Al-Habash ( ar, الحبشة, al-habāsha) was an ancient region in the

Horn of Africa The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, Second Edition: A Geographical Interpretation'', (The Guilford Press; 2004 ...

situated in the northern highlands of modern-day

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

and

Eritrea Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopi ...

.Sven Rubenson, The survival of Ethiopian independence, (Tsehai, 2003), p.30.

Origin

The term derives from Semitic languages: Ge'ez: Ḥabäśät, first written in the vowelless Ge'ez Abjad as ሐበሠተ, romanized: ḤBŚT; Sabaean: ḤBS²T, Arabic: حبشة‎, romanized: ḥabaša.Uhlig, Siegbert, ed. ''

Encyclopaedia Aethiopica The ''Encyclopaedia Aethiopica'' (''EAe'') is a basic English-language encyclopaedia for Ethiopian and Eritrean studies. The ''Encyclopaedia Aethiopica'' provides information in all fields of the discipline, i.e. anthropology, archaeology, ethno ...

'': D-Ha. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005. p. 948. One of the earliest known local uses of the term dates to the second or third century Sabaean inscription recounting the nəgus ("king")

GDRT GDRT (also GDR, vocalized by historians as Gadarat) was a King of the Kingdom of Aksum (c. 200), known for being the first king to involve Axum in the affairs of what is now Yemen. He is known primarily from inscriptions in South Arabia that men ...

of Aksum and ḤBŠT. The Ezana Stone also has an early mention of HBŚT. The early Semitic term appears to refer to a group of peoples, rather than a specific ethnicity. The Al-Habash were known in

Islamic literature Islamic literature is literature written by Muslim people, influenced by an Islamic cultural perspective, or literature that portrays Islam. It can be written in any language and portray any country or region. It includes many literary forms incl ...

as being rulers of a Christian kingdom, guaranteeing its a historical

exonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group ...

for the Axumites of antiquity. In the modern day, variations of the term are used in

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

, and the

Arab World The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western A ...

in reference to

and as a pan-ethnic word in the west by the Amhara, Tigray, and Biher-Tigrinya of

and

(see:

Habesha peoples am, ሐበሻ, አበሻ, translit=Häbäša, 'äbäša ti, ሓበሻ, translit=Ḥabäša , regions = , languages = Ethiopian Semitic languages , religions = Predominantly Oriental Orthodox Christianity (Orthodox T ...

.) The

Turks Turk or Turks may refer to: Communities and ethnic groups * Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic groups who speak Turkic languages * Turkish people, or the Turks, a Turkic ethnic group and nation * Turkish citizen, a citizen of the Republic ...

created the province of Habesh when the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University ...

conquered parts of the coastline of present-day

starting in 1557. During this,

Özdemir Pasha Özdemir Pasha (died 1561, Sana, Yemen Eyalet) was a Mamluk general for the Ottoman Empire, of Kumyk descent.''Mustafa Müftüoğlu.'' Yalan söyleyen tarih utansın!--. — Çile Yayınevi, 1981. — 384 с. He joined Hadım Süleyman Pasha's c ...

took the port city of

Massawa Massawa ( ; ti, ምጽዋዕ, məṣṣəwaʿ; gez, ምጽዋ; ar, مصوع; it, Massaua; pt, Maçuá) is a port city in the Northern Red Sea region of Eritrea, located on the Red Sea at the northern end of the Gulf of Zula beside the Dahla ...

and the adjacent city of

Arqiqo Arkiko ( ar, حرقيقو, Afar and Saho: ''Hirg-Higo'', alternately Archigo, Arqiqo, Ercoco, Hirgigo, Hargigo or Harkiko) is a town in the Northern Red Sea region of Eritrea. Situated on the Red Sea, it lies on the mainland across from the city ...

. Along with the neighboring ''Barbaroi'' (Berbers) of Barbara, the Habash are recorded in the 1st century

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

travelogue the ''

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea The ''Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'' ( grc, Περίπλους τῆς Ἐρυθρᾶς Θαλάσσης, ', modern Greek '), also known by its Latin name as the , is a Greco-Roman periplus written in Koine Greek that describes navigation and ...

'' as engaging in extensive commercial trade with

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

, among other areas. The document also relates a strong connection with the "Frankincense Country" in the Mahra region of modern

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman to the northeast and ...

and a symbiotic relationship with the ancient

Sabaeans The Sabaeans or Sabeans (Sabaean:, ; ar, ٱلسَّبَئِيُّوْن, ''as-Sabaʾiyyūn''; he, סְבָאִים, Səḇāʾīm) were an ancient group of South Arabians. They spoke the Sabaean language, one of the Old South Arabian langu ...

, with whom the Habash were allied.

Wilfred Harvey Schoff Wilfred Harvey Schoff (1874–1932) was an early twentieth-century American antiquarian and classical scholar. Career Schoff was responsible for translating a number of important ancient texts. Among these works was the 1st century CE Greco ...

, The

: travel and trade in the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...

, (Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912) p.62

Etymology

Due to the ancient nature of the term, the etymology and meaning of Al-Habash are unknown, but some scholars have defined it as being in reference to a fertile region "plenty in

olives The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'', meaning 'European olive' in Latin, is a species of small tree or shrub in the family Oleaceae, found traditionally in the Mediterranean Basin. When in shrub form, it is known as ''Olea europaea'' 'M ...

." Egyptian inscriptions refer to the people that they traded with in Punt as egy, ḫbś.tj.w, "the bearded ones." Francis Breyer believes the Egyptian demonym to be the source of the Semitic term.

References

Historical regions Horn of Africa {{Africa-hist-stub

Origin

Etymology

See also

References