Emperor 

Justin I
Emperor Justin I of the Eastern Roman Empire requested that his fellow Christian, Kaleb, help fight
the Yemenite king. Around 525 CE, Kaleb invaded and defeated Dhu Nuwas, appointing his
Christian follower Sumuafa' Ashawa' as his viceroy. This dating is tentative, however, as the basis of
the year 525 CE for the invasion is based on the death of the ruler of Yemen at the time, who very
well could have been Kaleb's viceroy. Procopius records that after about five years, Abraha deposed
the viceroy and made himself king (Histories 1.20). Despite several attempted invasions across the
Red Sea, Kaleb was unable to dislodge Abreha, and acquiesced in the change; this was the last
time Ethiopian armies left Africa until the 20th century CE when several units participated in
the Korean War. Eventually Kaleb abdicated in favor of his son Wa'zeb and retired to a monastery,
where he ended his days. Abraha later made peace with Kaleb's successor and recognized his
suzerainty. Despite this reverse, under Ezana and Kaleb the kingdom was at its height, benefiting
from a large trade, which extended as far as India and Ceylon, and were in constant communication
with the Byzantine Empire.
Details about the history of the Axumite Kingdom, never abundant, became scarcer after this point.
The last king of Axum who is known to have minted coins was Armah, whose coinage refers to
the Persian conquest of Jerusalem in 614 CE. According to an early Muslim tradition,
the Negus Sahama offered asylum to a group of Muslims who were fleeing from persecution
during Muhammad's lifetime (615 CE), but Stuart Munro-Hay believes that Axum had been
abandoned as the capital by that time[36] – although Kobishchanov states that Ethiopian raiders
plagued the Red Sea, preying on Arabian ports at least as late as 702 CE.[37]
Some people believe that the end of the Axumite Kingdom is as mysterious as the beginning of it is.
Lacking a detailed history, the kingdom's fall has been attributed to a persistent drought,
overgrazing, deforestation, a plague, a shift in trade routes that reduced the importance of the Red
Sea—or a combination of all of these factors. Munro-Hay cites the Muslim historian Abu Ja'far al-
Khwarazmi/Kharazmi (who wrote before 833 CE) as stating that the capital of "the kingdom of
Habash" was Jarma. Unless Jarma is a nickname for Axum (hypothetically from Ge'ez girma,
"remarkable, revered"), the capital had moved from Axum to a new site, yet undiscovered.