ABSTRACT
As Bermudes was sailing back to Goa with Saga Zaab, he was about to find himself at the margins of a global conflict involving two global empires, the Portuguese and the Ottoman, and two regional powers, the Kingdom of Ethiopia and the Sultanate of Adal. For most of the 15th century, Walasma sultans had avoided a full-blown confrontation with the Christian kingdom, opting instead for limited engagement and accepting coexistence, but once the governor of Zeila, Mahfuz, began his incursions and calls for jihad, Ethiopian-Adali relations quickly deteriorated. A series of successful incursions throughout the 1490s gained him both valuable spoils of war – slaves for the markets on the other side of the Red Sea – and political capital, all the more so when he successfully confronted and killed Emperor Naod (1494–1508). Mahfuz's popularity among both the merchant class and the ulema ultimately forced Sultan Muhammad to acquiesce and support the war. 1
