Bab al-Mandab Strait

The Bab al-Mandab Strait, also written simply as the Bab al-Mandab, is a strait and global chokepoint between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Djibouti and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa, connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

Etymology

In Arabic, the term bab means "gate" while mandab translates to "grief" in the English language. The strait derives its name from the dangers attending its navigation or, according to an Arab legend, from the numbers who were drowned by an earthquake that separated the Arabian Peninsula from the Horn of Africa.

History

Paleo-environmental and tectonic events in the Miocene epoch created the Danakil Isthmus, a land bridge forming a broad connection between Yemen and Ethiopia. During the last 100,000 years, eustatic sea level fluctuations have led to alternate opening and closing of the straits. According to the recent single origin hypothesis, the straits of Bab al-Mandab were probably witness to the earliest migrations of modern humans across continents. It is presumed that the oceans were then much lower and the straits were much shallower or dry, which allowed a series of emigrations along the southern coast of Asia.

In Arab tradition it is reported that in ancient times Asia and Africa were joined together, until they were split at the Bab al-Mandab. Yaqut al-Hamawi associates the name Bab al-Mandab with the 6th century crossing of the Aksumites over the sea to Yemen. Two Sabaean inscriptions of the early 6th century mention silsilat al-Mandab in connection with the conflict between Dhu Nuwas and the Aksumites.