Combining a set of grey literature and primary sources, this article analyses the rise and fall of the sultanate of Awsa, northeastern Ethiopia, between 1944 and 1975. Ali Mirah exploited the typical repertoires of a frontier regime to consolidate a semi-independent Muslim chiefdom at the fringes of the Christian empire of Ethiopia. Foreign investors in commercial agriculture provided the sultanate and its counterparts within the Ethiopian state with tangible and intangible resources that shaped the quest for statecraft in the Lower Awash Valley.

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Acknowledgementsfollower of my work throughout, shared their expertise with me on substantial parts of it. I am deeply indebted to them all. The text also profited substantially from the comments of two anonymous peer reviewers. Thorough and knowledgeable copy-editing by Manfred Boemeke and by Suruthi Manogarane for DeGruyter made the text much more readable.I cannot hope to do justice to all the friends and colleagues who inspired me, shared their work with me, and discussed my findings at conferences and in private conversation.