Ethopian and Yemn a Shared History

The people of Ethiopia and southern Arabia have crossed paths from the earliest remembrance and perhaps before then. Accordint to Henze, "Ancient south Arabian peoples may, according to some theories, have originally migrated out of Africa'. (19) These Semitic-speaking people from what is present day Yemen immigrated back to the northern region of the African horn and it was in Aksum that the mixture of Arabian and African culture merged. In the Layers of Time, Henze offers more then a few shared cultural icons and nuances that make it apparent that for many years these people had a shared cultural identity.

The agricultural similarities, a Semitic language, and shared religious and kinships traditions were minor components compared to the sense of some kind of shared history. Both civilizations lay claim to the Queen of Sheba and it is her child with King Solomon, Menelik I, who establish the Aksumite Empire. Henceforth, all kings traced there lineage from David, Solomon, and Queen Sheba. The paths of these two civilizations crossed viscously when the empire extended to the Arabic side of the red sea. The final expanses of the last great Aksumite Kings were able to add to their title, King of Himyar, Saba, hadhramawt, yamanat, and all the Arabs of the coastal plains and the highlands. Henze shows unlike Aksum's relationship with other empires such as Egypt and Greece, more was shared then trade routes and geographic proximity.

The rise of Islam, which in the end separated these to cultures, also spared the Aksumites from the wrath of the Muslims. This Christian country lent refuge to the earliest of Mohammed's followers; it was the prophet who voiced praise and gratitude of the empire. Though sympathetic to the Muslims, the empire never took to Islam but remained Christian and did so in part because of its Semitic roots. Because of their Semitic origins, the Ethiopians believed that they were descendants of the Hebrews, who were also Semitic. They traced their origins all the way back to David. Ð''So the Ethiopians, unlike other Christians, really saw themselves as inheriting the covenants that Yahweh entered into with his chosen people."(rascue.9) Years of divergent political, cultural, and religious ideology one of the key features of the current ethipoian state, the orthodox churches, can trace it roots to its Semitic background and its Arabic neighbors.