The Ethiopian–Adal War, also known as the Abyssinian–Adal War and Futūḥ Al-Ḥabaša (Arabic: فتوح الحبش, lit. 'Conquest of Abyssinia'), was a war fought between the Christian Ethiopian Empire and the Muslim Adal Sultanate from 1529 to 1543. The Christian Ethiopian troops consisted of the Amhara, Tigrayans, Tigrinya and Agaw people, and at the closing of the war, supported by the Portuguese Empire with no less than four hundred musketeers. The Adal forces were composed of Harla/Harari, Somali, Afar as well as Arab and Turkish gunmen. Both sides would see the Maya mercenaries at times join their ranks. The conflict was followed shortly by the 16th century Ottoman-Ethiopian War
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Abyssinian-Adal War in the context of Adal Sultanate
The Adal Sultanate, also known as the Adal Empire or Barr Saʿad dīn (alt. spelling Adel Sultanate, Adal Sultanate) (Arabic: سلطنة عدل), was a medieval Sunni Muslim empire which was located in the Horn of Africa. It was founded by Sabr ad-Din III on the Harar plateau in Adal after the fall of the Sultanate of Ifat. The kingdom flourished c. 1415 to 1577. At its height, the polity under Sultan Badlay controlled the territory stretching from Cape Guardafui in Somalia to the port city of Suakin in Sudan.
The empire's frequent wars with its Christian rival, the Solomonic Dynasty of Abyssinia, during the 15th and 16th centuries, led by important early figures such as Jamal ad-Din II, Badlay, and Mahfuz, would earn the sovereigns of Adal a reputation in the Islamic World as one of saints, and were as a result regularly supplied with arms, horses and other articles of war. In the 16th century under the leadership of Imam Ahmed ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi and his successor Nur ibn Mujahid, Adal embarked on the Conquest of Abyssinia deploying muskets and cannons. The war would eventually draw in the Portuguese and Ottoman Empires. The Adalites maintained a strong relationship with the Ottomans in particular.