Trimingham presents the general religious and cultural background of Ethiopian history, into which he places a learned chronicle of the emergence and development of Islam.
After introducing the country, he accounts for the origin of Ethiopian Christianity among the peoples of the highlands, its amalgamation of Jewish practices, and its becoming the state religion. The rise of Islam in Mecca (across the Red Sea) results in the isolation of the mountain kingdom. The author proceeds to describe the belated introduction of Islam on the coastal lowlands, and the formation there of various sultanates, each based on trade.
The book often conveys the inner logic and pivotal circumstance behind a sequence of events. Trimingham is a scholar of Islam in Africa and his firm grasp of the subject is reflected here in the thoughtful analysis he gives to historical events.
The ensuing era of rivalry and armed conflict between the highland and the coast are portrayed, as the Muslim states weather early and severe reversals. Yet, with their seaborne connections, e.g., to the Ottoman Turks, the Muslims manage to marshall their strength. A charismatic Imam, Ahmad ibn Ibraham (aka "Gragn"), eventually directs an army of pastoralists and immigrants to a climactic invasion of the wealthier, agricultural highlands during the sixteenth century. The timely arrival of the Portuguese provide the assistance by which the Christian kingdom survives. Eventually the negusa negast (king of kings) overcomes, but shortly thereafter the pagan Oromo peoples invade from the south at the expense of both Christian and Muslim.
The historical account is carried forward through a period of political disorganization, until the time of the unification of modern Ethiopia under the sway of the Christian Emperor, the negusa negast. (The book was writtn in 1951, well before the problematic communist revolution of 1974, the famine and economic disasters, and the subsequent rebuilding of the current secular state).
Following the historical account is a description of the then current state of Islam: its status among the different peoples of the region, and the various sufi orders practiced. Islam continued to find converts among the pagan peoples with whom Muslim merchants traded; it was the sufi orders which provided the most common port of entry for new adherents. As Ethiopia is a country where relations between Muslims and Christians are today relatively benign, its history would seem to merit study for this reason alone.
Trimingham, authoritative and scholarly throughout, nonetheless lets his Christianity show from time to time, while losing neither his bearings nor his reliable objectivity. The book's contents have stood up well, and have been little dated where it matters most, i.e., where Trimingham provides his reflections on Ethiopian religious history. This book satisfies on account of its rich historic content and its narrative strengths, as well as its recurrent insight
