The Habesha from An Arabic Perspective

The designation “Habesha” is derived from the Arabic word “al-Habesha”. When referring to people, it means “Convened,” or “the multitude gathered together,” whereas in the second conjugation it signifies “congregated,” or “congregated together”.¹ Thus the word “Habesha” denotes a mixture of people composed of numerous tribes.

Arabic writers were using the singular form “al-Habesha” or “al-Habesh” to refer to the Horn of Africa in general, and to the Aksumite empire and its successor states in particular.² They wrote of the Aksumite empire as “the kingdom of Habash”, “the Kingdom of the Habasha”, “lands of the Habasha”, “the country of the Habasha/Habashat”, “the land of Habashat and Aksum”.³ Their choice of word reflected the great diversity of race, language, skincolor, physiognomy, hair texture, religion, etc that exists in the region. Ethiopia and Eritrea alone are home to at least 90 languages, hundreds of tribes, all the Abrahamic religions plus local traditional cults. Physiognomy, hair texture, and skincolour vary widely, many a time even between members of the same family. Skin colour ranges from very dark-black to brown, to a very light copper or to nut colour.⁴ Hair texture also varies from very curly to very straight with different shades of color.⁵

Arabic historians called the King of Kings (emperor) of the Aksumite Empire the “Nejashi”, just as they titled the Emperors of the Roman empire “Caesar”.⁶ “Nejashi” is a corruption of the word “negasi/negash”, which literally means “ruler”.

Arabic writers were employing the term “ahabish”, which is the plural form of “al-Habesha”, to speak of dark-skinned populations in general, including the Zenj (Swahilis), the Qaqu (a South Sudanese tribe), the Marwiyyun (the Meroeans, the people of Meroe), the Kawkaw (a tribe of Mali), the Ghana (a tribe of either modern-day Mauritania or Chad), the Zaghawa (ethnic groups primarily residing in modern-day North-eastern Chad and western Sudan), the Nubians, the Beja, etc.⁷ The word “ahabish” is sometimes considered to be the plural form of the term “uhbüsh” or “uhbüsha”, which means “companies or bodies of men, not all of one tribe”.⁸ Hence, like the word “al-Habasha”, it indicates a multiplicity of race and culture. Instead of the plural form “Ahabish”, Arabic writers at times also used the phrase “al-Sudan and al-Habesh” i.e, the Blacks and the Habesha.

Arabic historians often gave a mythical explanation of the origin of the “Ahabish” populations. According to them, the Blacks (al-Sudan) are the descendants of a mythical person called Sudan, who is claimed to be the son of either Canaan⁹ or Kush,¹⁰ who is the son of Ham, the son of Noah. Whereas the Habesha are supposed to be the children of a mythological ancestor called Habesh (or Hubush), who is said to be the son of Kush, the son of Ham, the son of Noah.¹¹

This genealogical myth predates Islam. For Cosmas Indicopleustes states that the Ethiopians are the descendants of Kush, the son of Ham.¹² However, Cosmas classifies even the Arabs as Ethiopians and designates them as the children of Kush. To the population group termed as “Sudan” by Arabic writers, Cosmas gives the label “Libyans” and asserts that they are the children of Phut and Canaan, whom he asserts to be sons of Ham.

Therefore, the claim of the Abyssinian mythology of the Era of the House of Amhara that Abyssinians have descended from Ethiopis, the son of Kush, the son of Ham, the son of Noah (as recorded in the Book of Aksum) has its parallels both in Arabic Islam and in Greek Christianity. Of course, there is one obvious difference between the two accounts, which is, while Arabs named the purported ancestor of the Habesha “Habesh”, the Abyssinian mythology has it “Ethiopis” (just made Ethiopia into a personal name). But this apparent confusion is cleared up when we examine the usage of the terms “Habesha” and “Ethiopia” in Abyssinian historical records.

Emperor Ezana¹³ of the Aksumite empire, in his inscription that narrates of a military campaign against rebel Beja tribes (of what is now Eastern Sudan), employed the term “Ethiopia” in the Greek text of the inscription, whereas he used the word “Habeshat” in the Geez and Sabean (ancient South Arabian language) texts of the same inscription. The Greek inscription begins:
“Aeizanas, king of the Aksumites, the Himyarites, Raeidan, the Ethiopians, the Sabaeans, Silei (Salhen), Tiyamo, the Beja and Kasou, king of kings, son of the unconquered god Ares.”

Whereas the Geez text starts:
“ዔዛና ንጉሠ ኣክሱም ወሖመር ወኩሳ ወሳባ ወሓበሻት ወረድ ወሳልሐን ወጻረድ ወበጋ ንጉሠ ነገሥት ወልዱ ለማሕረም ዘኢይትመወእ ለፀር።”

And the text written in the ancient South Arabian script commences:
“Aeizanas, king of Aksum, Himyar, Raydan, Habeshat, Saba, Salhen, Tsiyamo, Kusa, and the Beja, king of kings, son of the unconquered god Mahrem.”

Therefore, we can conclude that the term “Habesha” in Geez as well as in ancient Arabic was regarded as a translation of and equivalent to the Greek term “Ethiopia“. However, the inscription of Ezana doesn’t equate Kush with Ethiopia since it lists Kasu/Kusa (a rendition of the Hebrew word Kush) separately beside Ethiopia/Habeshat. Hence, the Kushite tribe is not the original bearer of the designation Habeshat/Ethiopia. However, from the inscription of the Monument of Adulis, it seems to be clear that the archetype Ethiopians lived in either modern-day Sudan or South Sudan in the Meroic Kingdom.

Reference Notes

1. Ludolf, Hiob. 1684. A New History of Ethiopia. 2nd edition. p.7. Translated into English by J. P. (Gent.). London: Printed for Samuel Smith. ↩︎
2. Munro-Hay, Stuart c. (1991) Aksum: An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh. ↩︎
3. For example, see the works of Al-Mas’udi, Al-Yaqubi, Wasif Shah, Ibn rosteh, Sabean inscriptions referring to the Aksumite empire, etc. ↩︎
4. Parkyns, Mansfield (1853) Life in Abyssinia: Being Notes Collected During Three Years’ residence and Travels in that Country. Volume II. p.1. John Murray, Albemar: London. ↩︎
5. Pearce, Nathaniel (1831) The Life and Adventures of Nathaniel Pearce. Edited by John James Halls. Volume 1. p.282. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. ↩︎
6. For example, see the works of Al-Fazari, Al-Khuwarezmi, Al-Yaqubi, Ibn Khordadhbeh, Al-Farghani, Al-Jahiz, etc. ↩︎
7. See, for example, Al-Mas’udi’s (916) historical encyclopaedia entitled “Muruj al-Dhahab wa-Manadin al-Jawhar [Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems]”. Translated from Arabic into English by Aloys Sprenger (1841). Printed for the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland: London. ↩︎
8. The Works of Ibn Wadih al-Ya‘qubi (2018). An English Translation. Volume 2. p560. Edited by Matthew S. Gordon et al. Koninklijke Brill Nv: Leiden. ↩︎
9. Wasif Shah (1209) Akhbar al-zaman……al-Ajaib al Buldan [History of the Ages and Those Whom Events have Annihilated]. Sometimes attributed to Al-Masudi. Translated into English by Jason Colavito. ↩︎
10. Ruffini, G. et al. (2015) Extracts from Al-Mas’udi’s Akbar Al-Zaman. Giovanni Vantini’s Oriental Sources Concerning Nubia. ↩︎
11. For example, see Al-Ya‘qubi volume 2, Al-Mas’udi’s Akbar Al-Zaman, Wasif Shah, etc. ↩︎
12. The Christian Topography of Cosmas, An Egyptian Monk. pp.34-36. Translated from the Greek, and Edited, with Notes and Introduction by J.W. McCrindle (1897). Printed at the Broford Press for Hakluyt Society: London. ↩︎
13. Emperor Ezana reigned from around 303 to 350 AD. ↩︎