Foundation Islamic Union
Ethiopia
Official Name: Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (ET)
Capital city : Adisababa
Important Cities: Diredava, Gondar, Nazret, Desse, Makalle (Mekele) and Harar.
Area: 1.221.000 km2
Population : 98.700.000[1] Employment: Ethiopia is one of the most populous countries in Africa. The annual population growth rate in Ethiopia is over 3 per cent, with 80 per cent of the population living in rural areas and the remaining 20 per cent in cities and towns. Hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians have migrated to the USA in the last 15-20 years, settling mainly in Los Angeles and Washington DC.
National Income per Capita: 115 USD
Number of People Per Km2: 80 People
Average Human Lifespan: 45
Ethnic Structure: Ethiopia is the most populous country in Africa after Nigeria and Egypt, with a population density of 41.1/km2 (1990). The distribution of the population is unusual in that, since the country is located in the tropical belt, the most populous areas are located in the elevation zone between 1800 and 2500 metres, including the capital Adisababa (2455 m.). In the country, where ethnic pluralism is observed, the dominant race is the Amharas living in the central region and they constitute 37.7% of the total population. A mixture of white people from the Arabian peninsula and black people from the west, the Amharas have also intermarried with the Galla and other groups in the south. Urbanisation is very low (85%), with the majority of the population living in villages in the high plateaus.
Geography: Ethiopia has a tropical climate and due to the high altitude of the land, the temperature is slightly lower than in other African countries on the same parallel and varies according to the height above sea level. The weather is hotter in low-lying areas and cooler at high altitudes. In the Denkalî depression, the temperature reaches 50 degrees Celsius from time to time and drops in the central and western regions.
Although Ethiopia is a rich country in terms of river resources, it cannot utilise them sufficiently. Tekeze in the Nile basin joins Atbara, one of the tributaries of the Nile. The Blue Nile (Abbai) drains its waters into Lake Tana, the Oma river, which flows southwards, into Lake Turkana; the Sobat river, which receives the waters of Baro and Akobo, joins the White Nile.Ethiopia is also a country rich in lakes. Apart from the largest lake, Tana in the north-west, there are many lakes in the depressions of the Rift valley, the most important of which are Abaya, Shala, Zivey and Abe.
Language: Amharic. Ethiopia, where about 100 local languages are spoken, is a mosaic of languages. These languages are mainly divided into three groups, namely Semitic, Kûshî and Nile, the Kûshî group is spoken in the southern and central regions of the country, the Nile languages are spoken in the high plateaus in the southwest and north, and the Semitic group is spoken in the central, southeastern and northeastern regions.
Religion: It shows a heterogeneous structure in terms of religion. Although Islam and Christianity are the dominant religions, there are animist communities in the southern part of the country and Jews called Falashas in the region north of Lake Tana. Christians, who constitute 40% of the population, have played an important role in the history of the country since the IVth century. The Christians who founded the Kingdom of Aksum in the Vth century maintained their loyalty to the Orthodox Coptic Church in Alexandria and developed with external support. Although most Christians in Ethiopia are monophysite Ya'kūbīs, there are also Catholic and Protestant sects. Currently, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is under the authority of the Coptic patriarchate in Alexandria.
Muslims, who constitute the most populous community of the country, are not active in political and administrative life despite their large number. There are also nomadic and semi-nomadic people among the Muslims settled in different parts of the country. The Ceberti, Galla, Somali and Afar tribes living in the high plateaus in the north have been Muslims since the early periods. Islam, which penetrated the northern regions of the country in the VIIth century, spread towards the south in time. Today, Muslims are the majority in Vallo, Harar, Bâlî, Arusi and Sidâme regions.
In the XIXth century, during the reign of King Theodore II (1855-1868), Muslims were completely dominated; Muslims were massacred in Wollo (1855) and Harar, the most important Islamic centre, was occupied (1887). Meanwhile, Italy captured Asab, Masavva' and Asmara. However, the struggle of the Muslims against the Christians did not end and King Yohannes was killed in Metemma by the dervishes of Mahdî (1889). During the reign of King Yohannes, the disputes between Abyssinia and Egypt, which led to war, developed to the detriment of the Muslims and Muslims were forced to convert to Christianity by the administration. In 1880, it is rumoured that 50.000 Muslims were baptised by order of the king. Menelik II, who came to power in 1889, continued to oppress Muslims with the support and encouragement of Western missionaries and enslaved many Muslims by continuing the Christianisation movement. The rise to power of Lidj Yassou, who sympathised with Islam, and his subsequent conversion to this religion was an important development for Muslims, but he was removed from power in 1917. Some of the mosques in the cities taken over by the Christians were converted into churches, Muslims were forced to change their religion and were subjected to great pressure. In 1930, during the first years of the Khalee Salasiya, who became the king in 1930, Islam was accepted as the official religion and it was adopted that Muslims should study Arabic in schools and this language should be used in official affairs in Harar and Jimmâ regions, but later on, new pressures were put on Muslims, the activities of Sharia courts were prevented and Arabic learning was banned. After the 1974 military coup, Muslims were the most affected by the Marxist-Leninist regime and uprising movements and liberation struggles emerged in various regions of the country.
Islam, which has continued to spread throughout history despite the opposition and oppression of Christians, is today the dominant religion in the eastern, northern and southwestern regions of the country. In the high plateaus in the central region and on the northern and southern sides of the Sudanese border, Muslims live together with Christian elements. The Muslim population is ethnically diverse and divided into different tribes. The main Muslim tribes are the Cebertîs, Gallas (Oromos), Vallos, Somalis, Afars (Denkalî), Ad Sheikhs, Sahos, Sidâmes and Gurages. In addition to these tribes belonging to different ethnic and linguistic groups, there are also Arabic-speaking smaller Benî Shangül and Bantu groups, Arabs and other communities.
The fact that there is no organisation gathering all Muslims under one roof and that they cannot be effective in the field of politics makes it difficult to solve the common problems of Muslim groups in religion, education, daily life and other issues. Religious education is not included in public schools and Muslim children are educated in Qur'anic schools. In Qur'anic schools located next to mosques in Adisababa, Harar, Diredava, Agordat, Agaro and other important cities, teachers teach basic religious sciences to Muslim children. There are two levels of education in these schools. At the basic level, students are taught the Arabic alphabet, the recitation of the Qur'an and prayers, while those at the higher level are taught Arabic grammar, language, fiqh, hadith and tafsir. Education in Qur'anic schools, which are protected and supported by local communities, plays an important role in the preservation and propagation of Islam. These schools, which receive no aid from the state, have been adversely affected by the nationalisation and totalitarian practices introduced by the administration in 1975.
Muslim students who are content with education in Qur'anic schools are not interested in higher education, and those in the cities are more likely to engage in commerce. There are some Ethiopian students studying Islamic sciences at Al-Azhar University in Cairo and other institutions of religious education in other Islamic countries.[2]
Political and Administrative Structure: Ethiopia is an East African country with the oldest civilisation in the African continent for 3000 years and has never been colonised in history. Today's Ethiopia is called the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia with the Constitution adopted in 1955. With the exception of the Italian occupation in 1934-41, Ethiopia is the only country in Africa that was not ruled under colonial rule and was ruled by a monarchy for a long time. In 1974 the military junta, the Derg, deposed Emperor Haile Salassie, who had ruled since 1930, and established a socialist state. In Ethiopia, where bloody coups, rebellions, prolonged drought years and mass asylum problems existed, this regime was also overthrown in 1991 when rebel forces formed a coalition of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front. With the overthrow of the military junta, a politically and economically stable period was entered and the country became one of the most stable countries in Africa. The constitution was put into force in 1994 and there is a multi-party parliamentary administrative structure in the country. According to the Constitution, the parliament consists of two parts: Federal deputies representing the whole country and federated deputies representing its regions. The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia is divided into 9 federal regions and two metropolitan city administrations. Considering the experiences of the past years, administrative powers are left to the regions to a considerable extent and to the provincial administrations in the two metropolitan cities. With a population of about 100 million, Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa after Nigeria. Ethiopia is among the poorest countries of UNDP with its per capita income, although it is increasing gradually. Ethiopia's economy has not developed sufficiently due to its distance from ports, insufficient natural resources and infrastructure, drought and conflicts with Eritrea. Between May 1998 and December 2000, there were continuous conflicts with Eritrea, which was part of Ethiopia until 1991. Although a Peace Agreement was signed with Eritrea in December 2002, the situation remains sensitive and a solution to the border problem does not seem possible in the short term. On the other hand, Ethiopia intervened in Somalia in 2006 in order to help the interim federal government in Somalia, which was in a weak situation, but Ethiopian troops stayed in Somalia longer than planned due to the delay in the arrival of the African Union Peacekeeping Force to the region.
Economy: Economy. Ethiopia's economy is largely based on agriculture and animal husbandry and was guided by central planning until the change of government in 1991. Between 85-90% of the total labour force is employed in the agricultural sector, which provides approximately half of the national income. Drought, hunger and political instability, which have become more pronounced in recent years, have negatively affected economic development and it has not been possible to reach the planned targets. After the 1974 coup d'état, the Marxist government that came to power nationalised land ownership and established collective farms, which did not lead to the expected increase in agricultural production. Maize, wheat, tobacco, potatoes, oilseeds, teff, sorghum and coffee are the main agricultural products, of which a large portion of coffee is exported abroad. Ethiopia has always ranked among the top eight countries in the world in coffee production (200,000 tonnes in 1989) and in some years among the top five countries producing the most coffee; the success achieved in flax in recent years is also promising. In addition to vegetable and fruit production, animal husbandry plays an important role in the country's economy; cattle, horses and mules are raised in cold regions, goats and sheep in other regions.
The country has a railway line connecting Adisababa to the Port of Djibouti and is extremely important in Ethiopia's foreign trade.
Currency: Birr (ETB)
National Income per Capita: 952 USD (2021)
Foreign Trade: Ethiopia's foreign trade is mostly with the European Community and former Soviet bloc countries. While it sells agricultural products, live animals and raw materials, it buys machinery, chemicals, road construction equipment and all kinds of finished goods from abroad. Trade has been the main occupation of the Muslims of this country since history and has had a great impact on the spread of Islam. Muslims, who are active in the trade sector in Harar, Diredava, which are important centres of Muslims, and in cities on historical trade routes, are engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry in rural areas.
Industry: Although there are iron, copper, zinc, lead, potash and gold deposits in the country, the facilities to extract and process these deposits have not yet been established and most of the production is sold as raw materials. In the industrial sector, which does not show an advanced level, factories and manufactories operating in cement, weaving, sugar, oil refining and some food industry branches are the main establishments. Since the production of the industrial establishments, which are concentrated around the capital city of Adisababa, is orientated towards the domestic market, the possibility of exportation is very limited. The rich salt deposits in the Denkalî depression are being utilised, while the rich forest resources in the southwestern regions are not sufficiently utilised. Although the country's historical and natural beauties constitute a good opportunity for tourism, this sector is not well developed due to lack of infrastructure.
Energy: There are many rivers, large and small, which make it possible to generate 3 billion MW of hydroelectricity. In recent years, the hydroelectric potential has started to be used to provide energy and some power plants have been built on the rivers.
Transportation: Adisababa is connected to other cities in the country and Kenya by roads, but these roads do not reach the settlement centres in the high mountains and plains. In foreign trade by sea transport, the ports of Masavva' and Assab (Asab) in Eritrea are utilised; in air transport, two international airports provide service. The weakness of the communication and transport system negatively affects the development of economic sectors
Health:
Education: In Ethiopia, where education is not compulsory, almost half of the population is illiterate. Primary education, which starts at the age of seven, is six years, the first part of secondary education is three years and the second part is four years. Apart from public schools, church and Koranic schools are quite common. There is a university in the capital and a polytechnic institute in Bahir Dar. The state controls the means of mass communication and the circulation of the daily newspapers published in Amharic by the Ministry of Information in the capital city is quite low. There are also a number of periodicals published in some languages, including Arabic and English.[3]
Ethiopia is a country with a very low rate of educated population. There is no compulsory education in the country and therefore the literacy rate remains extremely low. However, in recent years, the country has started to attach importance to education and education has become one of the priorities in the country's development plans and programmes. Today, 70 per cent of primary school children and 40 per cent of secondary school children continue their education. The rate of continuing education at high school level is around 25 per cent. The average literacy rate in the country is 45 per cent, 50 per cent for men and 40 per cent for women. The literacy rate is around 75 per cent in urban areas and 25 per cent in rural areas. Although the number of university graduates is increasing, the number of university graduates is very low
[1] www.ticaet.gov.tr(October-2021 Access)
[2] Encyclopaedia of Islam, TDV.
[3] Encyclopaedia of Islam, TDV.
