The Christian King Who Saved Islam | The First Hijra to Ethiopia

00:00 Introduction: The Christian King and the First Hijra 01:19 The Kingdom of Aksum 02:13 Why the First Muslims Fled Mecca 02:42 The First Hijra: The Journey to Abyssinia 03:11 Who Was the Negus (al-Najashi)? 03:45 The Royal Court: Will the King Protect the Refugees? 04:47 The Historical Sources: What Do We Know? 06:24 What Can Historians Establish? 07:00 A Christian King’s Legacy Around 615 CE, some of the earliest followers of the Prophet Muhammad fled persecution in Mecca and crossed the Red Sea seeking refuge in the Christian Kingdom of Aksum, in present-day Ethiopia. Their journey - known as the First Hijra to Abyssinia, the Migration to Abyssinia, or the first Muslim migration to Ethiopia - became an important episode in early Islamic history. But what do the historical sources actually tell us? Who was the Christian king who received them? What was Aksum at the time? And how much of this remarkable encounter between early Islam and Christian Africa can be reconstructed from the surviving evidence? This documentary examines the First Hijra in its historical setting: the Kingdom of Aksum, Arabia and the Red Sea world of the seventh century, and the traditions that preserved the memory of the Muslim refugees and the Christian ruler who gave them protection. The Ethiopian State explores the history, political economy, and societies of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. History. Political Economy. Society.