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Emperor Lebna Dengel: Ethiopia's Boy King vs Ahmad Gragn
Description
When Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi—known as Ahmad Gragn, 'the Left-Handed'—swept out of the Adal Sultanate in the late 1520s, he nearly extinguished the Solomonic dynasty. Emperor Lebna Dengel was just a teenager when he inherited a throne already fraying from Oromo migrations and internal dissent. This episode follows Lebna Dengel's desperate years of resistance, the burning of Debre Libanos, the Portuguese military intervention under Cristóvão da Gama, and the final, bloody turn at the Battle of Wayna Daga where Gragn was killed—but at a terrible cost. We also explore the role of Empress Seble Wongel, the controversial alliance with Catholic Portugal, and how the war reshaped Ethiopian identity and its relationship with the outside world. Drawing on the Futuh al-Habasha and Ethiopian chronicles, we separate the myth from the mayhem.