Shonke, the 900-and-something-year-old settlement (according to the Islamic calendar) is in the Amhara region.
https://youtu.be/C5nN2Zpk3YM
It is situated on one of the highest points in a country with a significant number of high points. Shonke is a village located some 23 km away from Kemise town, in Jirota kebele, in the current administrative district of Dawa Chefe, Oromia Zone of Amhara Region, Ethiopia.
The village was part of former Chefe Golana Dewerahmedo Wereda of the same Zone and was also part of southeast Wollo Province, in the Pre-1992’s administrative division.
About 20 generations have lived in the village, but residents now say half of the village’s estimated households have left in search of farmlands down the hill.
Theirs is an entirely Muslim community tracing their ancestry to Arabs who run away from wars in the Gulf region to hide in Abyssinia, Ethiopia’s ancient name. As refugees, these Arabs were protected at that time by the village’s only two gates which were always guarded. The gates still stand to this day.
The people of Shonke are called the Agrobba, which translates into “The Arabs came in”. Shonke’s Islamic culture is well-known. In the 19th century, it became an Islamic education and sufi-order center that was home to notable sufi saint-scholars.
One of them was Shaykh Jawhar bin Haydar bin Ali, a famous sufi mystic who is known as the Sheikh of Shonke. Shonke’s small community is made up of subsistence farmers who also keep livestock.
But Mohammed says the people prefer their homes made of rocks and “don’t fancy those shining cities”. He wants the uniqueness of Shonke kept for the sake of generations to come.
It was his home and has to be for his descendants. Unsurprisingly, Shonke garners tourist interest from all over the world yearly. There are however no official numbers of mountain trekkers who visit the village at the mountaintop.
