Is the Word Habesha an Insult?

Habesha:- The term Habesha (Ge’ez ሐበሻ ḥabaśā, Amh. hābešā, Tgn., ḥābešā; sometimes Amh. Abesha, አበሻ `ābešā; Arabic. al-ḥabašah الحبشة) refers to the South Semitic-speaking group of people whose cultural, linguistic, and in certain cases, ancestral origins trace back to those people who ruled the Axumite (Habasha) and the Da’amat kingdom. The people referred to as Habesha today include the Amhara and Tigray-Tigrinya ethnic groups of Ethiopia and Eritrea who are predominantly Oriental Christians, and have been since AD 332. The Amhara and Tigray ethnicities combined make up about 36% of Ethiopia’s population (ca. 23 million Amhara, 4.5 million Tigray) while Tigray make up about half of Eritrea’s population (ca. 2.25 of 4.5 million). However, a broader definition of this term may include some segments of the Semitic-speaking Gurage groups (in the southwest) and the Harari (in the east/southeast), as well, because of their strong historical links to the Amhara and Tigray.
In the broadest sense, the word “Habesha” may refer to anyone from Ethiopia or Eritrea, while some would exclude themselves from this association.
The modern term derives from the vocalized Ge’ez ሐበሣ (ḥabaśā), first written unvocalized as ሐበሠ (ḥbś, but probably pronounced ḥbs) or the “pseudo-Sabaic ḥbštm”.[18] The earliest known use of the term dates to the second or third century AD South Arabian inscription, recounting to the defeat of the Aksumite king (negus) GDRT (vocalized Gadarat or Gedara) of Aksum and HBSHT.[19] The term “Habashat” seems to refer to a group of peoples, however, rather than a specific ethnicity, as evidenced by a Sabaean inscription about the alliance between the Himyarite king Shamir Yuhahmid and Aksum under King `DBH in the first quarter of the 3rd century AD. They have been living alongside the Sabaeans who lived across the Red Sea from them for many centuries:
Shamir of Dhu-Raydan and Himyar had called in the help of the clans of Habashat for war against the kings of Saba; but Ilmuqah granted… the submission of Shamir of Dhu-Raydan and the clans of Habashat.[20]
The term “Habesha” was formerly thought by some[18] to be of Arabic descent (who used the word Habash, also the name of an Ottoman province comprising parts of modern-day Eritrea and Ethiopia), because the English name Abyssinia comes from the Arabic form.[21] South Arabian expert Eduard Glaser claimed that the hieroglyphic ḫbstjw, used in reference to “a foreign people from the incense-producing regions” (i.e. Punt, probably located around southern Eritrea, northern Ethiopia, and the Sudanese border) used by Queen Hatshepsut ca. 1460 BC, was the first usage of the term or somehow connected, a claim repeated by others; however, this etymology is not at all certain, given the large time difference in the usage of the terms.[18]
The term “Habesha” or Ge’ez language word ḥabaśā is also source of the term “Habasi” in many Indian languages such as, Gujarati. In Indian languages, the word “Habasi” is used to describe all African people. This word may have come into use in India from the time when Axum empire from Ethiopia began trade relations with India.
Historically, the province of Tigray and central Eritrea was where Ethiopian and Eritrean Habesha civilization had its origins. The first kingdom to arise was that of D`mt in the 8th century BC. The Aksumite Kingdom, one of the powerful civilizations of the ancient world, was centered there from at least 400 BC to the 10th century AD. Spreading far beyond Tigray and Eritrea, it molded the earliest culture of Ethiopia and left many historical treasures: towering finely carved stelae, the remains of extensive palaces, and the ancient places of worship still vibrant with culture and pageantry.
Throughout history, indigenous peoples had been interacting through population movement, warfare, trade, and intermarriage in the Horn of Africa region, resulting in a predominance of peoples speaking languages of the Afro-Asiatic family. The main branches represented were the Cushitic and the Semitic.[22] As early as the third millennium BCE, the pre-Aksumites had begun trading along the Red Sea. They mainly traded with Egypt. Earlier trade expeditions were taken by foot along the Nile Valley. The Egyptians main object in the trade from the Ethiopian region was to acquire myrrh, which the northern Horn of Africa region had much of, especially Somalia (which they referred to the land of punt).
The foundation of the Kingdom of Aksum is suggested to be as early as 300 BCE. Very little is known of the time period between the mid-first millennium BCE to the beginning of Aksum’s flourish around the first century CE. Aksum is thought to be a successor kingdom of D’mt (usually vocalized Da`amat), a kingdom in the early 1st millennium BC most likely centered at nearby Yeha.[23]
The Aksumite kingdom was located in the northern Ethiopian province of Tigray and Eritrea and it Aksum remained the capital until the seventh century CE. Aksum owes its prosperity to its location. The Blue Nile basin and the Afar depression are both within a close proximity of Aksum. The former is rich in gold and the latter of salt: both materials having a highly important use to the Aksumites. Aksum was also within an accessible distance to the port of Adulis, on the coast of the Red Sea, hence maintaining trade relations with other nations, such as Egypt, India, and Arabia. Aksum’s ‘fertile’ and ‘well-watered’ location produced enough food for its population as well as its exotic animals, such as elephants and rhinoceros (Pankhurst 1998, 22-3).
From its capital on the Tigray Plateau, Aksum was in command of the trade of ivory with Sudan. It also dominated the trade route leading south and the port of Adulis on the Gulf of Zola. Its success depended on resourceful techniques, production of coins, steady migrations of Greco-Roman merchants and ships landing on the port of Adulis. In exchange for Aksum’s goods, traders bid many kinds of cloth, jewelry, metals and steel for weapons.
At its peak, Aksum controlled territories as far as southern Egypt, east to the Gulf of Aden, south to the Omo River, and west to the Nubian Kingdom of Meroe. The South Arabian kingdom of the Himyarites nd also a portion of Western Saudi Arabia was also under the power of Aksum. At this point in time the majority of the citizens of Aksum were one of the ancestors of the present day Amhara and Tigray peoples, the Biher-Tigrigna (also Tigrinya speakers) and Tigre of Eritrea.
Some time in the early Middle Ages, the Amharic and Tigrinya languages began to be differentiated, and Ge’ez eventually became extinct (except in churches). Amhara warlords often competed for dominance of the realm with Tigrayan warlords. While many branches of the Imperial dynasty were from the Amharic speaking area, a substantial amount were from Tigray. The Amharas seemed to gain the upper hand with the accession of the so-called Gondar line of the Imperial dynasty in the beginning of the 17th century. However, it soon lapsed into the semi-anarchic era of Zemene Mesafint (“Era of the Princes”), in which rival warlords fought for power and the Yejju Oromo inderases (or regents) had effective control, while emperors were just considered to be figureheads. The Tigrayans only made a brief return to the throne in the person of Yohannes IV, whose death in 1889 allowed the base to return to the Amharic speaking province of Shewa.
Some consider the Amhara to have been Ethiopia’s ruling elite for centuries, represented by the line of Emperors ending in Haile Selassie. Many commentators, including Marcos Lemma, however, dispute the accuracy of such a statement, arguing that other ethnic groups have always been active in the country’s politics. One possible source of confusion for this stems from the mislabeling of all Amharic-speakers as “Amhara”, and the fact that many people from other ethnic groups have Amharic names. Another is the fact that most Ethiopians can trace their ancestry to multiple ethnic groups. In fact, the last Emperor, Haile Selassie I, often counted himself a member of the Gurage ethnicity[citation needed] on account of his ancestry, and his Empress, Itege Menen Asfaw of Ambassel, was in large part of Oromo descent.[24] The expanded use of Amharic language results mostly from its being the language of the court, and was gradually adopted out of usefulness by many unrelated groups, who then became known as “Amhara” no matter what their ethnic origin.
Eritreans achieved independence from Ethiopia with the defeat of the Derg in 1991 and international recognition in 1993. Eritreans have long had a separate history from their neighbors, but were forcibly annexed to Ethiopia by Haile Selassie in 1961, which prompted their war for independence achieved on May 24, 1991. During the late 1980s, the TPLF (Tigray People Liberation Front), an ethnic group of Ethiopia, joined Eritreans in the war against the Derg. After the defeat of the Derg, the Tigray People’s Front proceeded to rule Ethiopia and remain the ruling party.
The Imperial family of Ethiopia (which is currently in exile) claims its origin directly from the offspring of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (Ge`ez: ንግሥተ ሣብአ nigiśta Śab’a, who is named Makeda (Ge`ez: ማክዳ) in the Ethiopian account. The Ethiopian narraive ‘Glory of Kings’, the Kebra Negast, contains an account of Makeda and her descendants. King Solomon is said in this account to have seduced the Queen, and sired a son by her, who would eventually become Menelik I, the first Emperor of Ethiopia. The tradition that the biblical Queen of Sheba was a ruler of Ethiopia who visited King Solomon in Jerusalem in ancient Israel is supported by the 1st century AD Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who identified Solomon’s visitor as a queen of Egypt and Ethiopia.
In the past, scholars like Hiob Ludolf and Carlo Conti Rossini postulated that the ancient communities that evolved into the modern Ethiopian state were formed by a migration across the Red Sea of Semitic-speaking South Arabians around 1000 BC who intermarried with local non-Semitic-speaking peoples. Indeed, the ancient Ethiopian kingdom of Aksum ruled much of Southern Arabia including Yemen until the rise of Islam in the 7th century, and both the indigenous languages of Southern Arabia and the Amharic and Tigrinya languages of Ethiopia are South Semitic languages. However, the ancient Semitic language of Ethiopia, is now known to not have derived from Sabaean, and there is evidence of a Semitic speaking presence in Ethiopia and Eritrea at least as early as 2000 BC.[25] There is also evidence of ancient Southern Arabian communities in modern day Ethiopia and Eritrea in certain localities, attested by some archaeological artifacts and ancient Sabaean inscriptions in the old South Arabian alphabet. However, scholars like Stuart Munro-Hay point to the existence of an older D’mt or Da’amot kingdom, prior to any Sabaean migration ca. 4th or 5th c. BC, as well as evidence of to Sabaean immigrants having resided in Ethiopia for little more than a few decades[26] Furthermore, there is archeological evidence of a region in Northern Ethiopia and Eritrea also called Saba, now referred to as Ethiopian Saba to avoid confusion.
There is little archaeological evidence to verify the story of the Queen of Sheba — and the longstanding presumption that Sabaean migrants had played a direct role in Ethiopian civilization has recently come under attack.[27] Sabaean influence is speculated by some recent authors to have been minor, limited to a few localities, and disappearing after a few decades or a century, perhaps representing a trading or military colony in some sort of symbiosis or military alliance with the Ethiopian civilization of D`mt.[26]
In the reign of King Ezana (ca. early 4th c. AD, the term is listed as one of the nine regions under his domain, translated in the Greek version of his inscription as Αἰθιοπία (Aithiopia, i.e. “Ethiopia”), the first known use of this term to specifically describe the region known today as Ethiopia (and not Kush or the entire African and Indian region outside of Egypt).[18] The 6th c. author Stephanus of Byzantium later used the term “Αβασηγοί” (i.e. Abasēnoi) in reference to:
an Arabian people living next to the Sabaeans together with the Ḥaḍramites. The region of the Abasēnoi produce[d] myrrh, incense and cotton and they cultivate[d] a plant which yields a purple dye (probably wars, i.e. Fleminga Grahamiana). It lies on a route which leads from Zabīd on the coastal plain to the Ḥimyarite capital Ẓafār.[18]
The Abasēnoi spoken of by Stephanus was located by Hermann von Wissman as a region in the Jabal Hubaysh (perhaps related in etymology with the ḥbš root). Other places names in Yemen contain the ḥbš root, such as the Jabal Habashi (Ḥabaši), whose residents are still called al-Ahbuš (pl. of Ḥabaš).[28] The location of the Abasēnoi in Yemen may perhaps be explained by remnant Aksumite populations from the 520s conquest by King Kaleb; King Ezana’s claims to Sahlen (Saba) and Dhu-Raydan (Himyar) during a time when such control was unlikely may indicate an Aksumite presence or coastal foothold.[29] Traditional scholarship has assumed that the Habashat were a tribe from modern-day Yemen that migrated to Ethiopia. However, the Sabaic inscriptions only use the term ḥbšt to the refer to the Kingdom of Aksum and its inhabitants, especially during the 3rd c., when the ḥbšt (Aksumites) were often at war with the Sabaeans and Himyraites.[28]
The Sabean theory was the most common one explaining the origins of the “Habashat” (Habesha) before the 20th century. It was first suggested by Hiob Ludolf and revived by early 20th century Italian scholar Conti Rossini. The theory states that at an early epoch South Arabian tribes, including one called the “Habashat” emigrated to the opposite African coast. According to this theory, Sabaeans brought with them South Arabian letters and language, which gradually evolved into the Ge’ez language and Ge’ez alphabet. However, though the Ge’ez alphabet did develop from Epigraphic South Arabian (whose oldest inscriptions are found in both Ethiopia and Eritrea and Yemen), it is now known that Ge’ez is not descended from any of the Old South Arabian languages.[25]
In the large corpus of South Arabian inscriptions, however, there has never been mention of migration to the west coast of the Red Sea, nor of a tribe called “Habashat.” All uses of the term date to the 3rd century AD and later, where they are always used in reference to the people of the Kingdom of Aksum.[30][31] In recent times, this theory has largely been abandoned.[32]

Culture

The way of life among the Habesha evokes images of Biblical times. Camels, donkeys, and sheep are everywhere. Fields are plowed using oxen. The Orthodox Church is a large part of the culture. The church buildings are built on hills. Major celebrations during the year are held around the church, where people gather from villages all around to sing, play games, and observe the unique mass of the church, which includes a procession through the church grounds and environs.
Coffee is a very important ceremonial drink. The “coffee ceremony” is common to the Tigrinya and the Amhara. Beans are roasted on the spot, ground and served thick and rich in tiny ceramic cups with no handles. This amount of coffee can be finished in one gulp if drunk cold, however, it is traditionally drunk very slowly as conversation takes place. When the beans are roasted to smoking, they are passed around the table, where the smoke becomes a blessing on the diners. The traditional food served at these meals, consists of injera a spongy flat bread, served with tsebhi (or wot), a spicy meat sauce.
The country houses are built mostly from rock, dirt, and a few timber poles. The houses blend in easily with the natural surroundings. Many times the nearest water source is more than a kilometer away from the house. In addition, people must search for fuel for the fire throughout the surrounding area.
The Habesha people have a rich heritage of music and dance, using drums and stringed instruments tuned to a pentatonic scale. Arts and crafts and secular music are performed mostly by artisans who are regarded with suspicion. Sacred music and iconic art is performed by monastically trained men.

All Habesha people speak Semitic languages, which originate from the Ancient language of Ge’ez. The Ge’ez language is classified as a South Semitic language. It evolved from an earlier proto-Ethio-Semitic ancestor used to write royal inscriptions of the kingdom of Dʿmt in Epigraphic South Arabian. As a member of South Semitic, it is closely related to Sabaean, and the Ge’ez alphabet later replaced Epigraphic South Arabian in the Kingdom of Aksum (although Epigraphic South Arabian was used for a few inscriptions into the 8th century, though not any South Arabian language since Dʿmt). Early inscriptions in Ge’ez and Ge’ez alphabet have been dated2 to as early as the 5th century BC, and in a sort of proto-Ge’ez written in ESA since the 9th century BC. Ge’ez literature properly begins with the Christianization of Ethiopia (and the civilization of Axum) in the 4th century, during the reign of Ezana of Axum. While Ge’ez is an extinct language that is only used in churches, the three languages that have branched off from it are Tigre, Tigrinya and Amharic. Tigre is a direct descedant of Ge’ez while Tigrinya has a small and Amharic a large Cushitic influence.

The Habesha empire centered in Axum and Adowa was part of the world in which Christianity grew. The arrival of Christianity in Tigrayan lands happened about the same time that it arrived in Ireland. The Tigrayans, in fact, had been converted to Christianity hundreds of years before most of Europe. Many Tigrayan churches were cut into cliffs or from single blocks of stone, as they were in Turkey and in parts of Greece, where Christianity had existed from its earliest years. The church is a central feature of communities and of each family’s daily life. Each community has a church with a patron saint.
Ethiopia has often been mentioned in the Bible. A well-known example of this is the story of the Ethiopian Eunuch as written in Acts (8: 27): “Then the angel of the Lord said to Philip, Start out and go south to the road that leads down from Jerusalem to Gaza. So he set out and was on his way when he caught sight of an Ethiopian. This man was a eunuch, a high official of the Kandake (Candace) Queen of Ethiopia in charge of all her treasure.” The passage continues by describing how Philip helped the Ethiopian understand one passage of Isaiah that the Ethiopian was reading. After the Ethiopian received an explanation of the passage, he requested that Philip baptize him, which Philip obliged. Queen Gersamot Hendeke VII (very similar to Kandake) was the Queen of Ethiopia from the year 42 to 52. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church was founded in the fourth century by Syrian monks. Historically, the Ethiopian and Eritrean churches have had strong ties with the Egyptian Coptic Church, the Egyptian Church appointing the archbishop for the Eritrean Church. They gained independence from the Coptic church in the 1950s, although the Eritrean Orthodox Church has recently reforged the link.
Over 5 million of these people are Coptic Orthodox, with one priest for every 92 members—the highest concentration in Ethiopia. The remainder are Muslims. There are many Muslims in Tigray Province, but they generally belong to other ethnic groups. The Tigray are reported to have fewer than 500 evangelical believers.[citation needed] There are more believers among the Tigrinya in Eritrea.

The faith of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is very intimately woven into the culture of the Tigrinya people and is central to their way of life. A number of unique beliefs and practices distinguish Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity from other Christian groups; for example, the Ark of the Covenant is very important. Every Ethiopian church has a replica of the Ark. Also, the Ethiopian Church has a larger biblical canon than other churches.
Church services are conducted in Ge´ez, the ancient language of Ethiopia and Eritrea. Ge´ez is no longer a living language, its use now confined to religious contexts, occupying a similar place in Ethiopian church life to Latin in the Roman Catholic Church.
Other Ethiopian Orthodox practices include such things as fasting, prescribed prayers, and devotion to saints and angels. A child is never left alone until baptism and cleansing rituals are performed. Boys are baptized forty days after birth, whereas girls are baptized eighty days after birth.
Defrocked priests and deacons commonly function as diviners, who are the main healers. Spirit possession is common, affecting primarily women. Women are also the normal spirit mediums.
A number of Ethiopian Christians adhere to various forms of Pentecostalism or Anabaptism, collectively referred to as P’ent’ay.

Similarities to Judaism and Islam
The Ethiopian church places a heavier emphasis on Old Testament teachings than one might find in the Roman Catholic or Protestant churches, and its followers adhere to certain practices that one finds in Orthodox or Conservative Judaism. Ethiopian Christians, like some other Eastern Christians, traditionally follow dietary rules that are similar to Jewish Kashrut, specifically with regard to how an animal is slaughtered. Similarly, pork is prohibited, though unlike Kashrut, Ethiopian cuisine does mix dairy products with meat- which in turn makes it even closer to Islamic dietary laws (see Halal). Women are prohibited from entering the church during their menses; they are also expected to cover their hair with a large scarf (or shash) while in church, but contrary to popular belief and the actual practice of most other Christian denominations, it is not in the Old Testament that this is commanded, but rather in the New (1 Cor. 11). As with Orthodox synagogues, men and women are seated separately in the Ethiopian church, with men on the left and women on the right (when facing the altar). However, women covering their heads and separation of the sexes in the Church building officially is common to many Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Christians and not unique to Judaism. Ethiopian Orthodox worshippers remove their shoes when entering a church, in accordance with Exodus 3:5 (in which Moses, while viewing the burning bush, is commanded to remove his shoes while standing on holy ground). Furthermore, both the Sabbath (Saturday), and the Lord’s Day (Sunday) are observed as holy, although more emphasis, because of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, is laid upon the Holy Sunday.

Islam
Islam in Ethiopia dates to 615. During that year, a group of Muslims were counseled by the Prophet Muhammad to escape persecution in Mecca and migrate to Abyssinia, which was ruled by, in the Prophet Muhammad’s estimation, a pious Christian king ( Alnajashi).The Prophet Muhammad’s followers crossed the Red Sea and sought refuge in the Kingdom of Aksum, possibly settling at Negash, a place in present-day Northern Ethiopia, Tigray region. Moreover, Islamic tradition states that Bilal, one of the foremost companions of the Prophet Muhammad, was from Ethiopia, as were many non-Arab Companions of Muhammad- in fact Ethiopian’s were the single largest non-Arab ethnic group who were Muhammad’s Companions. Ethiopia was thus the earliest home outside of Arabia for the dispersal of the Islamic world faith. Ethiopia is almost evenly split between Orthodox Christians and Sunni Muslims.
Most of Ethiopia and Eritrea’s Muslims are Sunni Muslims and much as the rest of the Muslim world, the beliefs and practices of the Muslims of Ethiopia and Eritrea are basically the same: embodied in the Qur’an and the Sunnah. There are also Sufi Orders present in Ethiopia. According to the 1994 census of Ethiopia (with similar numbers for the 1984 census), about half of its population is adherent of Islam and members of the Muslim community can be found throughout the country. Islam in Ethiopia is in the Oromo and Ogaden region.
The most important Islamic religious practices, such as the daily ritual prayers (Salat) and Fasting (Arabic صوم, Sawm, Ethiopic ጾም, S.om or Tsom – used by local Christians as well) during the holy month of Ramadan, are observed both in urban centers as well as in rural areas, among both settled peoples and nomads. Numerous Ethiopian Muslims perform the pilgrimage to Mecca every year.
[edit]Judaism
Judaism in Ethiopia is believed to date from very ancient times. Precisely what its early history was, however, remains obscure. The now dominant Coptic Ethiopian Church claims it originated from the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon back in the Tenth Century BCE. This visit is mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures (I Kings 10:1), Sheba was a kingdom that stretched from Ethiopia to the south of the Yemen. Yemen is very close to Ethiopia across the Red Sea, and it has been recorded that modern Ethiopia has been heavily influenced by the ancient Sabean kingdom. Moreover, the details of the queen’s visit, including the alleged theft of the Holy Ark as well as Solomon getting her pregnant with a child who established the “Solomonic” lineage in Ethiopia, as given in Christian Ethiopian tradition, were written in the Kebra Nagast the Ethiopian chronicle of its early history. The oldest known existing copies of which date from as far back as 13th century. Jewish Ethiopians are mentioned in both the Torah Old Testament as well as the Christian New Testament. It is clear that the Jewish presence in Ethiopia dates back at least 2500 years. The Jewish Pre-settlement Theory essentially states that starting around the 8th century BCE until about the 5th century BCE, there was an influx of Jewish settlers both from Egypt & Sudan in the north, and southern Arabia in the east.[citation needed] Whether these settlers arrived in great numbers is yet a matter of debate. What is certain, however, is that these settlers must have preceded the arrival of Christianity. Evidence for their presence exists not only in historical books, but also in material artifacts depicting ancient Jewish ceremonies. For instance the temple at Yeha (in Tigray province), which is said to have been erected in the 8th century BCE, is believed to be an architectural copy of other Jewish temples found in Israel and Egypt during the pre-Babylonian era (before 606 BCE).[citation needed] Another example is found on the monastery islands of Lake Tana (northern Gojjam), where several archaic stone altars, fashioned in the manner of Jewish sacrificial alters of pre-8th century BCE Israel, have been found not only preserved in good condition but also containing blood residue.[citation needed] The manner of the blood placed on the stone altars was found to be typical of a culture that strongly adhered to Mosaic Law
The chief Semitic languages of Ethiopia also suggest an antiquity of Judaism in Ethiopia. “There still remains the curious circumstance that a number of Abyssinian words connected with religion — Hell, idol, Easter, purification, alms — are of Hebrew origin. These words must have been derived directly from a Jewish source, for the Abyssinian Church knows the scriptures only in a Ge’ez version made from the Septuagint” [33]
Beta Israel traditions claim that the Ethiopian Jews are descended from the lineage of Moses himself, some of whose children and relatives are said to have separated from the other Children of Israel after the Exodus and gone southwards, or, alternatively or together with this, that they are descended from the tribe of Dan, which fled southwards down the Arabian coastal lands from Judaea at the time of the breakup of the Kingdom of Israel into two kingdoms in the 10th century B.C.E. (precipitated by the oppressive demands of Rehoboam, King Solomon’s heir), or at the time of the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel in the 8th century BCE. Certainly there was trade as early as the time of King Solomon down along the Red Sea to the Yemen and even as far as India, according to the Bible, and there would therefore have been Jewish settlements at various points along the trade routes. There is definite archaeological evidence of Jewish settlements and of their cultural influence on both sides of the Red Sea well at least 2,500 years ago, both along the Arabian coast and in the Yemen, on the eastern side, and along the southern Egyptian and Sudanese coastal regions.

However it is called we are bloodily mixed people through marriage and after war mixing one to another throughout our history. We all are Ethiopians and Habesha also works for all of us since we are bloodily mixed people throughout history. One Love, One People, One Ethiopia!