History of Eritrea - Medieval History

Medieval History

With the rise of Islam in the 7th century the power of Aksum declined and the Kingdom became isolated, the Dahlak archipelago, northern and western Eritrea, came under increasing control of Islamic powers based in Yemen and Beja lands in Sudan.The Beja were often in alliance with the Umayyads of Arabia who themselves established footholds along stretches of the Eritrean coastline and the Dahlak archipelago while the Funj of Sudan exacted tribute from the adjacent western lowlands of Eritrea.

The culmination of Islamic dominance in the region occurred in 1557 when an Ottoman invasion during the time of Suleiman I and under Özdemir Pasha (who had declared the province of Habesh in 1555) took the port city of Massawa and the adjacent city of Arqiqo, even taking Debarwa, then capital of the local ruler Bahr negus Yeshaq (ruler of Midri Bahri). They administered this area as the province of Habesh. Yeshaq rallied his peasants and recaptured Debarwa, taking all the gold the invaders had piled within. In 1560 Yeshaq, disillusioned with the new Emperor of Ethiopia, revolted with Ottoman support but pledged his support again with the crowning of Emperor Sarsa Dengel. However, not long after, Yeshaq revolted once again with Ottoman support but was defeated once and for all in 1578, leaving the Ottomans with domain over Massawa, Arqiqo and some of the nearby coastal environs, which were soon transferred to the control of Beja Na'ibs (deputies).

Meanwhile the central highlands of Eritrea preserved their Orthodox Christian Aksumite heritage. "There was no administration that connected Hamasin and Serai to the centre of the Ethiopian Kingdom. Indeed, there was little sense in which the Bahr Negash could be said to "control" the area.

The parts of the region were under the domain of Bahr Negash ruled by the Bahr Negus. The region was first referred to as Ma'ikele Bahr ("between the seas/rivers," i.e. the land between the Red Sea and the Mereb river), renamed under Emperor Zara Yaqob as the domain of the Bahr Negash, called Midri Bahri (Tigrinya: "Sea land," though it included some areas like Shire on the other side of the Mereb, today in Ethiopia) until the modern day, when its name was changed to Mereb Mellash (beyond the river Mereb) under the rule of Yohannes IV, the locals referred to this area as Midri Bahri. Medri Bahri was an area distinguished by a very weak feudal structure, with virtually no serfdom and a strong and democratic landowning peasantry unique for the entire region at this time.

The Ottoman state maintained control over much of the northern coastal areas for nearly three hundred years, leaving their possessions (the province of Habesh), to their Egyptian heirs in 1865 before being given to the Italians in 1885. In the southeast of Eritrea, the Sultanate of Awsa, an Afar sultanate, came to dominate the coastline after its founding in 1577, becoming vassal to the Emperor of Ethiopia under the reign of Susenyos I.