Fasilides, nəgusä nägäst of Ethiopia from 1632,…
October 1667 CE
Fasilides, nəgusä nägäst of Ethiopia from 1632, had dispatched an embassy to India in 1664-5 to congratulate Aurangzeb upon his accession to the throne of the Mughal Empire.
Fasilides in 1665 had ordered the burning of the "Books of the Franks"—the remaining religious writings left behind by the Jesuits, whom he had expelled in 1638.
After his son Dawit rebelled in 1666, Fasilides had incarcerated him at Mount Wehni, reviving the ancient practice of confining troublesome members of the Imperial family to a mountaintop, as they had once been confined at Debre Damo and Amba Geshen.
At the death of Fasilides in October 1667, his fourth son is appointed nəgusä nägäst by a council of the senior dignitaries of the Empire, at the encouragement of the noble Blattengeta Malka Krestos.
The council then imprisons the other sons of Fasilides on Wehni, continuing the practice Fasilides had revived.
The new ruler takes the throne name A'ilaf Sagad ("to whom tens of thousands bow") and is known to Europeans as Johannes I, also sometimes called John I.