Kubar also known as Ku’bar or Kuber is the name of the last capital of the Kingdom of Aksum and the residence of the Ethiopian ruler mentioned in several medieval Arabic sources.
History
It is first mentioned by the 10th century geographer al-Ya’qubi (fl. 872 A.D.), who gives the following short but valuable description;
“It is a spacious, important country. The capital of the kingdom
is Kubar. The Arabs still go to it for trading and they (the
Ethiopians) have mighty cities, and their coast is Dahlak. As to the kings in the land of al-Habasha
they are under the control of the great king (the Najashi) to whom they
show obedience and pay taxes. The Najashi is of the Jacobite Christian
faith.”[1]
The historian al-Masudi refers to Kubar in his The Meadows of Gold, describing it as a “great city” and the “residence of the Najashi”. In a similar context, in his Akhbar al-zaman,
the same al-Masudi calls the Ethiopian capital “Kufar” or “Kafer”. In
the Arabic works of the 13th and 14th century, Kubar is still mentioned
as being the capital of Ethiopia. Arab historian Ibn Khaldun refers to it in his Kitab al-ibar.[1]
