Nur ibn Mujahid

Nur ibn Mujahid ibn ‘Ali ibn ‘Abdullah al Dhuhi Suha (Harari: ኑር ኢብን ሙጃሂድ, Somali: Nuur ibn Mujaahid, Arabic: نور بن مجاهد; died 1567) was a Muslim Emir of Harar who ruled Adal Sultanate.[1] He was the primary reason for the construction of the five-gated wall that surrounds the city of Harar. He was known for marrying his uncle's widow, Bati del Wambara, and he also succeeded Imam Ahmad as leader of the Muslim forces fighting Christian Ethiopia.[2]

Nur ibn Mujahid
نور بن مجاهد
Emir of Harar
Tomb of Nur ibn Mujahid in Harar
Reign1550–1567
Died1567
SpouseBati del Wambara
Names
Nur ibn Mujahid ibn ‘Ali ibn ‘Abdullah al Dhuhi Suha
ReligionIslam

Biography

Emir Nur was considered a saint from Harar, Mujahid was called the Sahib al-Fath al-Thani, or "Master of the Second Conquest".[3] When Imam Ahmad, who had led the Muslim conquest of the Ethiopian Highlands, was killed in 1543, the Muslim forces fell back in confusion to Harar. Nur, the dead leader’s sister’s son, married Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi's widow, Bati del Wambara, and undertook to renew the fortunes of the Muslim city, which had been sacked in 1550. Promoted to Emir around 1550-51, he spent the next two years reorganizing his forces, and constructing the defensive wall which still surrounds the city.[4]

In 1554-55, Nur departed on a Jihad (holy war), in the eastern Ethiopian lowlands of Bale, and Dawaro. In 1559, he invaded Fatagar, where he fought against the Ethiopian Emperor Galawdewos, and killed him at the Battle of Fatagar. Around the same time, Barentu Oromos who had been migrating north invaded the Adal Sultanate. The forces of Nur ibn Mujahid, were virtually annihilated by the Oromos and according to Bahrey, there had been "no such slaughter since the Oromo first invaded".[5] Most of the Muslim population fled to the walled city of Harar. The Oromos then occupied and settled on the lands of the Hararghe highlands which had been abandoned by the local population.[6][7] After the Oromos had settled in the surrounding countryside of Harar, the city experienced a severe famine. J. Spencer Trimingham describes, Emir Nur "exerted every effort to help his people to recover, but after every respite the Oromo would again descend like locusts and scourge the country, and Nur himself died of the pestilence which spread during the famine."[8]

Legacy
The grave

Contemporaries described Nur as a man of noble conduct, who was just, strong, and highly principled. Besides the wall which protected the city's inhabitants from invaders over the following centuries, he was noted for a number of buildings he erected in Harar. His tomb stands on a hill surrounded by houses and courtyards, and is a popular place of pilgrimage in Harar.

References
  1. Pankhurst, Richard (1997). The Ethiopian Borderlands: Essays in Regional History from Ancient Times to the End of the 18th Century. Red Sea press. p. 244. ISBN 9780932415196.
  2. R.Basset (editor), Histoire de la conquete de l’Abyssinie (History of the Conquest of Abyssinia), Paris, 1897–1901
  3. Wendt, Kurt (1935). "Amharische Geschichte eines Emirs von Harar im XVI. Jahrhundert". Orientalia (Orientalia, vol. 4 ed.). GBPress. 4: 488. JSTOR 43581078.
  4. Dr. E. Cerulli, Documenti arabi per la storia dell’Ethiopia, Memoria della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Vol. 4, No. 2, Rome, 1931
  5. Richard Pankhurst, The Ethiopian Borderlands (Trenton: Red Sea Press, 1997), p. 283
  6. "Oromo: Migration and Expansion: Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries". World history. Retrieved 2022-02-14.
  7. Abir, Mordechai (28 October 2013). Ethiopia and the Red Sea. Routledge. p. 139. ISBN 9781136280900. Retrieved 21 January 2016.
  8. Trimingham, J. Spencer. 1952. Islam in Ethiopia. London: Oxford University Press. p. 94.
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