Imam Ahmad Gragn Invades Ethiopia

March 9, 1529

The Somali imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi, remembered as Gragn the Left-Handed, led a jihadi army of Adal out of Harar and into the Ethiopian highlands. Armed with Ottoman matchlocks, he burned churches and drove the Christian emperor Lebna Dengel into hiding in the mountains for a decade. The jihad destroyed churches, monasteries, and manuscripts accumulated over a thousand years, causing losses never fully recovered.