Devotional texts in Ethiopian Islam: a munāǧāh invoking the intercession of prophets, male and female saints and ʻulamā

In this brief study I present the text of a munāǧāh included in a manuscript from the collection of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies (henceforth IES) of Addis Ababa University, MS IES 2638. The term munāǧāh can be translated as ‘intimate colloquy’ with God or as ‘extempore prayer’. In some cases the request formulated in the munāǧāh can be supported by the invocation of the mediation of saintly figures, such as Prophets, awliyāʾ, ʿulamāʾ and pious ancestors. From a textual point of view, the munāǧāh has no defined structure and may simply follow the stream of thoughts of the devotee, or it may have a more elaborated literary form that reprises those of devotional poems or of the prayers to the Prophet, using also rhymed prose. While the ritual use of munāǧāt is quite spread in Sufi practice throughout the Islamic world, it appears to be understudied. The main reference for this kind of texts is still Constance Padwick’s Muslim Devotions (1961); other scholars devoted little attention to the phenomenon.