Was the 702 AD Aksumite raid on Jeddah a religious war between Christianity and Islam, or a reactive economic strike triggered by the Umayyad suppression of the Second Fitna?
Contrary to the traditional narrative of a simple clash of civilizations, the 702 AD sack of Jeddah by the African Kingdom of Aksum was a direct consequence of the internal fractures within the early Islamic Caliphate. The transcript reveals that the Red Sea had become a “Zubayrid-Aksumite Lake” of cooperation during the Second Fitna, where local Arabian rebels and Aksumite traders thrived under a rival caliphate. When the Umayyads crushed this rebellion in 692, they imposed heavy taxes and economic warfare, destroying the profitable networks that both parties relied on. The Aksumite raid was thus a defensive, reactive strike to protect these vital economic interests, not an attempt at imperial expansion.
The Umayyad retaliation—occupying the Dahlak Archipelago—unintentionally created a sanctuary for the Alids (descendants of the Prophet Muhammad) fleeing persecution after the 786 massacre near Mecca. Brothers Idris and Suleiman escaped to North Africa and the Red Sea respectively, founding dynasties that merged Arab lineage with African political structures. This convergence of exiled Alid legitimacy, local African power, and control over trade routes between Christian Ethiopia and the Islamic world gave rise to the “Afro-Arab” political innovation of the Dahlak Sultanate. The story underscores how the Red Sea served as a crucible for new identities, where the fallout of Islamic civil wars forged entirely new geopolitical realities.
