Umar Din

Umar Din (r. 1526-1553) was a sultan of Adal and brother of Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad.

Umar Din was made sultan by Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi after he killed Umar Din's brother Abu Bakr in 1526, and ruled at least until the Imam was killed in battle in 1542. Trimingham described the Sultan as the Imam's puppet. [J. Spencer Trimingham, "Islam in Ethiopia" (Oxford: Geoffrey Cumberlege for the University Press, 1952), p. 86.] However, the "Futuh al-Habasa" of Sihab ad-Din records that the Sultan and the Imam quarrelled over the distribution of the alms tax between the Battle of Shimbra Kure and the Battle of Amba Sel; this quarrel led to Imam Ahmad leaving Harar to live amongst the Somalis in Zarba for some time, which suggests Umar Din wielded some power of his own. [Sihab ad-Din Ahmad bin 'Abd al-Qader, "Futuh al-Habasa: The conquest of Ethiopia", translated by Paul Lester Stenhouse with annotations by Richard Pankhurst (Hollywood: Tsehai, 2003), pp. 101-105]

Notes

Succession|office=Walashma dynasty
preceded=Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad
succeeded=Ali ibn Umar Din