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Ibrahim Sultan Ali: 
A Liberator Who 
Passed Away on 
Revolution Day 20 
Years Ago Today 
 
 
By 
Woldeyesus Ammar 
01.09.2007 
 
Eritreans are today solemnly marking the 46 th  anniversary of the 
commencement of their armed liberation struggle that they 
conducted for 30 years starting on 1 September 1961. That day, 
affectionately called Bahti Meskerem/Fatih min Sebtember, has 
been a revered national holiday to Eritrean patriots of all walks of 
life for decades. In addition, freedom fighters, especially those of the 
ELF, aptly called it Revolution Day. 
 
Twenty years ago (on 1 September 1987), Eritreans were, as usual, 
celebrating Revolution Day. But at the end of that day, they learned 
that Ibrahim Sultan Ali died in Cairo. It was a meaningful day and 
death. Ibrahim was a revolutionary in his own way and a great 
liberator not yet well known by many Eritreans who should know. 
His comrade-in-struggle Woldeab Woldemariam once attested that 
there would not have been an Eritrea as we knew it were it not to 
Ibrahim Sultan who had a big role in averting its partition and 
again was instrumental in creating a sort of status around which 
the trappings of patria and patriotism could be built by succeeding 
generations. This writer fully endorses this conclusion because we 
would not have Revolution Days to celebrate or even a cause worth 
a fight if it were not to the UN Resolution 390 A (V) of 1950, or the 
democratic Eritrean Constitution of 1952 or the Blue Flag or the 
Eritrean Parliament that patriots of those days bequeathed to us. 
Ibrahim Sultan was the Greatest Patriot of them all. That is my 
personal conclusion. 
 

I saw only a silhouette of Ibrahim Sultan once. It was sometime in 
the year 1956: me a child in grade three, and he a big leader of the 
biggest party of the day.  The man was so popular, and my friends 
from his neighbourhood shouted: Look! Look! Ibrahim Sultan! I 
looked but saw only the back of a man in white jelabiya (garment) 
entering his office somewhere near the only Mosque (then) of central 
Keren. That was all. But in later years, I read and asked more about 
him, and today wish to share with readers some of my pocket notes 
of this patriot I secretly admired in spite of what I heard critiques 
said of him.  
 
Historic Contributions of Sheikh Ibrahim Sultan Ali: 
 
•  He was the key actor in the emancipation of Tigre/serfs in 
Sahel and Barka who later filled the ranks of his mass 
movement for independence, the Moslem League of Eritrea 
(given that name, according to Sheikh Ibrahim, solely to 
counter the Ethiopian move to annex Eritrea using 
religion). 
•  He was the firebrand leader who helped found the Moslem 
League as the party advocating for self-determination. 
•  He had a significant role in establishing Blocco 
Independenza consisting six member parties. 
•  He was the first Eritrean political figure to widen 
diplomatic contacts, including a meeting with the Pope in 
Vatican. 
•  He was the voice of Eritrea at meetings in the United 
Nations. 
•  After federation, he was the Secretary General of the 
Eritrean Democratic Front (EDF). 
•  In the late 1950s, he became one of the exiled political 
leaders who became the conscience of the new liberation 
movement building up inside the homeland. 
•  Till death claimed him in 1987, Sheikh Ibrahim sided with 
the liberation movement and always talked about unity of 
Eritreans without distinction of region and religion. 
 
Below are some more detailed pieces of info about the man from my 
casual notes: 
 

 
Who, then, was Ibrahim Sultan and what did he do? 
 
Birth and family : 
Ibrahim Sultan Ali was born in Keren in March 1909 of a 
farmer/trader Tigre/serf from the Rugbat of Ghizghiza district in 
Sahel. He attended Quran School under Khalifa Jaafer of the 
Halanga of Kassala. In Keren, he attended technical training at 
Salvaggio Raggi and at Umberto School in Asmara. His only son 
Abdulwahab, lives in Paris.  
 
Working life 
: 
Ibrahim Sultan worked as chief in train station (1922-26), served as 
civil servant in Keren, Agordat, Tessenei, Adi Ugri and even Wiqro 
near Mekele for six months. He had good command in speaking and 
translating Italian, Arabic and Tigrinia. From 1926 to 1941, he was 
head of Islamic Affairs section in the political affairs office under 
Italian rule.. Under the British, he served as head of Civil/Native 
Affairs Office till April 1943. He resigned and established a modern 
cheese plant in Tessenei which he ran till end of 1945. The   Eritrean 
Chamber of Commerce was established that year and he became one 
of its senior staff members till end of September 1946. 
 
Political life : 
In May 1941, he was a founding member of the Patriotic Association 
till he helped found the Moslem League of Eritrea on 3.12.1946. The 
League took Keren as its headquarters till parties were shut down by 
Ethiopian interferences in the late 1950s.   
 
As noted earlier, his activities in the emancipation of Tigre/serfs 
lasted between 1942 and 1946. The movement is usually known as 
the Emancipation Movement of Serfs (Harakat Tahrir al Aqnan). 
 
Ibrahim Sultan, who was the key figure in the establishment of 
Blocco Indipendenza in July 1949, had attended  the  3rd  UN General 
Assembly on 3.4.49 and the 5th  Session of UN General Assembly in 
November 1950. In January 1951, he partook in the establishment of 
the Eritrean Democratic Front (EDF) and became its Secretary 
General. 
 

He was a member of the first Eritrean Parliament when he won 
election on 15.5.1952 representing the Rugbat tribe of which he was 
the traditional chief from 1948 to 1950. 
 
Jaafer Assad, a relation of Ibrahim Sultan who ran errands for the 
man in Asmara in his childhood, told this writer a few years ago 
that Sheikh Ibrahim Sultan loved to watch films on daily basis in 
Asmara in the early 1950s and  read the local daily Italian press.  
 
We could thus see that the commencement and growth of the 
Eritrean political struggle for national independence is linked with 
big patriots like Ibrahim Sultan Ali.  He and his friends formed the 
Patriotic Association in May 1941, long before any political 
awakening in Africa. That era in the twilight of liberation struggle 
was deficient in experience and lacked examples that could be 
emulated.  
 
Woldeab Woldemariam said of Sheikh Ibrahim: 90% of the credit of 
preserving Eritrea in one piece goes to Ibrahim Sultan Ali. He 
added: “Ibrahim Sultan is a heroic patriot who deserves the praise, 
the gratitude of the entire Eritrean people”. 
 
At UN, Sheikh Ibrahim is quoted to have said: “If a wrong decision is 
taken forcing us to struggle to safeguard our identity and obtain our 
independence, then the members of this Committee will shoulder the 
responsibility for the hostilities that arise in East Africa”. 
 
Exile and participation in struggle 
 
According to Jaafer Assad, Ibrahim Sultan left Eritrea in February 
1958 together with  Idris Mohammed Adem. Abdalla Idris Abdalla of 
Ad Hashel, member of the Sudanese army, took him from Agordat to 
Khartoum. In Sejana, Kharoum, Ibrahim Sultan and Idris 
Mohammed Adum were kept in the house of a Yemeni married to 
Eritrean, Abdurebu Selami.  Egyptian embassy provided visa in 12 
days. Train tickets to Cairo paid by Jamiyet Tahrir Abnae Eritrea 
(Association for the Liberation of Eritrean in Khartoum.  
 
Also according to Jaafer Assad, a long-time ELF member whom I 
befriended in Iraq in the 1990s said Ibrahim Sultan, Woldeab 
Woldemariam, Idris Mohammed Adem and Mohammed Saleh 

Mahmoud, member of Rwaq al-jabarti and former editor of Voice of 
Eritrea, were meeting constantly in Cairo. Ibrahim Sultan was later 
dropped out of the newly formed ELF by Idris Mohammed Adem 
because Sheikh Ibrahim liked transparency but the key ELF man of 
the day did not like this outspokenness.  In later years, Sheikh 
Ibrahim attended the first ELF congress in 1971 and the second 
congress in 1975.  He stood with the ELF tendency, and was against 
disunity and thus remained opposed to the PLF of Osman Saleh 
Sabbe.   
 
This writer was informed that 
Sheikh Ibrahim told Isayas 
Afeworki in 1976 that the latter 
was wrong to secede from the 
ELF in 1970 and again from 
the PLF in 1977 because “this 
was not good to the unity of the 
people”.  
 
 
 
This same message was repeated to the EPLF congress in 1987 that 
Sheikh Ibrahim sent them. As already noted, Sheikh Ibrahim died on 
Revolution Day in 1987 in Cairo, at 4pm after having been sick for 
many years. Buried at 6 pm on 5 September in Kassala, 5000 people 
attended the funeral procession. He was buried at Khatmia near 
Mount Taka. 
 
What Homeland is Isayas Afeworki’s Eritrea that could not even 
think of receiving with respect the remains of Great Patriots like 
Ibrahim Sultan Ali and Idris Mohammed Adem, and Osman Saleh 
Sabbe, all buried in Eritrea’s neighbourhood before and after 
independence? 
 
At this 46 th  anniversary of Revolution Day, we all should salute our 
heroes, scattered here and there – dead and alive.