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Early life

Born at Telq in the province of Fatagar, Zara Yaqob hailed from the Amhara people, he was the youngest son of Emperor Dawit I by his wife, Igzi Kebra. His mother Igzi lost her first son and having been sick during her second pregnancy, prayed fervently to the Virgin Mary to keep her new child alive. Her prayers were answered and she gave birth to Zara Yaqob, who had this miracle recorded in the Ta'ammara Maryam, one of Zara Yaqob's chronicles written in Amharic.

Paul B. Henze repeats the tradition that the jealousy of his older brother Emperor Tewodros I forced the courtiers to take Zara Yaqob to Tigray where he was brought up in secret, and educated in Axum and at the monastery of Debre Abbay. While admitting that this tradition "is invaluable as providing a religious background for Zara Yaqob's career", Taddesse Tamrat dismisses this story as "very improbable in its details". The professor notes that Zara Yaqob wrote in his Mashafa Berhan that "he was brought down from the royal prison of Mount Gishan only on the eve of his accession to the throne."

Upon the death of Emperor Dawit, his older brother Tewodros ordered Zara Yaqob confined on Amba Geshen (around 1414). Despite this, Zara Yaqob's supporters kept him a perennial candidate for Emperor, helped by the rapid succession of his older brothers to the throne over the next 20 years, which left him as the oldest qualified candidate. David Buxton points out the effect that his forced seclusion had on his personality, "deprived of all contact with ordinary people or ordinary life." Thrust into a position of leadership "with no experience of the affairs of state, he was faced by a kingdom seething with plots and rebellions, a Church riven with heresies, and outside enemies constantly threatening invasion." Buxton continues,