Al-Negash - An Icon in Ethiopian Islamic History
Negashi, some 10km after Wukro lies on a plateau commanding a magnificent view of the surrounding area. Negashi got its name from Tigrigna word the local language means king Negashi is an Arabic zed of the world.
The history of Negashi begins from the 7th c AD if not before. Although Negashi is as the faith of Islam itself, it is the country’s best unknown if Islamic warship. History has it that the early followers of Prophet Muhammad were denied the fundamental rights to pursue the religion the religion they preferred and were harshly persecuted by the Qurush tribes, the mercantile ruler of Mecca. In order to maintain the very survival of his religion, the prophet had to seek a safe hide out for his followers. Yonder, a country where in no one is wronged land righteousness, deport thither: and remain until pleased the lord to pen your way before you” said the prophet pointing to the kingdom of Abyssinia. The ten ruler of Ethiopia, Negashi granted asylum to the first refugee, eleven men and four wives who entered his territory in the 7th c moth of the year of Muhammad’s mission (615).
The second Hijira (flight) consisted of 101 Muslims. The Qurush are said to have asked the Ethiopian ruler to hand over the exiles to them, but the king reported to have declared “if you were to offer me a mountain of gold, I would not hand over these people who have taken refugee with me” the notable among the refugee were the prophet’s daughter REQUYA his future wife Umma Habiba and Umma Salama or Hinidi and his cousin., the leader of the religious exile Ja’afer Ibn Abu Talib. Many of these Muslims stayed in the country until they died and were buried at the scared town of Ngashi. The Negashi of the Habeshat as the king is known in the Arab world that died in 630 who also buried in the same place.
Stuart Murno –Hay in his book “Axum, an African civilization of late antiquity states that the Negashi was buried in Wekro. A fact which Tadesses Tamirat coordinates in his book” church and state in Ethiopia” in fact Woukro and Negashi 10km apart.
The prophet is said to have remembered the Negashi with affection and pronounced some prayers for him when he heard the news of the death of the compassionate Ethiopian ruler this has apparently created the reason Tadesse “the tradition the king was in face the converted in new religion and the tradition in the end led to his being considered as a Muslim saint. The Ethiopian Muslim tradition and not very few Arab writers audaciously assert that the then Negashi of the Habeshat was eventually converted to Islam making him the first Ethiopian and even the first non-Saudi Muslim in the world.
The prophet and the Negashi had a very good contact according to the British researcher.Murno –Hat, it was the Negashi himself who contracted the marriage of Umma Habiba to Muhammad when she returned to her country in 628. Hancock and Pan Hurst in their book “Under Ethiopian skies” confirm this fact the king has given Umma Habiba a dowry of 400 dinner of gold at the time of the marriage. Moreover, the prophet had established a diplomatic ties with the king and had sent him a letter a content of which according to Murno-Hay was reported and published by Dunlop in 1940, Ethiopia to whom the entire Muslim world owns a great debt for the generous hospitality and secure shelter her king and people offered is said to have been exempted by the prophet from Jihad. Source: Different Ethiopia scholars