Al-Ḥabasha in Miṣr and the End of the World. Egyptians Apocalypses from Early Islam related to the Ethiopians

Sobhi Bouderbala (1, 2)

1 OM-IM - Équipe Islam médiéval
2 Université de Tunis

This paper deals with the representation of al-Habasha (Abbyssinia) in the early apocalyptic texts written in early Islam and the importance of Egyptian scholars in the transmission of this material. The historical background of this literature and the political context of its writing shows a strong Yemeni influence, related to the struggle between the kindoms of Himyar and Axum in the sixth century C.E. One could ask if Muslim scholars from Fustat, the new Islamic capital of Egypt, enacted as a "collective memory" by borrowing apocalyptic material from Christian literature, as well as fragments from the pre-Islamic history of Yemen.

Domaines: Religions; Histoire

Sobhi Bouderbala. Al-Ḥabasha in Miṣr and the End of the World. Egyptians Apocalypses from Early Islam related to the Ethiopians. Northeast African Studies, 2019, Ethiopia and Nubia in Islamic Egypt: Connected Histories of Northeastern Africa, 19 (1), pp.9-22. ⟨10.14321/nortafristud.19.1.0009⟩. ⟨hal-02934450⟩