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Malik Ambar: From Ethiopian Slave to Sultan in India
Over the years, the big production houses have fed us with mind-numbing blockbuster action flicks. The poor and oppressed protagonist overcomes the tyranny of the rich and powerful antagonist. He will then go on to establish a just law in an impossible utopia. And a typical happily-ever-after follows.
But the story of Malik Ambar is a more realistic account of the rags to riches story. Hence it is an unexceptional account of the protagonist being in the right place at the right time.
Malik Ambar was born in 1548 in the Harar region of the Christian Abyssinian Empire, part of modern-day Ethiopia. His birth name was Chapu. His transition into slavery is not explained clearly by history books. Some books indicate that neighboring raiders enslaved him during a conquest. Other accounts state that he was sold to a slave trader by his impecunious parents somewhere in the 1560s.
After his capture, Chapu’s owner shipped him to al-Mukha in Yemen. He was then sold again to a middleman and transported to Baghdad. The Baghdadi middleman exchanged his ownership with another middleman. Chapu then ended up in the hands of Mir Qasim Al-Baghdadi.
