02/ Sultanates
Recovered Memory
Chapter 02Act IISovereignty

Sultanates

States in the Horn — Shewa, Ifat, Adal, Aussa, Harar Emirate

السلطناتal-Salṭanāt

A thousand years of Muslim sovereignty. Five states that governed land, minted currency, raised armies, and patronized scholarship across the Horn of Africa.

Period
896 — 1887 CE
Reading time
Section
Act II

Under Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi (Ahmad Gragn), Adal launched a campaign that for sixteen years extended Muslim authority across most of the central highlands. Churches, manuscripts, and dynasties on both sides were burned, lost, or rewritten. The campaign is one of the most contested events in Ethiopian historiography — celebrated as revival, condemned as conquest, depending on who is writing.

Capital
Harar (from 1520)
Greatest leader
Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ghāzī
Apex
1531 — 1543
Decline
Ottoman/Portuguese intervention