Aksum An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity Stuart Munro-Hay

his followers, the hadith. A note of caution must be sounded before accepting these tales, 
but Muslim historians were themselves very conscious that the hadith were sometimes 
suspect, and insisted as well as they could on accepting only those with an impeccable 
isnad or chain of reliable sources right back to the original teller of the story. Umm 
Salama's tale (see below) about a revolt in Abyssinia passed through two informants 
before it was written down by Ibn Ishaq.  
If the compilers of the hadith are to be believed, the ruling najashi at the time of the 
prophet was a man of justice and equity, called Ashama ibn Abjar. Abu Talib composed a 
verse (Guillaume 1955) for this najashi to encourage his support for the Muslims against 
the Quraysh, who were preparing bribes for the king and his commanders (shums);  
`Does the Negus still treat Ja`afar and his companions kindly, 
Or has the mischief-maker prevented him? 
Thou art noble and generous, mayst thou escape calamity; 
No refugees are unhappy with thee. 
Know that God has increased thy happiness 
And all prosperity cleaves to thee. 
Thou art a river whose banks overflow with bounty 
Which reaches both friend and foe'.  
The najashi Ashama ibn Abjar died in 630AD and was, according to Ethiopian tradition, 
buried at Weqro, about 65 miles to the southeast of Aksum (Taddesse Tamrat 1972: 34-
5). If we can accept this tradition, the royal cemetery at Aksum may have been out of use 
by that date. Interestingly, but of uncertain significance, what seems to be a late tomb of 
someone of very high rank was found by Anfray and Annequin at Matara (1965; Tertre 
D). Both Ethiopian and Arab traditions mention the shift of the capital away from 
Aksum, assigning it to various reigns or periods (Sergew Hable Sellassie 1972: 203; 
Taddesse Tamrat 1972: 35ff).  
The najashi Ashama, again according to the reports of the Arab writers (Guillaume 1955: 
153) purportedly from the mouth of Umm Salama, one of the wives of Muhammad, had 
to face two revolts in his own country, which help to confirm the general feeling of unrest 
at this period also expressed by the coinage mottoes. The story, related by Ibn Ishaq, who 
died in the late 760s, is that Ashama had to fight a rebel leader across the Nile. This must 
have occurred sometime after the second hijra to Abyssinia in 615-6 (Muir 1923: 86), 
and before 628, when the exiles returned, since Umm Salama said that it happened while 
they were in the country. The Nile lay between the two parties, and the battle was fought 
apparently on the west side of the river, since the Muslim messenger, al- Zubayr, had to 
swim across on a water-skin to find out the outcome. The najashi was victorious, but 
later had to deal with another attempt at revolt, this time to do with his religion — 
perhaps in reality this episode is a piece of Muslim propaganda; (Guillaume 1955: 154-
5). These stories, after that detailing the difficulties in the succession (Guillaume 1955: 
153-4) indicate that the najashi's reign was not an easy one. In 630 there was military 
activity against Abyssinians who had combined with the people of Jidda against the 
Muslims. Muir (1923: 436) noted that the nature of this comb ination was not clear, but 

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suggested that the najashi might have been by now disappointed to find that Muhammad 
no longer supported Christianity; this is not likely, in view of the fact that the prophet is 
said to have prayed for the najashi after his death in 630, and presumably this incident, if 
of any official nature, is to be attributed to his successor in that year.  
5. The hatsani Danael 
 
There is one internal clue to the end of Aksum as a power centre; the inscriptions of a 
certain hatsani (ruler, or perhaps at this time merely commander or general) Danael, 
found on one of the ancient granite pedestals at Aksum (Littmann 1913: IV, nos. 12-14). 
The title hatsani is that which became the usual one (with negus or najashi) for the kings 
of Ethiopia, some times rendered as hadani, hatse, atze, etc. Apart from Danael's 
inscriptions, it first appears in Ethiopia as a royal title in the Zagwé king Lalibela's land-
charters. From the inscriptions, it appears that Danael was engaged in military 
campaigns, and not only another hatsani, Karuray(?) but a `king of Aksum' is mentioned. 
It appears that among other military activities the Wolqayt people had attacked the land 
of Hasla, and then gone on to Aksum. Danael claims to have expelled them and killed 
and captured a number of men and animals. Other campaigns may have led him to fight 
the Barya, and to the Kassala region — but the reading of the texts is very uncertain 
(Schneider 1984: 163). In the inscription DAE 14, which is better preserved than the 
others, it appears that Danael forced the king of Aksum himself into submission, making 
him in effect a tributary ruler. Whatever the exact political alignments of the time, Danael 
was able to set up his (badly carved) inscription on an Aksumite statue base.  
Several explanations of the situation are possible. The inscriptions could even allude to 
the time of Ashama, with the people of Wolqayt from over the Takaze being repelled by 
Danael in support of the king of Aksum; if this is the case, the najashi must eventually 
have triumphed after almost successful attempts by Danael to seize power. Later in the 
same reign, between 615 and 630, the old capital at Aksum would have been finally 
abandoned as the eponymous centre of the Ethiopian kingdom. If the tales about the 
splendours of Aksum's cathedral told to Muhammad by his wives (see 
Ch. 13: 3
) are true, 
they may indicate that the exiled Muslims were actually at the court in Aksum after 615, 
during the city's last days as a capital. The next recorded permanent capital was that of 
the najashis or hadanis who ruled from Ku`bar, the city mentioned in the ninth and tenth 
centuries by Arab writers (see 
Ch. 4: 8
).  
Illustration 67. At the cathedral of Maryam Tseyon, a priest exhibits the crowns and other 
objects dedicated by former emperors.  
Whatever the case, with the Arab take-over of the routes and many of the destinations of 
Aksumite trade after the preliminary Persian incursions into Arabia and the eastern 
Roman world, the `Aksumite' Christian kingdom changed its policies and bowed to 
events. The trade with the Mediterranean world had decayed and even the Red Sea route 
itself, when the Abbasid shift of the capital to Baghdad after 750AD had emphasised the 

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