Note 59 — Chapter IV · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIAN NATIONS OF AFRICA.

These Muhammadan tributaries were chiefly to be found in the low-lying countries that formed the northern boundary of Abyssinia, from the Red Sea westward to Sennaar,59 and on the south and the south-east of the kingdom.60 What influence these Muhammadans had on the Christian populations with which they were intermingled, and whether they made converts to Islam as in the present century, is matter only of conjecture. Certain it is, however, that when the independent Muhammadan ruler of Adal, Aḥmad Grāñ—himself said to have been the son of a Christian priest of Aijjo, who had left his own country and adopted Islam in that of the Adals61—invaded Abyssinia from 1528 to 1543, many Abyssinian chiefs with their followers joined his victorious army and became Musalmans, and though the Christian populations of some districts preferred to pay jizyah,62 others embraced the religion of the conqueror.63 But the contemporary Muslim historian himself tells us that in some cases this conversion was the result of fear, and that suspicions were entertained of the genuineness of the allegiance of the new converts.64 But such apparently was not universally the case, and the widespread character of the conversions in several districts give the impression of a popular movement. The Christian chiefs who went over to Islam made use of their personal influence in inducing their troops to follow their example. They were, as we are told, in some cases very ignorant of their own religion,65 and thus the change of faith was a less difficult matter. Particularly instrumental in conversions of this kind were those Muhammadan chiefs who had previously entered the service of the king of Abyssinia, and those renegades who took the opportunity of the invasion of the country by a conquering Musalman army to throw off their allegiance at once to Christianity and the Christian king and declare themselves Muhammadans once more.66