نور حسين

Names

نور حسين Nūr Ḥusayn حسين Ḥusayn شيخ حسين Šayḫ Ḥusayn الشيخ او حسين al-Šayḫ Aw Ḥusayn šayḫ role: title

Period of Activity

Beginning 13th cent.One of the most venerated Muslim saint in Ethiopia. He is considered a saint in Ṣūfī Islam for the miracles he worked, for his benevolence towards the poor and his humility. Some features of his saintliness are characteristics of indigenous forms of religiosity, particularly his power over snakes and other reptiles. This information is mainly based on a corpus of various materials made up of popular legends and genealogical facts edited in three anonymous booklets in Arabic (published in Cairo in 1927), but it doesn't seem there is any clue in these texts and in the related traditions to the real existence of Ḥusayn as a historical figure. One hypotesis is that he was the agent for the Islamization of Bale at the turn of 13th cent. According to the tradition, he was born in Wabi Šäbälle valley in Anaaǧina, Bale, where he spent his life and where his shrine was later situated. Šayḫ Ḥusayn in fact, is also the name of the place where the zāwiya of Nūr Ḥusayn is situated, ca. 150 Km NE from the town of Robee. On his father side, Ḥusayn is from an Arabian Šarific lineage who settled in the Horn of Africa two generation before him and this would enforce the links between the šayḫ's devotees from Ethiopia (especially Arsi-Oromo areas), but also from Somalia, Djibuti and Northern Kenya.The devotional practices related to Nūr Ḥusayn's cult are represented by litanies in praise of the šayḫ widely recited by his devotees during religious meetings and sung by pilgrims on the way to his shrine. The pilgrimage takes place twice a year: a minor one at the same time as the great pilgrimage to Mecca and the main one performed to commemorate the saint's death on th 15th of Ǧumādā al-āḫira. The dust of the sacred lime of the floor and of the walls of the domed mausoleum is considered to be endowed with healing properties by the devotees who swallow it or rub their bodies with it. The sanctuary presents many analogies with Mecca and the Ka'ba, but the pilgrimage includes also the visit to a series of caves and other places related to the the miracles worked by Nūr Ḥusayn.

Notes