| |||||
| Capital (and largest city) |
Gondar | ||||
| Other cities | Mombassa, Kuyera, Harar, Gheralta | ||||
| Religion main |
Tewahedo (Sheban Orthodox) Church | ||||
| others | Islam, Catholicism, Judaism, Rastafarianism | ||||
| Demonym | Sheban | ||||
| Area | 890,271.72 km² | ||||
| Population | 90,309,018 | ||||
| GDP Total: |
281.635 Billion | ||||
| per capita | 3164.44 | ||||
Sheba (ሼባ), officially the Federal Republic Of Sheba (የሳባ ፌዴራላዊ ሪፐብሊክ) is a country in Northern Azania. It is one of the oldest countries on earth.
History[]
Prehistory[]
Humans first arrived in Azania around 900,000 years ago, after people crossed the Eritrean sea from the African mainland to Azania. These people, called the Hadza, are considered to be the indigenous people of all of Azania. It is known that the region was already inhabited by humans 74,000 years ago, as a group of people living in modern-day Sheba survived the eruption of the Toba supervolcano, which wiped out much of early humanity. Between 30,000 and 15,000 years ago, people from Anatolia and the Middle east moved to Azania. This event is known as the Eurasian backflow. The mixing of the preexisting population with the new arrivals lead to the creation of the Habesha people.
Biblical and ancient history[]
Some of the first known foreign visitors to the area of modern day Sheba were the Egyptians, with the first known expedition being organised by Pharaoh Sahure. Egyptian traders returned from Sheba with gold, copper, exotic animals, ebony, carved amulets, ivory, animal skins and bitumen, but mostly for various types of incense, fragrant woods and aromatic resins, such as cinnamon, frankincense and myrrh.
In the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Pharaoh Hatshepsut ordered the construction of a fleet with the sole purpose of conducting trade between Egypt and Punt. Hatshepsut also sent artists meant to document the inhabitants, natural landscapes and customs of the land they called Ta netjer.
Around a thousand years after Sahure's first voyage Phoenician explorers arrived in Sheba. Phoenicians found the climate and terrain in the Sheban highlands to be similar to their homeland in what is today Lebanon. Phoenician settlers introduced the Lebanese cedar to Azania and focused on getting copper for bronze production, some established their own settlements where mining took place while others bought it from Sheban merchants. The Phoenician alphabet also gave native Shebans their first writing system.
Local Habesha people created the Kingdom of Dʿmt (pronounced Daʿamat). In the early 1st century D'mt became the Kingdom of Axum, later the Empire of Axum. It was called one of the great powers of the day, along with Rome, China and Persia. It ruled land on both Azania, Asia and Africa and it dominated Red Sea trade.
In the 8th century BC, Pre-Islamic Arab tribes (Awsani, Sabean, Himyarite) migrated to Azania. They established coastal kingdoms. Intermariage with Habeshas occurred and the two cultures started to mix in many areas.
According to the Bible, during the reign of King Solomon diplomatic relations between Israel and Sheba began and the Queen of Sheba may have had a child with King Solomon, Menelik I. The Sheban royal family would claim decent from Menelik until their overthrow in 1946. This is the first time the name Sheba is used to describe the country, as it was the name for the region used in the Bible. This marks the start of Sheba's remarkable connection to the Abrahamic religions. The Lion of Judah appeared on their flag until the 1980s. A Sheban was the first non-Jewish convert to Christianity, and a Sheban slave (Bilal) was also the first to do a call to prayer in Islam. Many early Muslims took refuge in Sheba and the city of Harar is the 4th holiest in Islam. Also the Ark of the covenant is allegedly in Sheba.
Following the Assyrian conquest of Phoenicia many Phoenician colonies either fell to other nations or gained independence. In Sheba, the Phoenician colonies were quickly taken over by the Greeks. The Greeks were the first to map the entire landmass and gave it several names, including Eritrea, Aromata and Ethiopia.
The Roman conquest of Egypt reinvigorated the Red sea trade, it also allowed for a direct line of contact between Roman Aegyptus and India. This proved to be the golden age of Red sea trade. Roman merchants in Sheba were numerous enough that they built a temple to Mars. The Romans referred to Sheba as Abyssinia (Land of Abisi, a latinisation of Habesha) and Azania. The Roman conquest of Judea led to immigration to Sheba by Jewish people.
Middle Ages[]
During the reign of Ella Amida, several Greek Christians became shipwrecked in Sheba. They became tutors to the young Prince Ezana. When Ezana became Emperor, he converted to their religion and made it the official religion of his country. This makes Sheba one of, if not the, first Christian nations. Ezana established close relations with the newly-established Byzantine Empire. When the Kingdom of Himyar (a Jewish kingdom allied with Persia) began to persecute its Christians, Axum invaded and conquered it, deporting much of the population to the Semien mountains. Many Axumites also settled in Himyar during this period. Ezana also conquered the Kushite people of the Eritrean islands, cracking down on piracy and establishing complete control over trade in the Red and Eritrean seas.
Sheban fresco, Byzantine influence on the style is clear
The Plague of Justinian hit Sheba hard and not long after they lost a war to the Persians under Khosrow Anushirvan over Yemen. The Rashidun and later Umayyad Caliphates took all of Sheba's territory outside of Azania. Arab merchants soon became very active in port cities on the Eritrean coast, many elites in these cities converted to Islam and trade started to flow through these cities instead. The Bantu migrations finally reached Azania in the 900s. Bantu raiders based in the jungle south of the highlands then expanded from the South and left Axum with just the land on the Sheban highlands. Then the Zagwe dynasty took control, starting 300 years of stagnation known as the Sheban dark ages. During this period Eritrean sea trade was dominated by Egyptian dynasties, such as the Ayyubids, this support allowed the Islamic states of Azania to enter a golden age.
Yekuno Amlak, a Sheban noble, conquered the Zagwes and Bantus with assistance from the coastal Islamic states. This became known as the Solomonic restoration. Yekuno also hired Mamluk mercenaries from Egypt to help in his conquests. After becoming King, Yekuno Amlak ordered a book called the Kebra Nagast (book of kings) be written, it detailed the history of Sheba and its neighbours up to this point. It is likely the origin of the legend explaining the biblical origins of the Axumite royal family, and went on to claim that Yekuno was descended from a long-lost branch of Axumite royals.
The Mamluk dynasty in Egypt was enraged with Sheba after they fought a war against the Shirazis to his east. The Shebans had previously switched (but only partially) from Eastern Orthodox Christianity to Coptic Christianity and the Coptic Pope (based in Egypt) was pressured by the Egyptians to not send any new Bishops to Sheba. The Emperor got all the Coptic and Greek Churches in the country to get togther and standardise their beliefs to create a new Sheban Orthodox Church (also called the Tewahedo Church). The conflict did lead to war between Sheba on one side and Mamluk Egypt and Sheba's various Muslim neighbours.
By that time the Crusades had ended since the Mamluks had conquered the last of the Crusader states. The new Tewahedo Church built a religious complex of monolithic Churches and pillars meant to be a New Jerusalem.
Colonial period[]
In 1498 Portuguese explorers first sighted Azania. Relations between the two nations were productive, trade between them helped to modernise Sheba and also led to a growing Catholic minority due to Portuguese missionaries. Portuguese sailors set up small colonies and trading posts (called feitorias) across the Eritrean sea, including at Mombassa, which had formerly belonged to Sheba. Portugal quickly became Sheba's largest trading partner, but when the Portuguese colony of Zambezia had a gold rush the Shebans realised that their gold exports to Portugal were now useless since the Portuguese now had their own supply. This led to Sheba observing Portuguese plantations and deciding to export slaves to Portuguese colonies. This led to Sheban soldiers, armed with Portuguese muskets, conducting massive slave raids across Azania and mainland East Africa to supply the new demand. This event, known as the "Red Raids", killed approximately 750,000 people and took 1.5 million people as slaves. During the Red Raids the Shebans created small colonial settlements along the Eastern coast of Africa, modelled off of the Portuguese Feitorias.
The Ottomans wanted to break out of the Mediterranean and get a coast on the Indian ocean so they could establish their own colonies and compete with Western Europeans. To do this they supported the newly formed Adal sultanate against Sheba, they established a large, modern army with Ottoman support and converted nearby pagan tribes to Islam so they would help. Their rapid expansion with a combined conventional/guerilla army and their rapid integration of conquered territory into their empire led to what seemed to be an inevitable victory until the Portuguese started to support Sheba against the Adal-Ottoman alliance. This conflict was part of the wider Ottoman-Portuguese war (1538–1560), also fought in Egypt, Yemen, Oman, Iran, India and Indonesia. The Ottoman Empire did still establish their rule over parts of Western Azania and some islands in the Eritrean Sea, in what became known as Habesh Eyalet (named after the Habesha people).
Zafan people (a Habesha group from farther south) conquered Sheba after the war ended, starting the Yejju dynasty. The Yejju dynasty was short-lived because of their failure to deal with the threat of a new Ottoman invasion, so the second Solomonic restoration was basically unopposed. Prior to the collapse of the Yejju Dynasty, they managed to conquer much of the Adal Sultanate, although some important port towns, such as Zeila, were seized by the Ottomans. Then there was a civil war between Sheban Catholics under Emperor Susenyos I and traditional Orthodox groups in 1622. The Orthodox army, led by Fasilides, won and expelled all the Catholics. All the instability led to increased feudalism, with regional authorities becoming more autonomous and dictatorial, this led to warlords killing the Emperor in 1769. This event shocked the nation, as it was the first time an Emperor had been assassinated. The collapse of the central government led to a feudal period known as the Age of Princes.
Tewodros II united the empire by becoming a bandit in Sudan to raise money and an army. He then had to deal with invasions by Egypt (which was under the ethnically Albanian Muhammad Ali dynasty and was independent from the Ottomans and expanding across East Africa and the Arabian peninsula) and the British. The Anglo-Sheban war led to British soldiers occupying the capital of Gondar. This led to Emperor Tewodros II committing suicide.
Modern history[]
Sheba during the Scramble for Africa[]
Emperor Menelik II took the throne after Tewodros' death. Menelik industrialised and modernised the Empire while portraying itself as primitive to most Europeans. Two countries were aware of Sheba’s true nature: Russia and France. Russia and Sheba were both Orthodox countries and their ties became stronger after Russia started a colony at Sagallo. France wanted to expand across the entire Sahel region and saw their easternmost territory in modern-day Equatoria (OTL south Sudan) to be vulnerable to foreign attack so they sought an allaince with Sheba for their colony's defence. France and Italy at the time were feuding over colonial influence in Tunisia and the Horn of Africa (see: Menace Italienne).
When Anglo-Egyptian rule was established in OTL Sudan, a Nubian Muslim named Muhammad Ahmad declared himself to be the saviour of Islam (Mahdi) after the new government abolished slavery. The UK, Sheba, Italy and the Congo Free State all fought against the rebellion. Mahdist forces entered modern-day Equatoria while being pursued by the British, they encountered French troops at Fashoda. The incident nearly led to war as this was considered British territory.
Sheba joined after being promised Assab (Ottoman ruled Eritrea) but due to the Fashoda incident the British gave Assab to the Italians after the war instead of the French-allied Shebans.
The Italians now felt bold enough to strike at the ancient empire. Malaria and other tropical diseases thinned the Italian lines while the Shebans used Russian rifles (Mosin–Nagant) and their superior numbers and strategy to win easily. The Italians also got lost and many of the soldiers were either native soldiers (Askaris) or Southern Italian conscripts who hated their Northern (Veneto) General. The defeat was so humiliating that there were riots in Rome, possibly contributing to the rise of Fascism. Rastafarianism started to develop around this time.
In the Eastern part a man named Mohammed Abdullah Hassan combined local nationalism with Shia Islam to create the Dervish movement. His Dervish forces started a 20 year long rebellion against the Shebans, Omanis and Europeans in Eastern Azania. The Dervish forces received support from the Ottomans during the First World War. The Dervish army was defeated due to British air power in the war, which they had no way to counter.
Mussolini invaded Sheba in 1935. Difficult terrain and German support forced the Italians to use chemical weapons to soften resistance. Italy never actually took the whole country. The Sheban resistance, the Arbegnoch, continued to resist the Italian occupation from 1936 to 1941. Tragically the two thousand year old Sheban Jewish community (Beta Israel) suffered immensely under Italian occupation. British, French, Belgian and Mexican armies liberated Sheba in 1941. For the remainder of the war Sheban troops fought in the Anglo-Iraqi War, Syria–Lebanon campaign, Invasion of Madagascar and the North African campaign. They also produced rations for allied soldiers, especially coffee rations.
Following WWII the monarchy’s popularity continued to decline which culminated in a group of Sheban communists overthrowing the government in a revolution and proceeded to execute much of the Royal family, while a few managed to flee into exile.
The new state was called the Derg (Committee), led by Mengistu Haile Mariam. Nearly half a million were killed in the Red terror. Initially Communist Sheba had poor relations with the USSR, due to tension between Sheba and its Communist neighbours, as well as the fact that the Soviets saw the Derg as fake Communists. When Somalia invaded Sheba the Somalis expected the Socialist world to rally behind them but the Warsaw Pact and Cuba both sent support to Sheba, who won the war in the end. Somalia was forced to rely on aid from the US, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and China.
Soviet doctors, engineers and other professionals now started to do humanitarian work in Sheba, while also providing them with massive amounts of Soviet, Cuban and East German weapons, giving them the largest military in Azania. The Soviets now called Sheba the “The vanguard of Socialism“. A massive Soviet base was built in Asmara due to its proximity to the Suez canal. The Soviets hoped that Sheba’s position as a regional power would allow their historic sphere of influence over their neighbours to create a string of Communist states across Azania. By the 1980s, Equatoria was the only Pro-Western country in Azania.
As an active participant in the Cold war, Sheba became involved in conflicts across Africa and Azania to support ideologically aligned movements, including Rhodesian Bush War (ZANU), Equatorian Civil War (MDE, PPLI, ECP, KNLF), Western Sahara Conflict (Polisario Front), South African Border War (SWAPO) and Portuguese Colonial War (FRELIMO, MPLA, PUA) while also supporting the ANC and various Separatists in Spanish Azania.
Government mismanagement of the famine led to a rise in rebel groups across the nation. The Somali-Sheban war and the Civil war killed around 2 million people.
The Soviets ended their support as Sheba banned discussion of Glasnost and Perestroika. In 1992 a coalition of rebels led by the MPLF (Meskat People's Liberation front) captured the capital and Mariam fled into exile in Zimbabwe.
The new Federal Republic became one of the fastest growing economies in the world, leading to massive urbanisation. Sheba is the capital of the African union and their green, yellow and red flag have become the colours of the continent (although Sheba itself chose a new blue-white-green flag). They established courts to end Derg era laws legally, while also sentencing Mariam to death two million times.
Geography[]
Economy[]
Politics[]
Demographics[]
Ethnicity[]
Habesha people are the majority of Sheba's population. They are the result of ancient Semitic, Hadza and African people intermarrying, during an event known as the Eurasian Backflow. They are mostly followers of the Sheban Orthodox Church. They are still a diverse group and have several ethnic groups under the Habesha umbrella. Habesha is mostly considered to be a racial category with the different ethnic groups in the category speaking languages that are mutually unintelligible with the others, although they have a common ancestor (Ge'ez, which is also the liturgical language of the Tewahedo Church). Some Habesha in the north and east are mostly Muslim. The Muslim Habeshas have historically been independent and have fought with the Christian groups in the past. The Christian groups are the Meskat, Azmaran, Zafan and Lulut, while the Muslim ones are the Tizit, Berhan, Harari and Kushti. Globally there are 77,302,037 Habeshas, or 85.6% of the Sheban population. Many Habeshas live in nearby nations.
- Azmaran people are an ethnic group that lives in the Highlands around the capital. They were historically seen as the elites, since the royal family was Azmaran it was this group that held most political power.
- The Berhan are a Muslim group that lives in the northwestern corner of the country, along the Eritrean sea coast, and several nearby islands. The Berhan largely still live by shepherding and are evenly divided between Sunni and Shia Islam. They have lived in close proximity to Arabs for millennia and most speak Arabic and have Arab ancestry.
- The Harari people live in the Eastern region of Harar. This area, and specifically the city of Harar, is one of the holiest sites in Islam since many took refuge here when they were persecuted during the Age of Ignorance (جَاهِلِيَّة). One of the oldest Mosques on earth is here. Most Hararis are Sunni Muslims.
- Kushti
- The Lulut live in the far south in Kēniya. They have a very strong tradition of the clan system, with each clan led by a Chief. Lulut people have darker skin tones than other Habeshas and have been discriminated against for it. Due to isolation from other Habeshas until the late 1600s and early 1700s, their first contact with Christianity was through the Portuguese. As such, most Lulut are Catholic. Their region is one of the wealthiest due to oil wealth.
- The Meskat have historically been very close, politically and culturally, to their neighbours, the Azmaran. The two groups consider each other brothers and the Meskat have historically also held a privilidged position in Sheban society.
- The Tizit are Muslims who live in the arid far east of Sheba. Many lived as raiders and fought many wars with Sheba before being absorbed into the kingdom. A separatist movement exists among them. They are closely related to the Somali people and many Somali Nationalists claim that they are the same group.
- Zafan people originally lived farther south but invaded and created the Yejju Dynasty.
The South of Sheba is known as Kēniya. Groups that are referred to as "Southern Tribal people" by the Government live in the thinly populated South. They are mostly either Bantu, Hadza or Nilotic. The largest groups are the Mushunguli and Runyakitara, both of whom are part of the wider Bantu family. Also in this area are the Mombassa Creoles, although they live along the coast. The Central government historically encouraged foreign settlement in the area due to the fact that the region is inhabited by nomadic tribes who have resisted government control in the past. Several groups from the South have migrated to the north, most notably the Maya and Harla people, who today live in the Berhan and Harar regions, respectively. The Harla are very closely related to the Gaturi. The Gafat live south of the Azmaran but are still classified as Kēniyans.
Berhan people
The island territories and some parts of the North coast are inhabited by people who speak Old South Arabian (Ṣayhadic) languages who are related to the ancient Awsanis, Himyarites and Sabeans. Sheba also has a population of around 1,238,000 Arabs. The Arab minority is recognised as a protected national group.
Around 1.19% of Sheba's population is was born outside of the country, this adds up to 1,149,384. Some of the immigrants that have moved to Sheba over the centuries include Indians, Nigerians, Armenians, Japanese, Afrikaners, Jamaicans and Italians.
There are also 169,600 Jews in Sheba, known as the Beta Israel. Around 164,400 Beta Israel have moved to Israel. This leads to a total of 334,000 Beta Israel. The Jewish population of Mombassa is 15,252 (0.5%), although this group has little in common with the Beta Israel of the Highlands, since they are mostly Sephardic in origin.
| Habesha | 77,302,037 |
| Bantu | 5,103,942 |
| Mombassa Creoles | 3,067,646 |
| Nilotic | 1,851,966 |
| Arab | 1,238,000 |
| Immigrants | 1,079,463 |
| Ṣayhadic | 426,800 |
| Jewish | 164,400 |
| Hadza | 74,764 |
Religion[]
The Ark of the Covenant is allegedly inside the Chapel of the Tablet at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum
The Tewahedo Church (often referred to as the Sheban Orthodox Church) is the largest religion in the country and it has historically been the State Religion during the Modern Imperial Period (1855-1947). It was founded by Frumentius, a Christian from the Roman Empire (he is described as either Greek, Syrian or Phoenician) who was shipwrecked in Sheba before being adopted into the royal family by Emperor Ella Amida. He tutored the Emperor's son until he took the throne as Emperor Ezana. Ezana converted to the religion of his tutor and made it the state religion of the Empire. Christianity was still in its infancy during this time (the Council of Nicaea had only occurred around 60 years before) and the relative isolation from the rest of Christendom meant that the practices of Sheban Christians diverged significantly from any other denomination. Contact with both the Coptic Church in Egypt and the Greek Church in Byzantium led to the standard form of Sheban Christianity being a combination of Greek and Coptic influence, with stronger influence from the Copts. During a war with the Mamluk Dynasty of Egypt the Coptic Pope was banned from sending new Bishops to Sheba, which lead to the Emperor calling all the Church leaders and religious scholars together to standardise their views into a single, national Church doctrine. The new Tewahedo Church (meaning "Unity") was closer to the Coptic Church in its views and is officially classified as an Oriental Orthodox Church alongside the Coptic, Assyrian and Armenian Churches. They are Miaphysites who follow the Alexandrian Rite. The liturgical language is Geʽez while the Tewahedo Bible consists of 81 books, the most of any Christian Sect. The Church has many aspects of Christian Asceticism, it strongly encourages monasticism and has strict rules regarding abstinence and fasting. For example, the Church mandates 180 days of fasting for laymen and 252 for clergy. The Church is led by a Patriarch who also functions as Archbishop of Axum, he commands the Archbishops who each lead an Archdiocese. There are a total of 36 Archdioceses, including each region of Sheba and some nearby nations, as well as "diaspora archdioceses" in Khartoum, Rome, Jerusalem, Abu Dhabi, Port of Spain and Washington, D.C.
The second largest Christian sect in Sheba is Catholicism, which is divided into the main Roman Catholic Church and the local Sheban Catholic Church. Around 3.11% of Shebans today are Catholics, with the Lulut, Creoles and many immigrants being Roman Catholics, while the Northern Habeshas are mostly Eastern Catholics.
- The first Catholics in Sheba were the Portuguese settlers at Mombassa, as well as local converts. The Mombassa Creole ethnic group has been predominantly Catholic since its very beginning, and the majority of the nearby Lulut people are Catholics as well. During the first century of contact between Sheba and Portugal, the Catholic Church created the Latin Patriarchate of Ethiopia (after the Ancient Greek name for the region) until 1632, when Fasilides expelled all Catholics from the country and banned missionaries from entering the Empire's borders, going so far as to create alliances with nearby Muslim states to execute Catholic missionaries who entered their own borders so none could sneak in. Many Sheban Catholics fled to Mombassa, where they were known as the Exilados, they assimilated into Portuguese culture and today most Mombassa Creoles can trace their ancestry back to an Exilado. Other nationalities in Mombassa, such as the Brazilians, where also mostly Roman Catholic. Migration of Lebanese Catholics as well as Angolans and Cabo Verdeans have increased this population even further. Missionary activity did not restart until the Italian Justin de Jacobis visited in 1839, and the disunity of Sheba at the time (due to the Age of Princes) meant that the country was divided between numerous warlords, many of whom tolerated French and Italian missionaries from the Lazarist and Capuchin Orders, respectively. After the nation was reunited under Tewodros the Catholic minority was tolerated while the missionaries were expelled (as opposed to executed as they were supposed to be). French advisors at the court of Menelik II convinced him to officially repeal the ban on Catholic missionaries in 1870.
- In 1439, Pope Eugene IV sent a letter to Emperor Zara Yaqob asking for the Catholic and Tewahedo Churches to be reunited. Although he refused, this started the effort to unite the two Churches. In the century prior to the Exile of the Latin Christians (የላቲን ክርስቲያኖች ግዞት) there were entire congregations of former Orthodox Christians who converted to Catholicism, but they retained many traits of Orthodox Christianity, such as the practice of Orthodox Priests being permitted to get married and have children, and the fact that Mass was delivered variously in Ge'ez, Latin, Coptic, Greek or Portuguese. These "Particular Christians" were made into their own Sui Luris Church, a new Church where their unique customs pertaining to feast days, marriage and liturgical language would be maintained while accepting Papal Supremacy. The Eastern Catholics survived the initial expulsion of Catholics by claiming to be Orthodox, relocating to more isolated rural areas or by fleeing to Mombassa. When the ban of Catholics was lifted in 1855 the Eastern Catholics began a massive effort to convert other Orthodox people, and later many Bantu people during Sheba's southward expansion during the late 1800s.
The final Christian sect in the nation is the Greek Orthodox Church. When the Tewahedo Church was created from various Greek and Coptic Churches throughout the country the new Church's beliefs were far closer to the Coptic Church. Most Greek Churches in the country joined the new Tewahedos, while a minority refused and maintained their loyalty to the Greek Orthodox Church. The Archdiocese of Aksum and the Holy Metropolis of Gondar, both of which are loyal to the Patriarchate of Alexandria and all Africa. Around 100,000 people in the country follow this branch of Christianity, mostly native Habeshas but also some ethnic Greeks.