ISLAM(S) OF THE HORN OF AFRICA: AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL APPROACH TO DIFFERENT ISLAMIC MATERIAL EXPRESSIONS AND SPACES IN MEDIEVAL PERIOD.

29th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA)

Belfast. Irlanda
Congreso. 2023

Islam first arrived in the Horn of Africa around the 10th century and expanded

throughout the region through several routes. One of these axes run north-south through

Ethiopia and branches out and extends into other neighbouring areas of the Horn of

Africa. This process gave birth to a series of sultanates that will be the ultimate

expression of the establishment and adoption of Islam in the region. However, although

a particular 'form' of Islam emanates from these sultanates, the implementation and

development of Islam in the Horn of Africa was be a disparate and diverse process. Thus,

different human groups, in different regions and over several centuries, expressed the

principles of Islam through different religious traditions, ways of professing the faith and

even new and different material expressions. This paper aims to provide an

archaeological approach and analysis of case studies in which these various expressions

of the new faith are reflected in the materiality of the medieval Muslim Horn of Africa. It

will analyse spaces in where structures, funerary elements and objects of material

culture express the adoption and incorporation of Islam into the culture and beliefs of the

inhabitants of the region while, at the same time, they are also symbols of the noncomplete

rupture with previous traditions, giving rise to expressions that are not

conceived as orthodox of the new Muslim faith that has recently arrived in Africa.

Archaeology. Horn of Africa. Islam. Medieval.