Marya

The Marya (Tigre: ማርያ; Arabic: ماريا) are a Tigre-speaking people of western Eritrea. They are mostly herders and farmers and live in the middle valley of the Anseba River in the Keren District. They are divided into two clans, the Marya Qeyih and the Marya Tselam.[citation needed] The Marya are related to the Mensa, the Hazo and the Tora, and form a subgroup of the Tigre people.

History

Conversion to Islam

Like other Tigre-speaking groups such as the Bet Asgede, the Mensa' and the Bet Juk, the Marya followed local forms of Christianity before converting to Islam between the 1820s and the 1850s.: 185  Their conversion did not follow a single path. The subordinate tigre class was converted by the Ad Shaykh holy family, and some of them later joined it. Part of the Marya aristocracy was converted by shaykhs of the Khatmiyya Sufi order, and another part later by the Ad Shaykh.: 188, n. 31  The founder of the Khatmiyya, Muhammad 'Uthman al-Mirghani, had initiated followers among the Marya during his tours of the region in the early 19th century,: 39  and the 'Ad Shaykh drew Marya followers into the Qadiriyya order.: 59–60 

Contacts with the coast

After Egyptian troops burned Hirgigo, the seat of the Nayebs, in 1847, about 80 Balaw from Hirgigo settled among the Marya. Many of these families returned to Hirgigo after the Italian occupation of Massawa in 1885.: 87, nn. 128–129 

Italian colonial period

By the 1920s the Marya had moved their religious allegiance from the 'Ad Shaykh and the Qadiriyya to the Khatmiyya, which the Italian colonial authorities supported.: 200 : 49  Miran suggests that this change was partly political, since the Ad Shaykh were regarded as pro-Mahdist and the Khatmiyya cooperated with the Italian government.: 49 

References

  1. 1 2 E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913–1936. Vol. 5. Brill. p. 310.
  2. ↑ Skutsch, Carl (7 November 2013). Encyclopedia of the World's Minorities. Routledge. pp. 1200–1201. ISBN 978-1-135-19388-1.
  3. 1 2 3 Miran, Jonathan (2005). "A Historical Overview of Islam in Eritrea". Die Welt des Islams. 45 (2): 177–215. doi:10.1163/1570060054307534. JSTOR 1571280.
  4. 1 2 3 Miran, Jonathan (2010). "Constructing and Deconstructing the Tigre Frontier Space in the Long Nineteenth Century". In Lusini, Gianfrancesco (ed.). History and Language of the Tigre-Speaking Peoples. Studi Africanistici, Serie Etiopica. Vol. 8. Naples: Università degli Studi di Napoli "L'Orientale". pp. 33–50. ISBN 978-88-95044-68-2.
  5. 1 2 Miran, Jonathan (2007). "Power without Pashas: The Anatomy of Na'ib Autonomy in Ottoman Eritrea (17th–19th c.)". Eritrean Studies Review. 5 (1): 33–88.

Further reading