Religion in Ethiopia
[3] The Ethiopian Empire was the only region of Africa to survive the expansion of Islam as a Christian state before European colonization.
[4] In general, most of the Christians (largely members of the non-Chalcedonian Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church) live in the highlands, while Muslims and adherents of traditional African religions tend to inhabit more lowland regions in the east and south of the country.
[citation needed] The numerous indigenous African religions in Ethiopia operate mainly in the far southwest and western borderlands.
[2] Ethiopia is the site of the first hijra in Islamic history and the oldest Muslim settlement in Africa at Negash.
[8] The Kingdom of Aksum was one of the first nations to officially accept Christianity, when St. Frumentius of Tyre, called Fremnatos or Abba Selama ("Father of Peace") in Ethiopia, converted King Ezana during the 4th century AD.
Since the 18th century there has existed a relatively small (uniate) Ethiopian Catholic Church in full communion with Rome, with adherents making up less than 1% of the total population.
[citation needed] Islam in Ethiopia dates back to the founding of the religion; in 615, when a group of Muslims were counseled by Muhammad to escape persecution in Mecca and travel to Ethiopia via modern-day Eritrea, which was ruled by Ashama ibn Abjar, a pious Christian king.
Bilal ibn Ribah, the first Muezzin, the person chosen to call the faithful to prayer, and one of the foremost companions of Muhammad, was born in Mecca to an Abyssinian mother.
[2] Haile Selassie's government reportedly concealed the actual figures of the Muslim population in order to present Ethiopia as a Christian nation to the outside world.
[16] The writers of Ethiopia: a country study claimed that Islam made up 50% of the total population in 1991 based on the 1984 census commissioned by the Derg regime.
[17] The Beta Israel, also known as the Falashas (though this term is considered derogatory), are a long-isolated group of African Jews who have lived in Ethiopia since antiquity.
Their existence was not widely known to the outside world for many years, and they likewise were not aware of other Jewish groups outside of their own community.
The Baháʼí Faith in Ethiopia begins after `Abdu'l-Bahá wrote letters encouraging taking the religion to Africa in 1916.
[19] Mr. Sabri Elais, then a 27-year-old Bahá'í from Alexandria, Egypt, introduced the Baháʼí Faith to Ethiopia in 1933.
[20] A year later, in November 1934, the first Baháʼí Local Spiritual Assembly in the country was formed in Addis Ababa.
Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church published works by an unknown author written in Ge'ez and translated to Amharic in 1986 which claimed Habesha should refrain from sexual intercourse with Oromo, Muslims, Shanqella, Falasha and animals because it was an abomination.
[35] Human rights groups have regularly accused the government of arresting activists, journalists and bloggers to stamp out dissent among some religious communities.
[39] This is because Abyssinia's (present-day Ethiopia) Aksumite monarch embraced a group of Muslims embarking on the first Hijrah from Arabia, fleeing persecution from their homeland.
[41] Yekuno Amlak paid back this favor when the Sultan of Shewa appealed to him to put down an insurrection in Showa.
In the early fourteenth century Emperor Amda Seyon launched a crusade against the neighboring Muslim state of Ifat Sultanate, several mosques were demolished.
