Muslim Partners, Catholic Foes: The Selective Isolation of Gondärine Ethiopia

This paper is dedicated to an appraisal of Ethiopia’s relations with the Catholic and Muslim worlds in the aftermath of the failed Jesuit mission in the country (1555–1632). It contrasts Ethiopia’s policy of isolation from Catholic Europe and the resulting failures of the Franciscan order to re-establish a missionary presence in the Horn with the Ethiopian monarchy’s proactive pursuit of diplomatic ties with various Muslim societies of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean basins.