Early Life
Malik Ambar was born in the city of Alhura in a Habshi tribe of Maya, the capital of the Adal Sultanate, in modern eastern Ethiopia. However some sources mention the Ethiopian town of Harar as his birthplace. Both Ethiopia and the rebellious (formerly vassal) Adal sultanate were devastated after two decades of war with each other. According to the Futuhat-i `adil Shahi, Malik Ambar then known as Shambhu or Shan-bu was sold into slavery by his parents. He ended up in al-Mukha in Yemen, where he was sold again for 20 ducats and was taken to the slave market in Baghdad, where he was sold a third time to the Qadi al-Qudat of Mecca and again in Baghdad to Mir Qasim al-Baghdadi, who eventually took him to south-central India. Unlike most slaves sold from Ethiopia, he was ethnically Habesha (by the stricter definitions), as supported by the Dutch merchant Pieter van den Broecke's description of him, "a black kafir from Abyssinia with a stern Roman face."
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