Ethiopian-Adal War

The Ethiopian-Adal War was fought from 1529 to 1543 between the Christian Ethiopian Empire and the Muslim Adal Sultanate, whose forces were led by the imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi, remembered in Ethiopian tradition as Ahmad Gragn. Ahmad's campaign, known as the Futuh al-Habasha, brought as much as three-quarters of Christian Abyssinia under Adal's control through a series of victories aided by firearms obtained from Ottoman Turkish allies. The tide turned only after Portuguese reinforcements under Cristovao da Gama landed in 1541 to support the Ethiopian emperor, and the war ended when Ahmad was killed at the Battle of Wayna Daga in February 1543, after which Adal's offensive collapsed and Ethiopia recovered most of its lost territory. The long war left both the Ethiopian Empire and the Adal Sultanate badly weakened, opening the way for the Oromo peoples to expand into the contested region in the decades that followed.