LECTURE SOFIES / CFEE: History and Archaeology of Islam in Medieval Ethiopia

SEMINAR / SÉMINAIRE

History and Archaeology of Islam in Medieval Ethiopia: New publications and upcoming projects

Thursday 14th December @ 2 PM

RAS MAKONNEN HALL

Addis Abeba University, Sidist Kilo Campus

Organized by the Society of Friends of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies (SOFIES) in collaboration with the CFEE.

By Amélie Chekroun (CNRS, IREMAM, France)

Historian and researcher, Amélie Chekroun has been working for over fifteen years on the Islamised populations of the Horn of Africa, particularly Ethiopia and Somaliland, in the Middle Ages.

She has recently published 3 books illustrating her individual and collective research, as well as current research on Muslims in medieval times by other colleagues in Ethiopia and internationally:

– The monograph of her PhD, in French, entitled La conquête de l’Ethiopie. Un jihad au 16^e siècle(CNRS Editions, 2023, 380 p.), is an analysis of the Arabic text of the Futūḥ al-Ḥabaša, which recounts the famous conflicts between the armies of the Sultanate of Barr Sa‘d ad-Dīn, led by Imam Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm al-Ghāzī, and the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia in the 1520’s and 1530’s. This is the first comprehensive historical analysis of this valuable source for the history of late medieval Ethiopia.

– The special issue “New insights into the history of Harar” of Les Annales d’Éthiopie (volume 34), published in print and digital form in 2022, co-edited with Vanessa Pedrotti, is dedicated to the latest research on the Ethiopian city between the 16th and 20th centuries. It brings together eight articles by six international researchers (historians, art historians and anthropologists). It highlights new approaches to the study of the city’s history and, above all, the many manuscript and archival sources that remain to be explored.

– The special issue “Ethiopian Islam. Connected Studies of the Medieval Horn of Africa” in the Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée (volume 153), published in print and online in 2023, brings together 13 international researchers. The articles collected illustrate the diversity of approaches that enrich the documentary corpus and advance the writing of the history of the Muslims of the Horn of Africa in the Middle Ages.

During her talk, Amélie Chekroun will present these three publications as well as her other ongoing projects on other aspects of the history of Islam in Ethiopia before the mid-16th century.