r/Eritrea • u/Stuff_606 • 5d ago
History Tigrinya Muslims / jeberti
What’s the history of how Tigrinya Muslims became Muslim?
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u/KazanMota 5d ago
“Jeberti” are not a real ethnic group. They are simply Tigrayan Muslims who migrated from Shire into Eritrea. Hence why there's no history about them.
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u/Stuff_606 4d ago
I think you just answered my question. So the jeberti are people who migrated from the Tigray region of Ethiopia into Eritrea? And they were already Muslim when they migrated?
I am curious to understand how Islam came into the more orthodox communities, like Tigrinya peoples. I think it’s wonderful btw, I’m just curious of the history of how it happened.
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u/MeasurementOld4985 4d ago
They would have already been Muslim and the migration mostly took place during the reign of Yohannea where the local ruler Alula was a lot more tolerant and just towards Muslims. Of course some Jeberti still remain in places like Shire. When and where Jeberti arose is a more complicated. Some say that Jeberti arose from the time of Ahmed Gragn whereby some of those who were forcibly converted continued with the religion or some also attribute Jeberti to the Darood Somalia clan who claim ancestry from Jeberti/Jabarti.
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u/Stuff_606 3d ago
Ok so just to clarify one last time- the jeberti are originally from Shire, in Tigray Ethiopia, and they are now in Eritrea, and they became Muslim during the reign of emperor yohannes the Tigrayan leader who was tolerant of Muslims.
In Shire today, people speak Tigrinya as their first language and are Muslim?? I’d love to visit, that’s pretty cool.
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u/ComfortableSugar1991 3d ago
Yohannes was NOT tolerant of Muslims. He had an aggressive and complex relationship with Muslims. He wanted a unified Orthodox Christian state to defend against foreigners. He also is the reason for stopping the Mahdists from overrunning the central and eastern highlands of Eritrea, which is why they remain Christian. He has divided legacy in Eritrea between Muslims and Christians. Some see him as a protector other as a persecutor. This is the world of history. It's never clean, always complex and important to understand within context. Look up The Battle of Kufit. It's interesting.
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u/ComfortableSugar1991 1d ago
I will say that Yohannes did defend Christians who were being attacked by foreign Islamic conquest campaigns. He is a hero for Christians in Eritrea.
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u/shahimistsaba 3d ago
Yes, there are Tigrayan Muslims in Tigray, northern Ethiopia, who speak Tigrinya as their native language and are Muslim.
I’m Eritrean Jeberti myself. Tigrinya is our native language, and culturally, we share many of the same customs as Christian Tigrinya people. The main difference is that we adapt those traditions in accordance with Islam, e.g. we wouldn’t wear a zuria with a cross/meskel on it. We also commonly learn Arabic as a second language.
The majority of us trace our ancestry back to Tigray. Both sides of my family are originally from a small town near Axum. According to my family history, as told to me by my dad, my ancestors were forced to convert to Christianity in the late 1800s. Some publicly pretended to be Christian while secretly continuing to practice Islam. Eventually, the pressure became too much and some families, including mine, sold their land and properties and fled Tigray into Eritrea, crossing the Mereb River. In Eritrea, we're usually found Asmara, Keren, Mendefera, Dekemhare...
Despite having ancestral roots in Tigray, we see ourselves as Eritreans and remain loyal to Eritrea.
There are also Jeberti communities who are indigenous to the Eritrean highlands and whose ancestors became Muslim more than a century ago. I’ve come across some of them personally, as well as through social media. So, the history and origins of the Jeberti are not limited to one particular migration or place; there are different histories and backgrounds within the broader Jeberti community.
If you have any questions, you can message me u/Stuff_606
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u/Environmental_Hand19 21h ago
Jeberti are not Christian Tigrinya who converted in the Ottoman Empire era. They are originally from Tigray and Saudi Arabia. They are descendants of the first migration (Hijra) in Islamic history so they believe they are the first muslims. The Meccan followers /friends of prophet Muhammad escaped and sought refuge from polytheist Arabia in Tigray from the negashi (Christian king) at the time. Some of the Meccan’s stayed in Tigray and intermarried. That’s their story.
I believe somewhere in the 19th century under Emperor Yohannes or Ras alula and probably long before that, many of them moved from Tigray because it was hard for muslims up north to Eritrea. Many of them went as far as Keren/lowlands.
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u/HashMapsData2Value 4d ago edited 3d ago
The king of Axum saved Islam by letting the prophet's followers take refuge. That's why the oldest and 2nd oldest mosques in Africa are located in Eritrea and Tigray.
However over time things soured. Axum, and subsequent kingdoms, essentially lost control over the Red Sea and was in a relative decline as a result - still is. And then over the centuries, Muslim forces repeatedly tried to invade, annex and/or convert the people of the historical Abyssinian Highlands. (Until more recent times, when the center of power shifted and the expansion sent the other way.)
Literally from every direction: Ottomans crossed the Red Sea from the north, the Adals from the east, Oromo from the south and Mahdist from the west.
Yohannes IV was deeply suspicious of Islam and other foreign religions (e.g. Lutheranism). He believed Muslims would always be loyal to Islam and other Muslim neighbors first over the kingdom (and himself). So he repeatedly prosecuted Muslims, and some of them fled away from his center of power to the peripheries, entering today's Eritrea. (He himself died fighting the Sudanese Mahdists.)
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u/ComfortableSugar1991 3d ago
You could say Yohannes IV assumed correctly. Question about the Oromo expansion. If they had that kind of influence in Eritrea, why don't you see a large Muslim population in Tigray. I'm assuming they had to go through? I'm a little doubtful of that one. But everything you've said checks out.
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u/Shot_Education_9642 5d ago
They just took their Shehada like everybody else