Adal Sultanate

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Adal Sultanate was the leading Muslim power of the Horn of Africa, ruling from the Harar plateau over lowlands that reached the Gulf of Aden coast. Founded around 1415 by exiled princes of the Walashma dynasty, it fought a long series of wars with the Christian Solomonic kingdom of Ethiopia, and in the 1530s its armies overran much of the Ethiopian highlands before the venture collapsed. By 1577 its centre had moved to the Aussa oasis.

Adal was originally a loose name for the Muslim-inhabited lowlands east of the Ethiopian highlands, between Shewa and the port of Zeila. From 1288 it formed part of the Sultanate of Ifat, ruled by the Walashma family. After Ethiopian armies defeated Ifat in the early fifteenth century, sources differ on whether this happened in 1403 or 1410, Sultan Sa'ad ad-Din II was killed and his sons took refuge in Yemen. In 1415 the eldest, Sabr ad-Din III, came back, called himself king of Adal and set up a capital at Dakkar. Some historians instead credit his fourteenth-century predecessor Haqq ad-Din II, who had shifted Ifat's seat to the Harar plateau, as the true founder.

Sabr ad-Din's brothers carried the fighting into Christian territory. Jamal ad-Din II, who reigned until about 1432 or 1433, won several victories, and Badlay ibn Sa'ad ad-Din raised funds from Muslim states as far off as Mogadishu for a major offensive. It ended in defeat by Emperor Zara Yaqob at the Battle of Gomit in 1445, where Badlay died. His son then agreed to pay tribute to Ethiopia, a move many provincial emirs regarded as a betrayal. From 1471 real power passed to emirs based in Harar, with the sultans reduced to a ceremonial role, and frontier raids continued under leaders such as Emir Mahfuz, who was killed in 1516.

Adal's wealth came from caravan routes linking the Ethiopian interior with Zeila and Berbera and, across the Red Sea, with Arabia. Gold, ivory, slaves, grain, cattle and other goods moved along them, while wealthy households imported Chinese celadon and glass bracelets. Stone towns such as Amud, Awbare and Abasa, now in ruins in Somaliland, contained mosques, cisterns and walled compounds. The population was mixed, including Harari, Harla, Argobba, Somali and Afar peoples, and scholars disagree about their relative weight.

After years of internal strife, the young commander Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi took control, installing a puppet sultan in Harar, which had become the capital in 1520. In 1529 he beat the Ethiopian army at Shimbra Kure and then, through the 1530s, occupied Dawaro, Shewa, Amhara, Lasta and much of Tigray, pursuing Emperor Lebna Dengel across the highlands. This Ethiopian–Adal War drew in outside powers: a small force from the Portuguese Empire landed in 1541, and the Imam sought musketeers from the Ottoman Empire. He was killed at Wayna Daga on 21 February 1543, and the occupation quickly fell apart.

Nur ibn Mujahid, emir of Harar from 1550, built the city wall that still stands and in 1559 killed Emperor Gelawdewos in battle, but in the same year the last Walashma sultan died defending Harar. Oromo migrations then devastated the countryside, and famine and disease followed; Nur himself died in 1567. In 1577 Muhammad Gasa took the title of imam and moved the capital to Aussa, beginning the Imamate of Aussa, which was later replaced by the Afar Sultanate of Aussa. Harar went on as a separate emirate.

Our maps show Adal in 1492, 1500, 1530 and 1600, next to the Christian kingdom drawn as Ethiopia. The 1600 outline postdates the 1577 move to Aussa and reflects the successor imamate rather than the sultanate at its height.