization was Geez (a Semitic language influenced by the Cushitic languages’ lexical structure).

The Axumite civilization flourished from the 2nd to the 8th centuries and adopted Christianity from the 4th century A. D. Later, Axum, as a major Christian state, with the support of Byzantine (Emperor Justian), carried out in the 6th century major battles against the south Arabian states; but the tide turned against it in the next two centuries, since a new monotheistic world religion—Islam—had emerged in Arabia and had united the Arabs and rapidly spread to the neighboring regions. The formation of the first Islamic state, and later of the Caliphate undermined the trade routes of Axum and thereby monopolized the trade routes from the Mediterranean to India (7th-8th centuries).6 

But before these major events, there was an earlier chapter in the history of Islam and of the Horn, the Axumite Empire. This chapter concerns the rarely well-documented Axumite Hijra (sometimes called the Ethiopian Hijra). This Hijra is not well known in the Islamic world, to say nothing of other world cultures. In the seventh year of the Main Hijra (Hijra al-Nabawiya—from Mecca to Medina), when the Muslim migrants to Axum came back to Medina, Umar ibn al-Khattab (the second of the Four Righteous Caliphs) accused them (those who went to Axum—and hence, the Axumite Hijra) of having left Arabia during the most trying years for Islam; but when the returnees lamented to the prophet about Umar’s words, Muhammad called the migration of some Muslims to Axum a "Hijra", thereby giving it a touch of holiness. That Hijra was led by one of Prophet Muhammad’s closest relatives—Ja’afar binu abu Talib—and the Prophet himself made use of that Hijra, since he married, through the mediation of the Axumite king, Umm Habiba, the daughter of Abu Sufyan, the head of the Meccan anti-Islam and anti-Muhammad Quraysh leadership, and the widow of Ubeidallah binu Jahsh.7 

This Hijra paved the way for the later Main Hijra.8  In this sense, the Horn of Africa has its own unique page in the history of Islam, and Islam is an inalienable part of the history of the peoples of the Horn.

The ethnoreligious structure of the peoples of the Horn of Africa is complex enough, but not as intricate as in many other regions of the Afro-Asian worlds. More than 100 ethnic communities and groups inhabit the current territory of the Horn, but the four largest communities—Amhara, Oromo, Somalis and Tigrayans—constitute more than 70 percent of the population of the Horn. The Amahara, Oromo and Tigrayans constitute more than 60 percent of the population of Ethiopia, the Somalis more than 98 percent of the population of Somalia and more than 60 percent of the population of the Republic of Djibouti. In Eritrea, the Tigrayans constitute approximately 40 percent of the population. Linguistically, more than 60 percent of the peoples of the Horn belong to the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asian family, while the majority of the rest belong to the Semitic branch. The religious composition is almost the same for the Horn as an entity: more than half are Muslims, the majority of the rest, monotheism Christians.9 

The largest single ethnic group in the Horn is the Oromo (90 percent of whom inhabit Ethiopia), subdividing into major sub-ethnic groups—Raya, Wallo, Karaiyu, Afran Kallo, Leqa, Mecha, Tulama, Guji, Arussi, Boran and some others.1 0 According to different sources, the number of the Oromo is estimated at 15 to 30 million.1 1 In terms of religious affialiation the Oromo are divided into three major groups: Christians, Muslims and followers of traditional religions. The numerical correlation of the Christian and Muslim Oromo is a matter for future exact statistics.1 2 But one thing is clear: Islam played and continues to play a major role in the fate of the Oromo people.

The Oromo people, insultingly called Galla until recently, were characterized by some authors as a wild people who contributed nothing to the Ethiopian civilization1 3 having migrated, in the main, into the Ethiopian highlands in a major wave from the mid 16th century. Owing to their military might and skill they overran traditional Abyssinian territory and reached even to its heartland, Begemdir; and already in the 17th century being the largest single ethnic community in both Ethiopia and the Horn, the Oromo played a major role in the social, economic and political life of the Ethiopian society.1 4 But since the Oromo encountered in the Ethiopian highlands people who were more developed "culturally" and economically, they turned from pastoral pursuits settled as peasants and a large number of them later adopted Christianity.

By that time (17th c.) Christianized Oromo families were the rulers of Abyssinia from its capital city, Gondar (Begemdir province). Owing to this, a large body of the Oromo who settled in the Ethiopian highlands adopted Christianity and much of the Amhara culture, including the language. Many of the Oromo people who inhabit the central and southern regions of Ethiopia turned to Christianity after their forced inclusion into the Ethiopian Empire from the mid to end of the 19th century. Among the major reasons many Oromo adopted Christianity one can mention the following:

- For the southern Oromo (and other peoples of Ethiopia) after their conquest in the late 19th century, the only way to save one’s property and power was to join, or at least outwardly submit to the will of the conquerors, i.e. to adopt Christianity and "become" or imitate an Amhara (at large an Abyssinian).

Other Oromo groups adopted Islam as a form of resisting the assimilating force of the Ethiopian state and church (examples, the Raya, Yejju and Wallo); while some of the Islamization of Oromo regions took place centuries before the Oromo settled these regions. According to J. S. Trimingham, the Oromo who settled in the highlands, next to the Amhara and Tigrayans, in the 18th century massively adopted Islam "as a bulwark against being swamped by Abyssinian nationalism".1 5

The Ethiopian empire, especially during the reigns of Menelik II and Haile Selassie I, subjected the majority of the Oromo, especially their southern sub-ethnic groups to harsh feudal exploitation and were earmarked for total assimilation ("Amharization" meant Christianization and ethnic assimilation into the dominant Amharic culture and language). Here, the Muslim Oromo played a leading role in resisting these schemes, and, as we have indicated earlier, Islam became for a large number of Oromos an effective spiritual and political means of resistance to Amharization.1 6

As mentioned earlier, Islam is an inalienable part of the history of the Horn, and this has led to the appearance of major Islamic studies centres in many regions inhabited by the Muslim peoples of the Horn. The most famous among the Oromo Muslim centres is in the Wallo region. According to oral tradition, the Islamization of eastern Wallo took place from the 9th to 12th centuries. In fact the migration and settlement of the Oromo in this region "brought about a temporary disruption in the process of Islamization" which gained major momentum during the time of Imam Ahmad Ibrahim "Gurey" (1506-1543), since the local Muslim communities were being cut off from other Islamic centres such as Ifat and Harar.1 7 The majority of the Oromo who settled in the Wallo region adopted Islam in the 18th to 19th centuries, which boosted Islam’s further spread in Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Islam played a major role in the ethno-national awakening of the Oromo. The Muslim Oromo were the first to begin a real resistance against the assimilation policies of the Ethiopian regime. The long and bloody uprising of the Oromo of the Bale region in the 1960s led by the legendary Waqo Guto is but an example. Nowadays, a complicated process of uniting politically the confessionally divided Oromo is going on. As a rule religion may divide an ethnolinguistic community into two or more ethnically independent, parts as has happened with the Bengalis in India and in Bangladesh.1 8 Here, as it were, the political will to create an Oromo nation-state will be crucial in surmounting the religious, social and linguistic cleavages characteristic of the Oromo people.

The term ‘Amhara’ since the mid 19th century has not been used primarily as an ethnic concept. According to Chernetsov, a prominent Russian Ethiopianist, it is not correct to talk about Amhara domination as an ethnic domination, especially before the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. After analyzing the usage of the term ‘Amhara’ in the literature of the 14th to 17th centuries, Chernetsov came to a very important conclusion: "In the 17th century in contrast to the 20th century, the word ‘Amhara’ was not yet an ethnonym". If we postulate, continues Chernetsov, that the "Amhara were not an ethnic community, but rather a military strata within the Ethiopian feudal state, then it becomes clear why and how the Amhara played both the role of the pillar of statehood and the bedrock of the power of the kings, and thereby dominated the other population" of the country. "Although nowadays the term ‘Amhara’ is used as an ethnonym, it would be a mistake to use it only in this regard" concludes Chernetsov.1 9 With time this special strata developed into an ethnic community (this is usually a long historical process). Since the 13th century, the Amhara remained the leading political power and the main force in state-building in Ethiopia; and as empire-builders, their ethnopolitical consciousness, or self-identity, was closely associated with the name of the state (politonym), first with the Abyssinian state (hence Abyssinians), and later with the Ethiopian empire (hence Ethiopians). To the majority of the Amhara, even quite recently, the terms ‘Ethiopian’ and ‘Amhara’ were virtually synonymous. This is one of the major reasons why for a long time the ethnic self-identity of the Amharas could not differentiate itself from the politonym.2 0 In this sense, the ethno-national consolidation of the Amahara, as that of the majority of the peoples of the Horn, is not yet finished.

In world history this is not unique to the ethno-confessional and ethnopolitical situation in Ethiopia. The Turkish thinker Zia Gokalp, analyzing at the beginning of the 20th century the crystallization of the ethno-national self-identity among the different constituent peoples of the Ottoman Empire, remarked that ethno-national identity took place in the following sequence:

In this regard, the conclusion is clear and Gokalp draws it: the fact that the ethno-national identity (of which the ethno-confessional is an inalienable part) emerged among the peoples of the Empire in that sequence is not accidental, since the Turkish population and specifically its ruling elite believed more and longer than the others in Ottomanism.2 1 The Kemalist Revolution in Turkey was a revolution against Ottomanism, a national, i.e., Turkish revolution. In this sense, Ethiopia, congruent to the new historical conditions, follows in the footsteps of the decay of the Ottoman Empire. First, almost all other major ethno-confessional groups revolted against Ethiopianism (understood as Amharadom). Here, the sequence was different: first the Muslim Somalis and Eritreans and Oromo began to revolt against the Empire; then the Christian Eritreans and Oromo joined that struggle; and later, the most ancient of all Christian peoples of Ethiopia, the Tigrayans, joined it. The rationale was that the Christian Ethiopians were more incorporated into the system and received certain benefits from it, as long as they accepted an Amharic dominance of culture and power.

Another question which complicates the ethnic and demographic composition of the Amhara is related to the problem of the Amharic language. For the last 100 years this was de facto the official language of the Empire and was a major instrument in the assimilation of other ethnic communities. (Amharic was the only language that the state, both in the Imperial and post-Imperial eras, supported and developed). One example: The Government of Emperor Haile Selassie I introduced into the educational system state examinations at grade 6, 8 and 12. Those examinations included fluency in Amharic both oral and written. As a result, the majority of the pupils did not pass these examinations, "especially the Amharic language".2 2 This screening system was mainly directed against the non-Amhara pupils. Here, as it were, it is also necessary to differentiate three distinct categories of Amharic language speakers: Amharic-speaking groups; native Amharic-speakers; and the Amhara proper (as an ethno-confessional community).

Amharic-speaking groups are all those who have learned this language (either in the schools, or in daily life), but who have and speak their own mother tongues; the native Amharic-speakers are those people to whom the Amharic language is their mother tongue (but who had another mother tongue which they do not speak as a result of language assimilation, and who do not identify themselves as Amhara); and the Amhara proper, those who speak Amharic as their mother tongue and identify themselves as Amhara. These three categories of the population, especially the last two, should be differentiated when it comes to ethno-linguistic classification, and also to the determination of the ethnic composition of all multi-ethnic and multi-confessional countries. The reason behind this is that the first two categories are not identical with the last. Among other things, this is a reason why the estimate of the Amhara population in Ethiopian varies widely from 5 to 18 million.2 3 The identity of an ethnic community depends not only on common language, common religion, etc., but also basically on common self-consciousness. When this consciousness, both on the individual and group levels, is eroded, we talk about an assimilated individual and/or group. (A person can belong to a modern polity, but still retain his/her ethnic identity. This is the contradiction between ethnicity and citizenship. Here the rule is: the more the citizenship principle is the defining factor in the political and cultural history of modern nations, the less the ethnic factor maintains its status on both the individual and group levels, and vice versa).

The third largest ethnic group in the Horn is the Somalis. More than 10 million Somalis inhabit the Republic of Somalia (slightly over 50 percent of all Somalis), the Republic of Ethiopia (12 percent), the Republic of Djibouti (above 60 percent of the population) and the republic of Kenya (more than half a million, not counting the current Somali refugees there).2 4 The absolute majority (99 percent) of all Somalis in all four countries are Sunnite Muslims of the Shafi’i School.

2.The Daraawiish Movement (1899-1920) led by the legendary Sayyid Muhammad Abdille Hassan.2 5 This movement was basically a resistance movement and a challenge to the colonial partition of the Somali peninsula. It was targeted against both Britain, Italy and the new imperial state formed in Ethiopia. Its ideology was ethno-confessional, juxtaposing the Somali Muslim of the Salihia order against the Christian British, Italian, Ethiopian, and also against the Somali ‘collaborators’ of such other Muslim orders as the Qaddiriya. The Daraawiish battle cry was not "We Somalis" against foreign rule; rather it was ‘We Somali Muslims’ against foreigners of Christian faith. It follows that, at this stage the confessional aspect still dominated over the crystallizing Somali self-identity. In this sense, the Daraawiish movement was not only Somalian, not only Muslim, but also of the Salihia order, i.e. it was a movement of the Somalis within a special Salihia order; and there lay its strategic weakness. Such movements were not uncommon in the Muslim world of that time.2 6

These two stages can be termed as the ethno-confessional stage of the awakening of the Somalis. Historically speaking, such types of movements, especially the Daraawiish movement, were an essential step forward, for they called the people to challenge foreign rule used new non-clannish ideology, Islam of a definite order. The colonial experience and the resistance to it led to the awakening of the Somalis, since 1) many Somalis were jarred "enough to think about cultural pride and masterlessness, as well as Islamic holiness, and 2) they brought to the fore the debilitating weakness that accompanies uneven development and, conversely, impressed on the Somalis the peculiar and formidable calculating rationality behind the triumph of colonialism".2 7 The seeds sown by the Daraawiish movement, although defeated, were the first offshoots of modern Somali nationalism and began to flourish within a short span of time.

3.The third stage we ushered in the 1940s when the first nationwide political party came into being, the Somali Youth League—SYL. At this stage the ethnic and confessional identities merged into a new national consciousness. The battle cry was "We Somali-Muslims" against all foreign rule. This liberation movement culminated in the birth of the Somali Republic on July 1st, 1960, the result of the free and voluntary union of the former British Somaliland and the former Italian Somaliland. The new state declared Islam as the single and sole official religion of the country. Islamic studies were widely encouraged by the government both in pre-formal Qur’anic schools, Medrasas, and also in the official education system of the country.

- Second, the leadership of the national liberation movement, which later transformed itself into the new ruling class of Somalia was recruited from small traders, merchants, lower rank bureaucrats and Ulama. They were either intimately connected to the world market, which made the traders and merchants play the role of ordinary middlemen between this market and the pastoral peoples and peasants, or they were direct products of the colonial administration. Analyzing the contradictions inherent in this situation, Ahmed I. Samatar remarks that the "severe contradictions between these two identities [middlemen and national liberation leaders—A.J.] of the cadres of independence movements became highly pronounced as the end of the colonial order grew closer".2 8 Their specific interests (continuation of the exploitation of the pastoral peoples and peasants through vastly unequal exchanges, through merchant capital, and as the new ruling class viewed the state as their ‘property’)2 9 were in direct contradiction to the onerous task of building a democratic nation-state. From the First Republic (1960-1969), through the military dictatorship of Siad Barre (1969-1991) and the ensuing more than a decade of failed state (1991-2002), this class has failed Somali national aspirations and trampled the Islamic holiness of the people.

But there are other vital factors which modify this difficult situation for the Somalis. 1) the ethno-confessional unity of the Somalis (Islamic faith, common culture, language, etc.) sharply differentiate the Somalis from both the Kenyan and Ethiopian societies and their ruling Christian classes; 2) almost half of Somalis still carry on a pastoral way of life which allows them to have constant cross border contacts throughout the parts of the Horn and Kenya inhabited by Somalis (the Somali-inhabited part of the Horn and Kenya is a compact area divided only by state borders, most of which are not even marked); 3) the mass media, especially radio broadcasts, also greatly facilitated the ethno-confessional unity of the Somalis; through these broadcasts the entire Somali population and diaspora have access to world events and to the rich Islamic and Somali culture (especially drama and poetry); 4) the role of the elders and Ulama, the keepers of the noble norms of the Somali culture and the holiness of Islam. The role of the Ulama is immensely important, for they are among the small groups capable of surpassing the segmentary character of the Somali society. In fact, they and the elders are the spiritual backbone of the Somalis, and a unifying force; 5) the introduction of an official orthography for the Somali language, based on the Latin script (in 1972) also gave the Somalis a major means of written communication, and, in the words of the late Macallin Guush, was one of the "most important events in the cultural history of Somalia"3 0; 6) the collapse of the cental government in Somalia has, strange as may it may seem, also strengthened the age-long ethnic consolidation of the Somalis in neighbouring countries, since the majority of the Somali refugees from the Republic have moved into Ethiopia and Kenya.

The Tigrayans are very proud of the fact that their land was the center of the ancient Axum state, and also that their language is closer, in comparison with all other major Semitic-speaking peoples of Ethiopia, to that of the Axumites. But as Kobishchanov correctly remarks, "it was precisely this closeness which hampered the development of the Tigrean language for a long time as the Geez language had been the standard language [of Abyssinia, and later, Ethiopia] till the late 19th century".3 1 At the same time, because of that closeness and the fact that Geez was not only the Church language, but also the official state language, the Tigrayans rightfully became, in the words of Donald Levine, the ‘cultural aristocracy of Ethiopia’.

The majority of the Tigrayans are Monophysite Christians, while the minority are Muslims and Catholics. But this religious difference does not affect their ethnic consciousness, for all of them identify themselves as Tigrayans. In this sense, among all the major Ethiopian ethnic communities, the Tigrayans are the most advanced in terms of their self-identity as an ethnic community. The Weyene uprising in 1943 against the Haile Selassie I regime was an important milestone in the consolidation of the ethnic identity of the Tigrayans. Haggai Erlich called that uprising a major step towards "Tigrean separatism".3 2 In fact, the Weyene uprising was not a separatist movement, but rather an attempt to defend the historical autonomous status of that province against the formation of the absolutist monarchy in Ethiopia, which was by its nature committed to the political, economic and administrative centralization of Ethiopia. The absolute power of the Emperor was also against the very historical experience of not only the Tigrayans, but also of the other northern provinces of Ethiopia, i.e., historical Abyssinia.

Colonial rule in Eritrea brought about two major transitions: the creation of the industrial and service sectors, and increasing trade between nomads and urbanization. These two factors modified, but have not altered, the age-old rivalry between the peasants and the nomads. The two different patterns of social and economic life were at "the root of the divisions between the Eritrean political parties in the 1940s and 1950s,"3 3 and also in the late 1980s.

Another major hindrance to the development of the Eritrean society was its division into serfs and aristocratic clans, Tigre and Nabtab. "The aristocratic clan levied tax[es] on the conquered subjects who payed a range of dues and provided services in return for protection." The Italian colonial administration actually "perpetuated the political subjugation of the serf through a pyramidal ‘native’ administration system."3 4

This ethnic and confessional structure of Eritrean society played a major role in the political and social life of the country. During the British military administration of Eritrea (1941-1952), the major political parties were created largely on a confessional basis. This has had its imprint on the way Eritrea lost its chance to obtain independence. Ethiopia, a landlocked state, fought to the end to regain Eritrea, and, with the support of the USA at the UNO, secured this arrangement through the well known federation system, which existed until 1962. This led to the formation of the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), mainly led by the Muslims at its early stage. In the mid 1970s, the leadership of the national liberation movement of the Eritrean people passed into the hands of the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front (EPLF), a movement for land and social reform and for the enhancement of the role of women. (In 1994 the EPLF was renamed the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ). In Eritrea, historically, the "two religions generally coexisted in remarkable harmony".3 5

Islam is not a newcomer to the Horn. It dates from the days of Prophet Muhammad, when the first Hijra to Axum took place. But its impact on the whole of the Horn began from the 11-15th centuries, when different Islamic states, Shawa, Ifat, Harar, Adal and others were established in the region.

In the Horn of Africa, at least for the last five centuries, attempts were made by the ruling political, social and religious groups of the region to create a confessionally homogenous regional polity encompassing the majority of the peoples and territories of the Horn. The most ambitious attempt took place in the 16th century which is famous for the Thirty Years War (1529-1559)3 6, during which the Imam of Harar, Ahmad Ibrahim "Gurey", occupied the majority of the territory of the Abyssinian Christian state reaching even lake Tana and converted to Islam not only pagans but also a large part of the Christians inhabitants of the highlands.3 7 (30, p. 62-63).

In the 18-19th centuries, when Islam already had firm roots in present-day Djibouti, large parts of Eritrea and Somalia and the eastern regions of Ethiopia, the adoption of Islam by the inhabitants of the highlands, mainly Oromo, was related to their resistance to Ethiopian nationalism, based on Christianity. At the same time, Islam had made inroads into the core ethnic communities of historical Ethiopia, Tigrayans and Amhara. In general, Muslims from these groups were known as Jabarti.

In historical Ethiopia, as a Christian state and society, Muslims were barred from land possession in most areas, although they had the right to purchase land.3 8 The major occupation of the Muslims in traditional Ethiopia was trade, which the Ethiopian Christians regarded as a demeaning enterprise. This put commerce in the hands of the Ethiopian Muslims.