Habesha peoples
The oldest reference to Habesha was in second or third century Sabaean engravings as Ḥbśt or Ḥbštm recounting the South Arabian involvement of the nəgus ("king") GDRT of ḤBŠT.
[1] However, South Arabian expert Eduard Glaser claimed that the Egyptian hieroglyphic ḫbstjw, used in reference to "a foreign people from the incense-producing regions" (i.e. Land of Punt) by Pharaoh Hatshepsut in 1450 BC, was the first usage of the term or somehow connected.
[2] Abasēnoi was located by Hermann von Wissman as a region in the Jabal Ḥubaysh mountain in Ibb Governorate,[4] perhaps related in etymology with the ḥbš Semitic root).
)[7] Historically, the term "Habesha" represented northern Ethiopian Highlands Semitic speaking Orthodox Christians, while the Cushitic-speaking peoples such as Oromo and Agaw, as well as Semitic-speaking Muslims/Ethiopian Jews, were considered the periphery.
[17][18][19] At the turn of the 20th century, elites of the Solomonic dynasty employed the conversion of various ethnic groups to Orthodox Tewahedo Christianity and the imposition of the Amharic language to spread a common Habesha national identity.
[22] European scholars postulated that the ancient communities that evolved into the modern Ethiopian state were formed by a migration across the Red Sea of Sabaean-speaking South Arabian tribes, including one called the "Habashat", who intermarried with the local non-Semitic-speaking peoples, in around 1,000 BC.
Many held to this view because "epigraphic and monumental evidence point to an indisputable South Arabian influence suggesting migration and colonization from Yemen in the early 1st millennium BC as the main factor of state formation on the highlands.
Linguists have revealed, however, that although its script developed from Epigraphic South Arabian (whose oldest inscriptions are found in Yemen), Ge'ez is descended from a different branch of Southern Semitic, Ethiosemitic or Ethiopic sub-branch.
[25][26] Edward Ullendorff has asserted that the Tigrayans and the Amhara comprise "Abyssinians proper" and a "Semitic outpost," while Donald N. Levine has argued that this view "neglects the crucial role of non-Semitic elements in Ethiopian culture.
[37][36] In the reign of King Ezana, c. early 4th century AD, the term "Ethiopia" is listed as one of the nine regions under his domain, translated in the Greek version of his inscription as Αἰθιοπία Aithiopía.
At its peak, Aksum controlled territories as far as southern Egypt, east to the Gulf of Aden, south to the Omo River, and west to the Nubian Kingdom of Meroë.
[citation needed] After the fall of Aksum due to declining sea trade from fierce competition by Muslims and changing climate, the power base of the kingdom migrated south and shifted its capital to Kubar (near Agew).
[clarification needed] In the middle of the sixteenth century Adal Sultanate armies led by Harar leader Ahmed Ibrahim invaded Habesha lands in what is known as the "Conquest of Habasha".
[46][47] Following Adal invasions, the southern part of the Empire was lost to Oromo and Muslim state of Hadiya thus scattered Habesha like the Gurage people were cut off from the rest of Abyssinia.
The Amharas seemed to gain the upper hand with the accession of Yekuno Amlak of Ancient Bete Amhara in 1270, after defeating the Agaw lords of Lasta (in those days a non-Semitic-speaking region of Abyssinia) The Gondarian dynasty, which since the 16th century had become the centre of Royal pomp and ceremony of Abyssinia, finally lost its influence as a result of the emergence of powerful regional lords, following the murder of Iyasu I, also known as Iyasu the Great.
Until a young man named Kassa Haile Giorgis also known as Emperor Tewodros brought end to Zemene Mesafint by defeating all his rivals and took the throne in 1855.
The Tigrayans made only a brief return to the throne in the person of Yohannes IV in 1872, whose death in 1889 resulted in the power base shifting back to the dominant Amharic-speaking elite.
[51][52][53] In Arsi Province, mainly inhabited by the Oromo people, their land was appropriated by the Abyssinian colonizers coupled with hefty taxation which led to a revolt in the 1960s.
Another is the claim that most Ethiopians can trace their ancestry to multiple ethnic groups, including the last self-proclaimed emperor Haile Selassie I and his Empress Itege Menen Asfaw of Ambassel.
Habesha cuisine characteristically consists of vegetable and often very spicy meat dishes, usually in the form of wat (also w'et or wot), a thick stew, served atop injera, a large sourdough flatbread,[63] which is about 50 centimeters (20 inches) in diameter and made out of fermented teff flour.
It consists of raw (or rare) beef mince marinated in mitmita (Amharic: ሚጥሚጣ mīṭmīṭā, a very spicy chili powder similar to the berbere) and niter kibbeh.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church prescribes a number of fasting (tsom Ge'ez: ጾም, ṣōm) periods, including Wednesdays, Fridays, and the entire Lenten season; so Habesha cuisine contains many dishes that are vegan.
A well-known example of this is the story of the Ethiopian eunuch as written in Acts (8: 27): "Then the angel of the Lord said to Philip, Start out and go south to the road that leads down from Jerusalem to Gaza.
A debtera is an itinerant lay priest figure trained by the Church as a scribe, cantor, and often as a folk healer, who may also function in roles comparable to a deacon or exorcist.
Similarly, pork is prohibited, though unlike Kashrut, Ethiopian cuisine does mix dairy products with meat- which in turn makes it even closer to Islamic dietary laws (see Halal).
Muhammad's followers crossed the Red Sea and sought refuge in the Kingdom of Aksum, possibly settling at Negash, a place in present-day Tigray Region.
Islam in Ethiopia is the predominant religion in the regions of Somali, Afar, Berta, and the section of Oromia east of the Great Rift Valley, as well as in Jimma.
[citation needed] The most important Islamic religious practices, such as the daily ritual prayers (ṣalāt) and fasting (Arabic: صوم ṣawm, Ethiopic ጾም, ṣom – used by local Christians as well) during the holy month of Ramadan, are observed both in urban centers as well as in rural areas, among both settled peoples and nomads.
The now dominant Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church claims it originated from the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon back in the 10th century BCE.
"There still remains the curious circumstance that a number of Abyssinian words connected with religion – Hell, idol, Easter, purification, alms – are of Hebrew origin.
