Rabat I (1616/7 - 1644/5) was a ruler of the

Kingdom of Sennar The Funj Sultanate, also known as Funjistan, Sultanate of Sennar (after its capital Sennar) or Blue Sultanate due to the traditional Sudanese convention of referring to black people as blue () was a monarchy in what is now Sudan, northwestern E ...

. According to

James Bruce James Bruce of Kinnaird (14 December 1730 – 27 April 1794) was a Scottish traveller and travel writer who confirmed the source of the Blue Nile. He spent more than a dozen years in North Africa and Ethiopia and in 1770 became the first Europ ...

, he was the son of

Badi I Badi I (1611/12 – 1616/17), also known as Badi el Kawam, was a ruler of the Kingdom of Sennar. During his reign, Sennar was at peace with its neighbor, Ethiopia. The Ethiopian ''Royal Chronicles'' mention that Emperor Susenyos of Ethiopia respond ...

. He intrigued 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 ...

n politics a number of times. Early in his reign he detained the

Copt Copts ( cop, ⲛⲓⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ ; ar, الْقِبْط ) are a Christians, Christian ethnoreligious group indigenous to North Africa who have primarily inhabited the area of modern Egypt and Sudan since Ancient history, antiqui ...

ic bishop Abba Yeshaq, who had passed through Sennar on his way to Ethiopia.

Richard Pankhurst Richard Marsden Pankhurst (1834 – 5 July 1898) was an English barrister and socialist who was a strong supporter of women's rights. Early life Richard Pankhurst was the son of Henry Francis Pankhurst (1806–1873) and Margaret Marsden (180 ...

, ''The Ethiopian Borderlands'' (Lawrenceville: Red Sea Press, 1997), p. 369. Pankhurst refers to him as "Erubat". A later act was his attempt to convert Saga Krestos, the son of

Emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...

Yaqob of Ethiopia Yaqob I ( gez, ያዕቆብ; c. 1590 – 10 March 1607), throne name Malak Sagad II (Ge'ez: መለክ ሰገድ), was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1597 to 1607, and a member of the Solomonic dynasty. He was the eldest surviving son of Sarsa Dengel. ...

, to Islam, which resulted in Saga Krestos' departure.E.A Wallis Budge. ''A History of Ethiopia: Nubia and Abyssinia'', 1928 (Oosterhout, the Netherlands: Anthropological Publications, 1970), p. 373. In response to a slave raid by Emperor

Susenyos of Ethiopia Susenyos I ( gez, ሱስንዮስ ; circa 1571-1575 – 17 September 1632), also known as Susenyos the Catholic, was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1606 to 1632, and a member of the Solomonic dynasty. His throne names were Seltan Sagad and Malak Sa ...

in 1619, Rabat led a great army against the Ethiopians, and slew one of the Imperial officials, a Muslim named Muhammed Sayed. In response, Emperor Susenyos marched to the border and defeated Rabat's army.

Notes

Rulers of Sennar 17th-century African people Year of birth uncertain {{Africa-royal-stub