The Covert Genocide: Tragedy of a Nation Downtrodden

By Abdulkadir Ali

The Covert Genocide is the first comprehensive account of the horrors that befell Ethiopia's Somali region during the reign of Abdi Mohamoud Omar-commonly known as Abdi iley-who ruled over the Somali inhabited parts of Ethiopia between 2010 and 2018. In this book Abdulkadir Ali 'Bureida' offers an incisive assessment of the Abdi iley years. His reign of terror claimed the lives of thousands of Somalis in Ethiopia. It lastingly damaged-physically, mentally and socially-a good part of the community. As the federal government's main pillar of the counter-insurgency against the reel Ogden National Liberation Front (ONLF) Abdi iley acted as a state within the state. On his and his officials' orders countless civilians, political competitors and suspected and real ONLF supporters were arrested, tortured and killed across the region. Drawing over 700 interviews with witnesses and survivors, The Covert Genocide provides the reader with an insider's account of the atrocities, arbitrary violence and terror that were the hallmark of the Abdi iley period. Making use of history, philosophy, psychology and his first-hand observations as a prisoner of conscience in the infamous Jail Ogaden, the author sheds light both on the systematic human rights abuses by Abdi iley's officials and paramilitary 'Liyu' or special police and the broad political context, which enabled it. Equal part historical account, political account, political analysis and human rights reporting, the book offers crucial testimony of the Abdi iley period. A powerful tribute to the victims of state sponsored violence, the Covert Genocide is a reminder that accountability for the many injustices committed continues to be wanting.

Some readers will be tempted to discard or downplay the findings of this book as essentially a Somali problem. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ethiopia' former EPRDF government not only tolerated, but enabled the many atrocities against civilians that took place as part of the governments' counterinsurgency. The ongoing impunity of former and current officials and security forces-including parts of the ONLF-continues to be a major obstacle for reconciliation and healing not only in Somali region, but in Ethiopia altogether.

Recent atrocities by warring parties in the Tigray conflict are a spark reminder that Ethiopia has so far failed to address or learn from its recent past. The Covert Genocide is a stark reminder that as long as political elites refuse to acknowledge these past injustices and their victims, they are likely to repeat themselves in the future.

Tobias Hagmann, visiting professor, Roskilde University (Denmark) and Senior Programme Officer, Swisspeace (Switzerland).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887316710

Book preview

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1: Abyssinia: Old History at a Glance

Chapter 2: The Coming of the Colonizers

Chapter 3: EPRDF: The Bane of the Horn of Africa

Chapter 4: The Blitzkrieg, the Wholesale Destruction of a Nation

Chapter 5: Best Form of a State, Theory, and Practice

Chapter 6: Somali Region of Ethiopia and the theory of the Periphery/Frontier

Chapter 7: Individual (Sample) Case Studies

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

References

About the Author

cover.jpg

The Covert Genocide

Tragedy of a Nation Downtrodden

Abdulkadir Ali

Copyright © 2023 Abdulkadir Ali

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2023

ISBN 979-8-88731-670-3 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88731-671-0 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Acknowledgements

My tireless efforts, for a period of more than four years, have resulted in this modest outcome, the book (The Covert Genocide). My strive to piece together my observations and enquires during and after the calamity, in the form of a book prepared both in English and Somali languages, could never have been accomplished without the full support of some individuals to whom I am deeply indebted. In my quest to tell the untold story of an unparalleled tragedy in the history of this nation-Somalis of Ethiopia, and to bring this book to this humble form, I was faced with an uphill struggle and real challenges. This was because of my limited resources as the topic of the book (issues of human rights abuses) was neither in my specialty nor expertise.

Among the many individuals who contributed to my work, only the most outstanding of them would take the lion share of my gratitude. Two regional presidents, Mustafa M. Omar, and President Ahmed Sheikh Islan of Jubbaland, were the first to offer both encouragement and some financial (chicken feed) assistance to kick start the project-to investigate the gross human rights abuses. I owe a huge intellectual debt to Tobias Hagmann (PhD, specialist in political dynamics of the region) for his invaluable information materials and data concerning Ethiopian political structures and history, as well as his encouragement and advice. Suldan Mohamed Sheikh Siraje, is among those who contributed. Abdinasir Haji Abdi Hassan, for his technical assistance. Mr. Dauti Kahura of The Standard newspaper of Kenya, for his proofreading and improving on my prose. My especial gratitude is, however, reserved for two individuals, Khadir Abdurahman, a former Deputy Head of the Regional Commerce and Transport Department, for his unwavering advocate and lobbing for support. Mubashir Dubbad Raage, the former Head of the Regional Financial and Economic Development Department, contributed to finance my investigation.

Introduction

History is a subject that has fascinated human beings for millennia. We are naturally inclined to find out how our ancestors lived thousands or millions of years ago, their journey of survival and how they adapted to the hostile environment, how they managed their daily lives, how they found food and shelter, and how they have dealt with the many threats and dangers that stared at them. We also are interested in how they made the tools that enabled them to harness nature to their advantage and how they settled their differences. Before the advent of written history, human beings depended on the spoken word to learn and understand their history. They mostly did from their legends and masters of storytellers.

Today, archaeologists and anthropologists continue to dig deep into the past through the excavation of artifacts and old remains of individuals for clues into what their living conditions, beliefs, and sociocultural norms looked like. Their findings have also enriched our knowledge of our ancestors' source of food, state of health, and military escapades and what informed their politics and social relations.

The recent discovery in Ethiopia of a 3.8-million-year-old fossilized skull belonging to Australopithecus anamensis species is believed by paleoanthropologists to be the oldest remains of mankind ever discovered. Some have called him Lucy's uncle (skull of a male) in reference to another human remains also found in Ethiopia's Afar Region in 1974 that was considered, until the new discovery, to have been the oldest remains/primordium of mankind ever found in the world.

It is not true though that we always enjoy reading the history of how our ancestors lived; it hurts to know the cruelty they practiced against fellow human beings or even animals. For instance, we read in history that children and adults were sacrificed by killing and mutilating them in order to appease gods of various tasks. Today, we feel that pitting a man against an animal is a form of extreme cruelty.

Tragically, human cruelty toward each other or to animals yet persists in today's world. Worse off is the fact that dark history still seeps into these modern times that we are living in—the Age of Enlightenment notwithstanding. The savage reality is, alas, that we are still living in a world where the law of the jungle reigns supreme.

Tragedy of a Nation

It had never occurred to me that I should ever write on history or politics, if the defense of social and political rights can be described as politics. Our dreams for the future usually begin in early childhood: the kind of life one would like to lead in the future, the kind of education one would like to get, career aspirations, even the kind of man/woman one would like to live within marriage. My dream was simple and no more than to seek knowledge and live among the pastoralist people I was born into where, to date, children still struggle to find a decent modern education.

From early on, therefore, I decided to dedicate my life to finding ways and means of taking education to these children. That dream did not come true in the form and magnitude I would have liked despite the mixed results of failure and success. In 2007, I got the chance of starting the first-ever boarding school for pastoralist children in my region of origin, the Ogaden (now officially the Somali Region of Ethiopia). The school offered hundreds of kids a chance to pursue formal education. It's now run by the government.

Another of my few successes was the twenty-five thousand school texts and reference books that I brought from the United States and distributed among the regional secondary-level schools.

I grew up in the political turmoil and turbulence of this part of the world; the political instability of the region has always seemed everlasting. The region has always been prone to political and ethnic conflicts and upheavals pitted against successive governments. I had always believed that I could ignore the anarchy around me, even survive the political turmoil by concentrating on humanitarian efforts. How so wrong I was!

I came to learn, over time, that human emotion and mental makeup are intrinsically connected and difficult to comprehend.

I knew for a long time, for instance, that I was anachronistic and an idealist; desynchronized with the times, but yet I believed that I was psychologically very stable and far from being emotional. I was utterly wrong. As later events would prove my calculations, presumptions, and situational assessments were all wrong. I found myself impulsively reacting to any abuse of human rights and aggression against the defenseless, including animals. I am extremely sensitive to the suffering (of living beings). When I realized I was powerless to intervene, I suffered from depression and mental disturbance.

Having been born in a nomadic pastoralist environment and among people who adore oral literature, I developed a passion for poetry at a tender age, where I memorized and recited long poems from memory. I always aspired to become a poet myself one day. I was disappointed though to learn that reciting other people's lyrics was not the same thing as having the talent of writing your own. Talent requires more than aspirations, desire, and effort. It is a natural favor and cannot be acquired.

But you will not believe this. My life circumstances and events I witnessed over the last ten years had proven otherwise. I was wrong to think that I did not possess poetic artistry. The truth is, I was a born poet, but I had failed to spot my inborn talent and awaken my natural aptitude all this time.

The tragically disturbing news of the onslaught on civilians reached my ears: imprisonment, murders, tortures, the ubiquitous rape of small girls and women (a real taboo hitherto), terror and looting, and orchestrated state violence against defenseless people in the midst of a total information blackout to the rest of the world. The indifference and don't-care attitude of the people who knew what was happening did not help the matter. I was engulfed with an insurmountable sadness. The extent of the suffering combined with my inability to do or change the course of events or even help broadcast what was happening to the outside world only made my circumstances worse and made my life a hell on earth.

The words of Edmund Burke did not offer me any consolation. In fact, they made me feel terribly bad: For evil to flourish, good people have to do nothing and evil shall flourish.

I was in a moral dilemma, and my indifference and disinterest seemed immoral.

Psychologists define empathy as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another, and people's levels of empathy vary from low or zero to high levels. My own sense of a high degree of empathy is that it is a curse. It is this high degree of empathy that I experienced when people spoke of pain and destruction inflicted on helpless people.

The disbelief and inability to accept the reality and my apparent powerlessness to do anything had made me psychologically miserable, much like the very people who had been subjected to the worst possible mistreatment of any human beings. Whenever I thought of the horrific subjugation of the people repeatedly, I wondered, in utter disbelief, how a human being supposedly with a conscience would visit such barbarism on another human being. Knowing about these acts of cruelty helped me to reach the conclusion that not all humans have a conscience.

Doers of terrible things are too human and that we are all too capable of doing almost anything. (Sir Ian McClellan)

Feeling powerless and unable to do anything, I was engulfed with great sadness and became withdrawn. I was like an alcoholic who suffers terrible withdrawal symptoms as he fights to release himself from a bad habit.

For many months, I seldom left my residence, but one Sunday morning, early January 2014, I stepped out, breaking away from my self-imposed seclusion. I met an acquaintance at the café, and we were soon joined by two other men.

Somalis are oral people, and as usual, when two or three Somalis are gathered, they are bound to engage in the time-tested pass time. As we engaged in Somali folklore, I glibly commented: Our people, are you aware we've people who are gifted poets but are unaware of their talents? Such people usually need to be jolted by both internal and external circumstances to awaken their dormant and hidden gifts.

In the morning of the next day, Monday, alone in my room, I ventured into writing a long winding poem, reminiscent of the epic poems of Homer (the Greek poet) and Abu-Thueib Al-Hutheyli of Arabia, who were masters of describing human tragedies. Two hundred and fifty-nine lines, the poem, streaming from an inexhaustible spring of a deep current of overflowing emotions, came as a miracle; written as it was, it flowed for the first time for a person at the age of fifty-six.

Traditionally, poems written by Somalis were powerful tools aimed at societal change. They could, for instance, spark a war or stop it. They were used for such important matters as communication, message delivery, love and praise, or tribal assault. Furthermore, they were especially useful for the mobilization and rallying the community for a certain cause or campaign, such as defense.

Somali language is an enormously powerful vehicle of oratory, exhortation, persuasion, and poetry. (Burton 1858)

But what can poems and poets do against a determined enemy who understands the real weakness of the downtrodden people and their civil society? The answer is nothing at all. It would seem fanciful to look to poetry to inspire a revolution of any kind, I once read the statement in the Oxford English Dictionary. It was, however, a bit of relief for me to have temporarily vented my internally crashing pressures of emotions by protesting and lamenting the calamity that had befallen this community. It was about this time that I also decided to write this book, The Covert Genocide: Tragedy of a Nation Downtrodden.

One of the sources of Islamic teachings is Hadith (recorded words and actions of Prophet Mohamed). There is a particular Hadith in this context that guides Muslims to the right way of dealing with or reacting to a situation of a moral crisis. The Hadith translates as follows: Whosoever finds any abominable act of crime being committed or any kind of evil being done must prevent or stop it by physically intervening, and if he/she cannot physically confront it, let them intervene by verbally denouncing, remonstrating, and disavowing it, and if they still cannot denounce it openly, let them reject it through their hearts, and this [the latter action] is the weakest of faith.

I could not stand up for the oppressed and intervene on their behalf physically. Therefore, my obligation must have lied in the next option, according to the Hadith, which is to speak out about the evil and denounce it. This is exactly what I have done, knowing it was a big risky undertaking, with a heavy price to pay. It was a deliberate and suicidal act whose consequences I knew only too well. I have prepared myself for all eventualities, including the worst-case scenarios, such as long imprisonment, unimaginable forms of torture, or even paying the ultimate price of death.

So despite me prefacing all the forces driving me to do something, was there anything that could justify or rationalize my extraordinary and incredible act of bravery, or say madness if you like, for sticking out my neck and grasping the nettle? My strategy was because of my high standing in the community, in the aftermath of my possible arrest, after provoking the authorities that my arrest would bring the calamities of the community into the fore; hence, it would attract world attention who would be pricked to intervene. Another of my motivation was I wanted to show my solidarity with the people and that I was prepared to share with them their fate; if they perish, I should also perish with them.

Decision to sacrifice myself was made, but my problem was then how to attract the attention of Abdi iley's (the man who led his people to this unprecedented disaster) or similarly to pass the message and the distress signal to the rest of the world.

So how did I go about it, and where did it end? I had printed out my poems (eight pages of A4 size) and forty-page comments on the prevailing situation (the worst calamity in the history of the region) in the absence of any media outlet (there was no independent newspaper, and the only TV channel here was Abdi's used solely for his own propaganda and praise songs) to voice my concern. Facebook and Twitter were unknown in the region or the access was naught. I opted to go to a local mosque and seek an audience. So after one afternoon prayer, I requested everyone to remain behind for a short while for some important announcement to be made.

The faithful were keen to hear what the all-important announcement was about. Their attention was as perfect as I wanted.

I would like to speak on some issues of great concern, including the total destruction being perpetrated against the civilians of this region by President Abdi, I began my statement. Unsurprisingly, chaotic scenes ensued and a near-stampede rush followed as people scrambled to immediately leave the mosque. The mosque was empty of worshippers in minutes; everybody had fled for their lives. This was an indicative of how much the people feared Abdi that they assumed a prompt savage attack on the mosque was eminent.

Having failed to deliver my sermon, I threw around the copies of the literature I had come with, even as the fleeing flock scampered outside. Interestingly, they also scrambled for the copies as they hurriedly left the precincts of the mosque. As the people ran away, a police officer caught hold of my arm, saying, Uncle, stop it and led me away. He took me to a nearby office of the Qabale—the local neighborhood office created during the Derg (council of senior military officers, the ruling communist Junta of Mengistu) days that was used for political and social surveillance. Mobile phone calls were crisscrossed.

There is a very dangerous man here in my custody, send me a pickup immediately [from the police headquarters], demanded the police officer.

A high degree of efficiency and swift action characterized Abdi's brutal regime when it came to unleashing terror. The pickup arrived in minutes, and I was taken to Jail Ogaden (the notorious prison) where I ended up in caqabad, a small room for solitary confinement, and locked up for thirty-three days, completely incommunicado from the rest of the world. In total, I spent sixteen months in Jail Ogaden. My suicidal act may not have disparaged Abdi's regime in any way or even halted his violent rampage against the people, but I believe I had pulled a spectacular spectacle of self-sacrifice and courage that, believe it or not, had given people a temporary sigh of relief. I had this sneaky feeling that I could as well have destroyed the enemy. The event became a sensation for weeks and months and the talk of the town.

Jail Ogaden is a story in its own right that will be briefly described in the subsequent chapters. When I left the prison, I contemplated going abroad to write this book. It was not possible though for two reasons. First, had I done that, my family would have been harassed (could be destroyed) to no end. Second, the raw material for the book was the people themselves; I would have needed to get the information from victims and those who knew Abdi iley well—before and after his coming to power. I would also need to talk to people who had previously worked with him. Finding myself in a dilemma, I decided to stay on to buy time in a wait-and-see strategy, hoping for Abdi iley's early downfall. My hope was not a pious wish though; the signs of political change were already in the air, and it did happen in a way that the people least expected. Abdi iley's downfall had come at last.

Our world was, once again, thrust open for business but not for long. Another shock wave of political unrest struck again in this part of the world that has known few times of tranquility during the past millennium.

The time was ripe now to fulfill my dream and tell the story of the disastrous goings-on in this forgotten part of the world to the rest of the world. I would, unfortunately, soon discover, however, how ill-equipped I was to undertake a task of this complexity and magnitude. This is because I was going to write on a topic that I had the least expertise on and my only strength having been my determination and a sense of moral obligation to expose the injustices done to these people to get the attention of the world opinion and interest to find out what had befallen this community.

My Research

The book is the result of interviews conducted with real victims and people who had worked with Abdi iley, including some perpetrators. It was not an easy task. Jail Ogaden may be the symbol of the oppressive regime, but it is only one of the thousands of similar places in the region. The worst affected areas in the region were, actually, worse than Jail Ogaden. More than being the eyes and ears of Abdi iley's regime, the military and Liyu were operated by his unbridled wolves who, apart from torturing the people, helped themselves to the state coffers.

This area covers nearly three hundred thousand square kilometers of difficult terrain with little or no all-weather roads, making most areas inaccessible. Abdi iley might have been gone, but his legacy of terror still lives on in the minds of many. His criminals that he left behind are still enjoying life as ever in the midst of their victims, with some even having been promoted. It was a daunting task to convince the majority of the victims to talk openly and freely on their past woes. Many were skeptical and even wondered what was the benefit of digging up the painful past in the wake of the prevailing circumstances. We are a destroyed people, what would be the possible outcome of such a venture? What can you do for us? What would be the fruits of such an endeavor? I was duly confronted by such doubts and queries in the course of researching for the book.

Methodology and Scope

Single-handedly and without any prior experience of conducting any research of this nature and magnitude, I aimed to finding out evidences of the brutal suppression of monumental proportions. Statistics of actual numbers of state victims were beyond the scope and ambition of my investigative work.

My approach was as follows: On arriving at a village or town, I would start with contacting the local administrators who would summon village elders familiar with the local environs and the population to assemble. I would ask them to share with me their experiences over the last three decades since coming to power of the EPRDF. I encouraged them to speak out freely and without fear of any reprisal since I did not have any association with the state or any group and that Abdi's regime was gone. Furthermore, I reminded them it was not my interest to know the individual criminals (only the state and the armed groups as a whole)—mine was to collect information and synthesize it for future reference. Furthermore, I asked them to give examples of the worst crimes committed during their time that they had witnessed or experienced themselves. Likewise, I sought to meet the victims themselves if they happened to be alive and, if that was not the case, the next of kin. So to verify the narrations, I relied on the eyewitnesses, victims' stories, and the next of kin. When all of these sources were not available, I sought a group narrative and asked the people to try and be as sure and accurate as possible. Hence, what I am reporting is what I was told by the specific individuals and groups.

In spite of my carefulness and utmost effort to verify the narrations, I did not delude myself that all narratives would be authentic. I know for sure that some were misleading and others were fabricated or embellished or were even mere hearsay that could not be substantiated. The findings, nonetheless, speak for themselves. Be warned in advance, some case studies may be gory for your liking.

Be that as it may, I did not lay my hands on any classified documents, confidential memos, emails, or any actual and real correspondence of Abdi iley touching on the federal crimes I was investigating. I met Abdi iley in prison for interview, but he declined. The few government officials who dared to speak to me had chosen anonymity; therefore, I could not reveal their identities. Abdi iley and the EPRDF mafia elements were too smart to leave behind any incriminating evidence or, indeed, any other trace of evidence of their crimes that could indict them one day.

This book has two other twin books. The first is a Somali version intended of this book for the Somali-speaking readers. The other is Cries from the Hinterland by Dr. AbdiRizak, University of Minnesota (discusses the same topic looking from different angles).

There are no extraordinary men, just extraordinary circumstances that ordinary men are forced to deal with. (William Halsey)

Chapter 1

Abyssinia: Old History at a Glance

Historians and ethnologists believed that Hamitic people migrated back to Africa from the Caucasian region around the Black Sea eons ago (prehistoric times) and settled in the north, northwest and northeast of the African continent, with some intermarrying with the local people such as the Bantus.

The Cushitic tribes, an offshoot of the larger group of the Hamites, settled in the Horn of Africa, where some clans had already intermarried with the migrating tribes from Southern Arabia to the Horn of Africa, crossing the Red Sea at Bab al-mandab strait to what is now Eritrea, Tigray, and Amhara regions of Ethiopia. They settled early in the first millennium BC, with the latter group having a deep and lasting impact on the culture and language of the Cushites to produce a third race, the semitized Cushitic race (or synthesized as Professor Modachai Abir [1980] calls it). Other Cushitic tribes, however, pushed their way further into many parts of the Horn of Africa: Oromo, Somali, Beja, Sidama, Rendille (of Northern Kenya), and Afars, among the numerous others.

The migrants from Southern Arabia brought with them some superior skills and helped the local people in state building, says Professor Modachai of Hebrew University. The name Abyssinia originates from an Arabic word Habasha, meaning blending together of different things, in this case, the admixture of two bloods (races). The fusion of the two bloods produced a third group similar to the colored (half-castes) of South Africa, but the Hamito-Semitic bloods were more closely related than the Negroid-Caucasoid bloods.

The name originally referred to these migrating tribes but included, in later stages, all those mixed-race communities. From then onwards, Habashiyun was a name for Black slaves from Africa and, sometimes, the entire dark-skinned peoples of Africa.

This newly emerged race was then able to establish its first kingdom as early as the sixth century BCE. According to some historians, the Axumite kingdom was located in the northern plateau of the Ethiopian highlands and not far from the southern Red Sea shores. This new kingdom was a precursor of the subsequent Abyssinian kingdoms and empires that existed throughout the ages up to the contemporary Ethiopia.

Fundamentally, Abyssinia was a name for the entire region from Egypt to the tip of Horn of Africa along the Red Sea coast and across the dry land through the Nubian and Somali territories. Some historians have even gone further in their beliefs that the name encompassed the entire Arabian Peninsula, Palestine, Egypt, Sudan, and even parts of India. And because of this confusion about the name, some historians claimed that some Pharaonic dynasts of Egypt were Ethiopian. The truth is, they were Nubians of Cush kingdom who launched their successful campaign to capture Egypt, marching from Napata, the capital of Cush kingdom, in what is now the Sudan, in the early first millennium BC.

Rosalie David, a British Egyptologist, has titled a chapter of her book Ancient Egypt The Ethiopian Dynasty. In that chapter, she described Napatans as Nubians on page 304 because of its vantage position in the proximity of the Red Sea and using Adulis, in what is now Eritrea, as its main seaport. Axum flourished, quickly developing into a major trading hub bringing together Arabian Peninsula, Meroe on the west bank of the Nile, Near and Far East Asia, as well as Egypt, Greece, and others.

After the coming of the Christian era and Axum adopting it as its new religion, Abyssinia was taken to mean the new Christian kingdom and its adjacent realms, mainly in what is now Tigray and Amhara regions. Another name as old as Abyssinia but more preferable to the modern people of old Abyssinia was Ethiopia, which was said to be a Greek word Aethiopia (some scholars disagree), meaning burnt faces. But a British Egyptologist Sir Wallis Budge said that the name Ethiopia was much older than Abyssinia and that Axumites had preferred Ethiopia to Abyssinia. Wallis further argued that the extent of Ethiopia or Abyssinia (country boundaries) was unknown. The two names Abyssinia and Ethiopia would, henceforth, be used interchangeably.

Another name that was given to the region east of Egypt was Punt. Many historians believe that the modern Somali territory in the Horn was known for its myrrh and incenses that were popular in Egypt and later to the rest of the Christian world. Axum embraced Christianity in the fourth century CE brought, some say, by a Syrian priest (Fermentius) but largely believed to have been the extended work of the Coptic Church of Alexandria.

Axumite kingdom grew in importance and influence even further, so much so that it was able to invade, conquer, and rule some parts of Yemen in the AD fifth century in order to defend the persecuted Christians there. The advent of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula was not a threat to the prominence of the Axumite kingdom. Rather, Axum found itself playing the role of a safe haven for the first Muslims fleeing the persecution of the pagans in Mecca because of their new faith. King Najashi welcomed the migrants to peacefully live in his country until they were able to go back to their country.

Axumite kingdom also miraculously escaped and survived the Islamic conquests that saw the two world superpower empires at the time, Persian in the northeast and Roman in the northwest of the Arabian Peninsula, humbled. The expansion of the Islamic Empire during its height of conquests to the east as far as China and west to swallow the Byzantine Empire and Iberian Peninsula never attempted to invade Abyssinia. One reason, some people believed, was that since it hosted and protected early Muslim refugees, Muslims had always invoked a divine care for Abyssinia. And for this reason, when Saladin reconquered Jerusalem in AD 1189 by defeating the Crusaders, Ethiopian pilgrims were given special privileges and welcomed.

Ehtiopia was not considered part of Dar al-Harbi [hostile territory] and, thus