KINGS AND EMIRS

In this episode Zeinab Badawi focuses on the fall of the kingdom of Aksum and how the Christian kings who followed in the wake of its demise left powerful legacies especially that of King Lalibela who ruled in the 12/13th century. He is credited with building a complex of rock hewn churches which represent amazing feats of engineering at that time. Zeinab also charts the arrival of Islam in this part of Africa and how the Christian kings and Muslim emirs co-existed. And she visits Harar, the most holy of Ethiopia’s cities for Muslims, where she observes the bizarre long-standing tradition of the ‘hyena men’ of Harar who feed these wild animals by hand.