Islam, Ethnicity, and Conflict in Ethiopia

Terje Østebø is Associate Professor in the Center for African Studies and the Department of Religion, at the University of Florida where his research focuses on Islam in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, and Salafism in Africa. He is the author of Localising Salafism (2012) and the co-editor of Muslim Ethiopia (2013).

• Introduction; 1. Islaama peoplehood and landscapes of bale; 2. Conquest and resistance; 3. Bale at war; 4. The insurgency: fighters and fragmentation; 5. Peasant insurgency without peasants; 6. Land tenure and the land-clan connection; 7. Christianity, nation, and Amhara peoplehood; 8. Translocal dynamics: the Bale insurgency in the context of the horn; 9. Islaama vs. Amhara and the making of local antagonism; 10. The Bale insurgency, Islaama, and Oromo ethno-nationalism; Conclusions.

'Resisting a single-cause explanation, Ostebo's critical analysis of the rebellion that swept the Bale province of Ethiopia from 1963-1970 contextualizes the rebellion at the interface of two connected processes; Bale's culture and recent history as a frontier-province, and the dominant political processes and administrative practices through which the Ethiopian state was expanded and consolidated. In doing so, Ostebo underscores the centrality of previously over looked mutual exclusions between Bale's Muslim and Christian communities.' Teferi Abate Adem, Yale University, Connecticut