Saifu (c. 577) was a king of

Axum Axum, or Aksum (pronounced: ), is a town in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia with a population of 66,900 residents (as of 2015). It is the site of the historic capital of the Aksumite Empire, a naval and trading power that ruled the whole region ...

. He is known from a chance mention in a

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

biography of

Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 Common Era, CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Muhammad in Islam, Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet Divine inspiration, di ...

, the ''T'ien-fang Chih-sheng shih-lu'', written between 1721 and 1724 by Liu Chih. This work uses older materials that have been traced to a biography of the Prophet written by Sa'id al-Din Mohammed bin Mas'ud bin Mohammad al-Kazarumi, who died in 1357. According to this Chinese biography, the ''najashi'' of

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 ...

was said to have sent an ambassador with gifts to Mohammed's family upon sighting a star that announced his birth. When Mohammed became seven years old, Saifu, described as the ''najashi's'' grandson, likewise sent gifts. This source also adds that Saifu was the grandfather of the ''najashi'' who gave shelter to the

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

immigrants around 615-6 at

. This began the spread of Islam into

. In reporting the contents of this "very tentative" source, Munro-Hay speculates how this genealogical relationship around Saifu might fit the known series of rulers in the later 6th century (identifying Saifu's grandfather with

Kaleb Kaleb (), also known as Saint Elesbaan, was King of Aksum, which was situated in modern-day Eritrea and Ethiopia. Procopius calls him "Hellestheaeus", a variant of grc-koi, Ελεσβόάς version of his regnal name, gez, እለ አጽብ� ...

, and his grandson with

Sahama Armah ( gez, አርማህ) or Aṣḥamah ( ar, أَصْحَمَة), commonly known as Najashi ( ar, النَّجَاشِيّ, translit=An-najāshī), was the ruler of the Kingdom of Aksum who reigned from 614–631 CE. He is primarily known th ...

), and appears to admit that these details are plausible.S. C. Munro-Hay, ''Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity'' (Edinburgh: University Press, 1991), p. 93

Notes

Kings of Axum 6th-century monarchs in Africa {{Ethiopia-royal-stub