Cilt: 2 Sayı: 1, 2025-03-27

The article advances three major arguments about the nature of relations between Ethiopian Muslims and the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front regime. The first concerns how the regime securitized, beyond Wahhabism and terrorism, Islam and Muslims in Ethiopia. It argues that, except for a few intermittent incidents of terrorism and extremism, the regime redefined Muslims’ relatively peaceful quest for recognition, participation, and ownership broadly encompassed under responses to “the Muslims in Ethiopia Complex” as existential threats to the status quo, Ethiopia, and others. Second, it argues, based on relevant data, that the US, particularly the US embassy in Addis Ababa, was deeply involved in the increasing securitization, that beyond terrorism and Wahhabism, of Muslims’ bold presence in Ethiopia’s public sphere. Third, to attenuate or stifle Muslims’ active pursuit of recognition, participation, and ownership in Ethiopia, the regime and the US have worked to impose a version of Islam that would necessitate undermining what it means to be a citizen and Muslim. Based on, therefore, fieldwork data, direct observation, lived experience, and important documents, the article concludes, beyond Wahhabism, al-Ahbash, and “mainstream” Islam or Suffiyah, the two actors were primarily looking to install any version of Islam or Muslim religious behavior that accepts and lives under a multicultural polity that may involve forbearance, that avoids or attenuates, as much as possible, vocal presence in Ethiopia’s public sphere, and finally, serves the state or at least poses no threat to the state and its interests locally and beyond.

Islam, Muslims, Suffiyah, Wahhabism, al-Ahbash, EPRDF, Ethiopia