Imam Ahmad has traditionally sometimes been interpreted as being an Arab in Ethiopia[1], though he is more often represented as Somali.[2] The traditional interpretation of his ethnicity as Somali, however, has been challenged. Adal was a multiethnic state comprising both Afars and Somalis. Ewald Wagner postulates that, in fact, "the main population of Adal may have been of Afar stock." [3] His ethnicity is never mentioned in the Futuh al-Habasha, the primary work regarding his conquests, but Franz-Christoph Muth identifies him as Somali[4] Richard Pankhurst has postulated that the general may have in fact been Afar
