Harar City Jugol, the Fortified Historic Town የጥንቷ ከተማ ሐረር

Harar - the Ethiopian city known as 'Africa's Mecca' The city of Harar is the only important Muslim city in the interior of Ethiopia, situated at about 526km from Addis Ababa, and lying some 1850m above sea level in hilly but fertile countryside. Its origins are obscure. Muslim shaykhs appear to have been known in the region before and during the time of the Ethiopian Emperor Amda Tseyon (1314-44), but the town is first actually mentioned in the chronicle of the emperor's victories over the Muslim kingdom of Adal in the east. According to an Arabic record, there were seven Muslim kingdoms in the region, all under the authority of the Ethiopians, Harar being in Dawaro. It was later included in the Sultanate of Adal, also called the Kingdom of Zeila.Harar became the chief Muslim base in Ethiopia, and was to remain Ethiopia's great permanent centre for Islam. When the kingdom of Adal became the main Muslim state in the Ethiopian region, Harar came into its territory. Adal fought constantly with Ethiopia, and soon fanatical amirs or imams - at least from the Christian point of view - took over control in Harar region. Sultan Muhammad (1488-1518) of Adal attempted to remain at peace with Ethiopia. The Portuguese friar Francisco Alvares, who was in Ethiopia with a Portuguese embassy in the 1520s, recorded that he was unable to do so because Mahfuz, amir of Harar, caused trouble by his constant raids. For a while, sultan and negus maintained an uneasy peace, which continued when Lebna Dengel (1508-40) succeeded to the Ethiopian throne, with the Empress Eleni as regent. Nevertheless, prophetically, Eleni sent to Portugal for assistance. A mission was sent with an ambassador to Manuel I of Portugal. This resulted in the arrival in Ethiopia in 1520 of a Portuguese embassy under Dom Rodrigo da Lima.Mahfuz had become by this time governor of Zayla, de facto ruler of Adal. There were renewed raids on Ethiopian territory. Emperor Lebna Dengel met an invasion attempt, killing Mahfuz and destroying one of the sultan's castles; at the same time Lope Suarez surprised Zayla from the sea and sacked it. Despite this very material demonstration of how useful Portugal could be, Lebna Dengel did not enter into alliance. He permitted the Portuguese embassy to leave in 1526, thus signing the death warrant of his kingdom.For a new leader arose unexpectedly in the Adali sultanate, Mahfuz' son-in-law Imam Ahmad b. Ibrahim al-Ghazi (1506-43), called Grañ, 'the left-handed'. The centre of his influence was Harar, where he built up his own powerful party, crushing the conservative resistance of the more cautious merchants. This extraordinary man was able to cut through the feeble struggles that animated the sultans' court, slaying Sultan Abu Bakr - who had transferred the sultanate to Harar in 1520 - and installing his brother Umar Din, a pliable puppet. Imam Ahmad directed policy towards an all-out struggle with Ethiopia. The die was cast in 1527, when payment of tribute to Abyssinia was refused.Nur's successors attempted to treat with the Oromo, so they would come to the markets. Internally, the city suffered from political instability, with coups and countercoups. Sultan Muhammad b. Nasir made the major mistake of joining the rebellion of Yetshaq, ruler of the northeastern provinces, and in 1577 went to war with Ethiopia. But Ethiopia was by now governed by Emperor Sartsa Dengel, a military commander of some stature. On the river Webi, Muhammad was captured (he was later executed) and the best of his army annihilated. This defeat marked the end of Harari military power.Meanwhile the Oromo had seized the remaining Harari territory, and the sultanate itself was transferred to Aussa in 1577. Aussa too succumbed in 1672 to Oromo and Somali raids. Harar still survived. It had managed to wrest its independence from Aussa in 1647 under Ali b. Daud, and thus remained an independent city state until the late 19th century. It even produced its own coinage - unattractive pieces marked in Arabic with the sultans' names and titles, and the words 'Dharabat fi Harar' (struck in Harar) - in the 18th and 19th centuries.