Menas of Ethiopia

Who was Menas of Ethiopia?

Menas or Minas, throne name Admas Sagad I was nəgusä nägäst of Ethiopia, and a member of the Solomonic dynasty. He was a brother of Gelawdewos.

According to a genealogy collected by James Bruce, Menas' father Lebna Dengel arranged Menas to be married to the daughter of Robel, governor of Bora and Selawe; upon becoming empress she took the name Adimas Moas. They had two children, Fiqtor and Theodora.

During Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi's invasion of Ethiopia, Menas had been captured but treated well as a valuable prisoner. Although the fate of prisoners of war at the time was to be castrated and enslaved, due to the intervention of Bati del Wambara, wife of Imam Ahmad Gragn, Menas escaped this mutilation, and was married to Bati del Wambara's daughter—an act Whiteway describes as "a unique act of clemency." This clemency came to an end in 1542, when the Imam, desperate for help from his fellow Muslims, included Menas in an assortment of extravagant gifts to the sultan of Yemen in return for military aid.