Fasilidos of Ethiopia
Fasilidos or Basilides (throne name `Alam Sagad) was negus negust (1632 - October 18, 1667) of Ethiopia, and a member of the Solomonid dynasty. He was the son of Sissinios.
He was proclaimed Emperor in 1630 during a revolt led by Sersa Krestos, but did not actually reach the throne until his father abdicated in 1632. Fasilidos immediately acted to restore the power of the traditional Ethiopian Orthodox Church. He confiscated the lands of the Jesuits at Danakaz and elsewhere in the empire, and relegated them once again to Fremona.
He requested a new abuna from the Patriarch of Alexandria, restoring the relationship that had allowed to lapse.
When he heard that the Portugese bombarded Mombasa, Fasilidos assumed that Alfonso Mendez, the Roman Catholic prelate, was behind the act, and banished the remaining Jesuits from his lands. Mendez and most of his followers made their way back to Goa, being robbed or held in prison several times on the way. In 1665, he ordered the "Books of the Franks" -- the remaining religious writings of the Catholics -- burnt.
He founded what became the city of Gondar in 1636.
Fasilidos campaigned against the restive Agaw in 1637, and for the rest of his reign he was occupied either with repelling Oromo raids into his realm, or punitive expeditionas against the Agaw.
Fasilidos dispatched an embassy to India in 1664-5 to congratulate Aurangzeb upon his accession to the throne of the Mughal Empire.
In 1666, after his son Dawit rebelled, Fasilidos incarcerated him at Wehni, reviving the ancient practice of confining troublesome members of the Imperial family to a mountaintop, as they had once been confined at Amba Geshen.
Fasilidos died on October 18, 1667 at Azazo, 5 miles south of Gondar. His body was interred at St. Stephen's Monastery on Daga Island, located in Lake Tana. When Nathaniel T. Kenney was shown Fasilidos' remains, a smaller mummy also shared the coffin. A monk told Kenney that it was Fasilidos' seven-year-old son Isur, who had been smothered in a crush of people who had come to pay the new king homage.1
References
- Nathaniel T. Kenney, "Ethiopian Adventure", National Geographic, 127 (1965), p.557.
| Preceded by: | Emperor of Ethiopia | Succeeded by: |
| Sissinios | Yohannes I |