About this Book

Ethiopian philosophy is unique in Africa because it is both oral and written. The oral tradition is present in songs, poems, and proverbial sayings. In the written tradition, Zara Yacob is undoubtedly the dominant figure. Zara Yacob was born in 1599 in Aksum, the ancient capital and religious center of learning in northern Ethiopia, and died in 1692. The little we know about his life is derived from the rare autobiographical introduction to his philosophical treatise on meditation written during the reign of the Ethiopian Emperor Susyenos (1605-32). Through this rare autobiographical act, Zara Yacob, who acquainted himself with the teachings of the Catholic Church introduced by Portuguese Jesuit missions in sixteenth-century Ethiopia, becomes the first self-conscious founder of a philosophical tradition in Ethiopia. Indeed, it is a mild exaggeration to assert that it is Zara Yacob who gave the continent of Africa an original autobiography, something that was at that time confined to literate traditions.