Ifat
For the International Fair Trade Organization IFAT, see International Fair Trade Association Ifat was a
Muslim sultanate of eastern
Shewa, located in modern day
Ethiopia.
The historian
al-Umar, records that it was near the
Red Sea coast, and states its size as 15 days travel by 20 days travel; its army numbered 15,000 horsemen and 20,000 foot. Al-Umar also credits it with seven "mother cities": Belqulzar, Kuljura, Shimi,
Shewa,
Adal, Jamme, and Laboo.
1 Modern historians believe its borders included
Fatagar,
Dawaro and
Bale; this gave Ifat control of the trade route inland from
Zeila, making it a major commercial power.
2Ifat first emerged in the
13th century, when its sultan
Umar Walashma is recorded as conquering the sultanate of
Shewa in
1285. Taddesse Tamrat explains sultan Umar's military acts as an effort to consolidate the Muslim territories in this part of modern Ethiopia in much the same way Emperor
Yekuno Amlak was consolidating the Christian territories in the north at the same time.
3 These two states inevitably came into conflict over Shewa and the territories further south. A lengthy war ensued, but the Muslim sultanates of the time were not strongly unified and the language barrier between
Cushitic-speaking Ifat and
Semitic-speaking Harar made coordinated campaigns difficult to maintain.[
1] Ifat was finally defeated by Emperor
Amda Seyon I of Ethiopia in
1332, who exerted his supremecy over the defeated kingdom by appointing first
Jamal ad-Din, then his brother
Nasr ad-Din as its king.
4Despite this victory, revolts from the Muslim people of Ifat continued. In the early 15th century, the Ethiopian Emperor branded the Muslims of the surrounding area "enemies of the Lord" and invaded Ifat. The Ifat armies were crushed once and for all and their king,
Sa'ad ad-Din, fled to Zeila; the Emperor pursued and the king was killed. Soon, Ifat was
annexed to Ethiopia, and ceased to exist as an independent state. The sources disagree which Emperor conducted this campaign: according to the medieval historian
al-Makrizi, in
1403 Emperor Dawit pursued the Sultan of
Adal,
Sa'ad ad-Din II to
Zeila where he killed Sa'ad ad-Din, and sacked Zeila; however, another contemporary source dates the death of Sa'ad ad-Din to
1415, and gives the credit to Emperor
Yeshaq.
5Ifat eventually disappeared as a distinct polity following the invasion of
Ahmad Gragn, and the subsequent
Oromo migrations into the area. Its name is preserved in the modern Ethiopian district of
Yifat in the
Oromia region.
# G.W.B. Huntingford,
The Glorious Victories of Ameda Seyon, King of Ethiopia (Oxford: University Press, 1965), p. 20.# Taddesse Tamrat,
Church and State in Ethiopia (1270-1527) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 84.# Taddesse Tamrat, p. 125#
The Glorious Victories, p. 107.# J. Spencer Trimingham,
Islam in Ethiopia (Oxford: Geoffrey Cumberlege for the University Press, 1952), p. 74 and note explains the discrepency in the sources.
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