SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The Horn of Africa is here understood as comprising four countries: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Of these the largest both in terms of landmass and population is Ethiopia, followed by Somalia, Eritrea, and Djibouti in that order. Ethiopia also has the highest overall density of population of the four countries. Whilst all four countries have in part shared histories and some common cultural patterns and influences, owing in large part to their geographical contiguity, the dominant factor that has been central to history and culture alike across the region is the ancient and at times conflicting presence of two world religions, Christianity in the case of highland Ethiopia and Eritrea, and Islam elsewhere. Ethiopia and Eritrea, which historically formed a single entity, have been Christian since the fourth century and the Ethiopian kingdom constituted an expansive political and cultural nucleus in the Ethiopian highlands from even before that time. Islam already entered the Horn from its earliest days in the seventh and eighth centuries AD, and the growth of Islamic states in the southern and eastern parts of the region from the thirteenth century onwards inevitably led to conflict with the Christian kingdom. Islam today is dominant in the east of the Horn and along the Red Sea littoral, in Djibouti and Somalia, and with around 50 per cent of the population of Eritrea. Historically religion rather than language seems to have been the main criterion of identity and adherence to a political entity or state, at least judging from written histories, both chronicles and hagiographies.