Evaluation
The Ethiopian historian Bahru Zewde describes Iyasu's reign as "one of the most enigmatic in Ethiopian history." A common account of his reign is provided by J. Spencer Trimingham, who writes that his acts favoring Islam were
...encouraged by German and Turkish diplomats. He made the fuqaha construct a genealogy deriving his ancestry on his father's side from the Prophet. He made prolonged stays in Harar where he adopted Muslim dress and customs. He put away his Christian wife, Romane-Warq, and started a harim by marrying the daughters of 'Afar and Galla chiefs, including a daughter and niece of Abba Jifar of Jimma. He built mosques at Dire Dawa and Jigjiga. In 1916 he officially placed Abyssinia in religious dependence upon Turkey, and sent the Turkish consul-general an Abyssinian flag embroidered with a crescent and the Islamic formula of faith. He sent similar flags to his own Muslim chiefs and promised to lead them to the jihad. He entered into negotiations with Muhammed ibn 'Abd Allah, the Mahdi of the Ogaden, and sent him rifles and ammunition. He then issued a summons to all Somalis, some of whom regarded him as true Mahdi, to follow him in a jihad against the Christians, and went to Jigjiga to collect an army.
According to Fitawrari Tekle Hawariat Tekle Mariyam, Lij Iyasu at one point announced "If I do not make Ethiopia Muslim, then I am not Iyasu." He also recalls Lij Iyasu's visit to Dire Dawa in 1916, when the ruler walked into a Roman Catholic church in that city (this an act alone would scandalize the Ethiopian Orthodox establishment) and commenced to light and smoke a cigarette while Mass was being conducted. Tekle Hawariat, concludes that Iyasu V was completely unsuited for the throne, and that his deposing was necessary for the survival of the Empire and the good of the people.
Bahru Zewde on the other hand, while admitting that "contradiction and inconsistency were the hallmark of his character and policies", notes that Iyasu's reign was characterized by "a series of measures which, because of the social and economic security they implied, may well be considered progressive." Iyasu modernized many sections of the Ethiopian criminal code, and created a municipal police force, the Terenbulle. His overtures to the Muslim inhabitants of Ethiopia "can be interpreted as one of trying to redress the injustices of the past, of making the Muslims feel at home in their own country."
However, Iyasu had the misfortune of being succeeded (in Bahru Zewde's words) "by a ruler of extraordinary political longevity who found it in his interest to suppress any objective appreciation of the man." According to Paul B. Henze, during the reign of his cousin Haile Selassie, Iyasu was "practically an 'unperson'. If he was referred to at all, it was invariably in extremely negative terms." While admitting the lack of information about this man, Henze suggests that "the fairest conclusion that can be reached on the basis of present knowledge may be to credit him with good intentions but condemn him for intemperate, inept and in the end, disastrous performance."
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