Becoming Muslim: Conversion to Islam and Islamisation in Eastern Ethiopia

Project Information

BM

Grant agreement ID: 694254

DOI

10.3030/694254

Project closed

EC signature date 27 July 2016

Start date 1 September 2016

End date 28 February 2022

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 031 105,00

EU contribution

€ 1 031 105,00

Coordinated by

THE UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - BM (Becoming Muslim: Conversion to Islam and Islamisation in Eastern Ethiopia)

Reporting period: 2021-09-01 to 2022-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

This research project is addressing why people convert to Islam and how this can be manifest archaeologically. The contemporary relevance of these issues is immediately apparent in the context of globalisation and increasing interest in Islam. “Becoming Muslim” is transforming our knowledge about Islamisation processes and contexts through archaeological research in Harlaa and Harar, Eastern Ethiopia, a region never previously archaeologically investigated. Assessing genuine belief is difficult, but the particular impact of trade, as well as Saints, Sufis and Holy men, proselytisation, benefits gained from Arabic literacy and administration systems, enhanced power, prestige, warfare, and belonging to the larger Muslim community are all relevant. Equally significant is the context of conversion. Why were certain sub-Saharan African cities key points for conversion to Islam, e.g. Gao and Timbuktu in the Western Sahel, and Harlaa and then Harar in Ethiopia? The “Becoming Muslim” project is exploring these issues and examining and presenting them comparatively through publications, a major conference, and in museum displays.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Two major archaeological research expeditions have been completed in eastern Ethiopia of six weeks duration each in January to March 2017 and 2018. Archaeological excavation in the abandoned trade centre of Harlaa has uncovered a sequence of workshops used for the production of jewellery in the medieval period. The craftspeople in these workshops appear to have made glass and stone beads, worked with cowry and other imported marine shells, melted copper alloys, and were blacksmiths working iron. They lived near the workshops and ate a varied diet of grains and domesticated animals. Some of the people of Harlaa were Muslims with a mosque and Muslim burials found. Trade was also very important and this seems to have been the means by which Islam spread, via merchants, to Harlaa and then further into the Ethiopian interior. Glazed pottery from China and the Middle East, copper Islamic coins, glass from the Middle East, were among the artefacts imported to Harlaa. Scientific analyses of many of these categories of objects are ongoing to ascertain their uses and sources, faunal and botanical remains, isotope analysis of teeth, chemical and scanning electron microscope analyses of beads, metal-working crucibles, fragments of stone vessels, for example. This is allowing the reconstruction of international contacts and influences, including Islamisation routes, as well as regional connections evident through the locally made ceramics present that are being studied by the project PhD student. Regional connections extended to Harar. Six mosques and shrines important in the Islamic history of the city have been archaeologically excavated. These post-date Harlaa. The results of the excavations also suggest the development of local Muslim practices occurred in Harar, with differences evident in, for example, the animal bones found.

Detailed archaeological maps of both Harlaa and Harar have been prepared by the project post-doctoral researcher, and all the archaeological finds transported to the Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage Headquarters (ARCCH) in Addis Ababa where the research project had appropriate storage units constructed. Training in the use of GIS has been provided for staff at the ARCCH, and Ethiopian students and colleagues trained on site, and in museums and collections outside Ethiopia. The research has generated significant media and public interest, and project team members have given lectures on the research at conferences and to the public. Two annual reports and five academic publications have been written to date and the blog of the project website (http://www.becomingmuslim.co.uk) is regularly updated.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The results achieved to date have been exceptional, and because Islamic archaeology was wholly neglected prior to the start of the “Becoming Muslim” project scientific methodologies regarded as routine in other aspects of archaeology are novel. Analyses are proceeding and detailed results will be obtained over the next 12 months from the investigations of, for example, the obsidian tools, quartz or rock crystal, glass and hard stone beads, metal-working debris, animal bones, botanical remains, and soft-stone vessel fragments. Another archaeological field season is also taking place in early 2019 with subsequent completion of cataloguing and interpretation of all the finds. The project PhD student is completing his thesis and the post-doctoral researcher her study of landscape, and the use of satellite imagery for site identification and protection. A major conference on Islamisation in Africa from archaeological and historical perspectives is being organised for late 2019. Two further project academic articles are planned and the final monograph will be finished as the analyses are completed. An exhibition of the results will also be prepared and displayed in the Ethiopian and UK museums.

Excavation in a mosque, Harlaa

Excavation in the Jewellery workshop complex, Harlaa

Excavation at the Fehkredin Mosque, Harar