Julien Loiseau, “The Living and the Dead. Muslim Communities in Christian Ethiopia in the light of recent research in funerary archaeology and Arabic epigraphy”

Julien Loiseau
Julien Loiseau is professor in History of the Medieval Islamic World at Aix-Marseille University (France). He has extensively published on the history of Cairo and other Middle Eastern Cities in the late Middle Ages. His book Les Mamelouks. Une expérience du pouvoir dans l’Islam was awarded the Book Prize of the Institut (2014) médiéval du Monde Arabe (Paris) and was translated into Arabic in 2019 (المماليك، تجربة سلطة في إسلام القرون الوسطی). He has recently focused his research on Islam in the Horn of Africa.

The Living and the Dead. Muslim Communities in Christian Ethiopia in the light of recent research in funerary archaeology and Arabic epigraphy.
Ethiopia offers one of the rare instances of a Christian kingdom where Muslim communities flourished in the Middle Ages. The Muslim tradition emphasized the welcome offered to Muhammad’s companions by the king of Axum (the “Najashi”) during the so-called “Hijrat al-Habasha”. Later on, diplomatic correspondence between Solomonic kings and Mamluk sultans underlined the protection granted by the Christian kingdom to Muslim merchants going back and forth between Egypt or Yemen and Ethiopia. Archaeology and epigraphy can provide further evidence of the long-lasting presence of Muslim communities in the very heart of the Christian kingdom. Cemeteries, grave markers and funerary stelae not only shed light on the Dead but also on the Living. The lecture will particularly focus on the unpublished Arabic funerary inscriptions collected in 2018-2019.