Hussein Ahmed (1954-2009)

Abstract

Hussein Ahmed (1954-2009) Eloi Ficquet (bio) Hussein Ahmed died on the 6th of June 2009, 29th of Genbot 2001 of the Ethiopian calendar, or 12th of Jumâdâ al-thânî 1430 of the Hegirian year. He was in his 55th year. The academic community of Ethiopian studies lost one of the most active and prominent scholars involved in the study of Islam in Ethiopia and in the Horn of Africa. Hussein had been a member of the history department of Addis Ababa University since 1977, and he became a full professor in 2003. He devoted most of his work and teaching to the history of Ethiopian Islam and Ethiopian Muslims, mainly since the nineteenth century. His PhD dissertation was defended at Birmingham University, UK, in 1985. It was exceptional at that time, at the height of the Derg regime, for an Ethiopian student to be allowed to go to study abroad in a Western country. He preferred Birmingham to the School of Oriental and African Studies (a place where several Ethiopian academics were trained) because he wanted to work under the direction of P. F. Moraes de Farias at the Centre of West African Studies. His dissertation dealt with the history of Islam in Wallo, his region of origin in the central highlands of Ethiopia. He studied the processes of conversion to this religion that have taken place since the eighteenth century, as part of a movement of revival of sufi brotherhoods in the Horn of Africa. He focused on the respective [End Page 145] roles of "Clerics, Traders and Chiefs," three main categories of actors who contributed to the transformation of the area into an interconnection between Muslim and Christian powers. Following on from his PhD work, he brought out a more synthetic book entitled Islam in Nineteenth Century Wallo, Ethiopia: Revival, Reform and Reaction, which was published by Brill in 2001. Click for larger view View full resolution Hussein Ahmed, 2002 (Eloi Ficquet). His many articles dealt with different aspects of Ethiopian Islam: life histories of leading religious figures in Wallo;1 the components of Islamic religious education;2 works by Muslim Ethiopian scholars and the evolution of Muslim discourse and Muslim literature in the political evolution of Ethiopia;3 and the risk of confusion that may lie behind the apparently generous idea of peaceful coexistence between Christians.4 Recently he started research on the history of slavery5 and on Yemeni [End Page 146] communities in Ethiopia that were composed of very active traders and were expelled by the military regime after the revolution of 1974. He contributed significantly to the gathering of sources and critical notes for a volume on Arabic literature in Africa.6 He also published an article on the history of Addis Ababa University, expressing his attachment to the institution and his concerns about the reforms that have been carried out recently and the decline of historical studies.7 Through his academic life, Hussein Ahmed contributed to the recognition of the role played by Ethiopian Muslims in the history of the territories that were to become a nation. Despite the fact that they had been treated as second-class citizens, or enemies within, under the old regime, the processes of economic, political, and spiritual construction of the contemporary Ethiopian nation-state could not have been achieved without their will to participate. Nevertheless, Hussein did not sing the praises of an ideal state of tolerance between religious communities, a generous idea that he considered, however, to be an intellectual trick that could hinder the understanding of persisting sterotypes and conflicts. One of his favorite topics, in articles and in private discussions, was the state of the art of his field of study.8 For long, he deplored its underdevelopment. Derogatory biases conveyed by the dominant historiographical schemes of the Christian kingdom and the lack of integration—not to say the segregation—of Muslims in public affairs, including the academy, were some of the causes of this situation. For some time, at the time of the transition between the Derg and the federal regime, Hussein was almost alone in drawing the attention of the international community of Ethiopianists to Islam. He welcomed with...