Gelila Zakarias is an island in the northwestern part of
Lake Tana in
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 ...
. Located southwest of the
Gorgora
Gorgora (Amharic: ጎርጎራ ''Gōrgōrā'', also, especially formerly, ጐርጐራ ''Gʷargʷarā'', modern pronunciation ''Gʷergʷerā'') is a town and peninsula in northwestern Ethiopia. It is located south of Gondar on the north shore of ...
peninsula, Daga has a latitude and longitude of . The island is a circular, forested cone with the monastery church of Iyasus at the peak. When R.E. Cheesman visited it in 1933, he found the monastery flourishing, and the abbot invited him to partake in their Lenten far.
[R.E. Cheesman]
"Lake Tana and Its Islands", ''Geographical Journal''
85 (1935), p. 500
According to the ''Futuh al-Habasa'' of
Sihab ad-Din Ahmad bin 'Abd al-Qader, during the
Ethiopian-Adal War, on 18 May 1545
Imam Ahmad Gragn
Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi ( so, Axmed Ibraahim al-Qaasi or Axmed Gurey, Harari: አሕመድ ኢብራሂም አል-ጋዚ, ar, أحمد بن إبراهيم الغازي ; 1506 – 21 February 1543) was an imam and general of the Adal Sultan ...
led a group of followers to attack Gelila Zakarias. The rafts carrying the followers of the Imam were met by soldiers in ''tankwa'', the indigenous boats made of
papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...
who failed to stop the attackers rafts. Since all of the defenders were in ''tankwas'', once the Imam and his followers outdistanced them, they landed unopposed on the island and burned down the church of Iyasus.
[Sihab ad-Din Ahmad bin 'Abd al-Qader, ''Futuh al-Habasa: The conquest of Ethiopia'', translated by Paul Lester Stenhouse with annotations by Richard Pankhurst (Hollywood: Tsehai, 2003), pp. 383f]
References
Amhara Region
Islands of Lake Tana
{{Amhara-geo-stub