Zera Yacob (philosopher)

Zera Yacob (/ˈzɪərə jæˈkoʊb/; Ge'ez: ዘርዐ ያዕቆብ; 28 August 1599 – 1692) was an Ethiopian philosopher from the city of Aksum in the 17th century. His 1667 treatise, developed around 1630 and known in the original Ge'ez language as the Hatata (Inquiry), has been compared to René Descartes' Discours de la méthode (1637).

For centuries, Ge'ez texts had been written in Ethiopia. Around 1510, Abba Mikael translated and adapted the Arabic Book of the Wise Philosophers, a collection of sayings from the early Greek Pre-Socratics, Plato, and Aristotle via the neo-Platonic dialogues, also influenced by Arab philosophy and the Ethiopian discussions.^[1]

Zera Yacob's Inquiry goes further than these former texts, as he argues in following one's natural reasoning instead of believing what one is told by others. He was a contemporary of the female activist Walatta Petros, whose biography was written in 1672.