The Ethiopian-Adal War 1529-1543: The Conquest of Abyssinia

In 1529, an army from the Sultanate of Adal in modern-day Somalia invaded neighboring Ethiopia. For the next fourteen years, the conflict ravaged Ethiopia, planting the seeds of enmity and mistrust in the Horn of Africa that resonate to this day.

The Ethiopian-Adal War: The Conquest of Abyssinia brings sixteenth-century Arab, Portuguese, and Ethiopian primary source material from this conflict to contemporary readers for the first time in the English language in a single volume. Situating the conflict into the wider struggle for maritime supremacy between the Portuguese and Ottoman Empires, readers will have the chance to learn about a little-known conflict which nearly resulted in the subjugation of Christian Ethiopia at the hands of Imam Gurey, the Sultan of Adal. Included are maps of the conflict’s major battles, never before seen in any publication. Photographs of the Ethiopian landscape and a range of other illustrations complete the account of this epic conflict.