Abdela Sherif Museum

The Abdela Sherif Museum was founded by Abdela Sherif in 1998. It is situated in one of the World’s Heritage Sites in the city of Harar in eastern Ethiopia known as Teferi House (or Tafari House). The building was provided by the Harari Regional State in 2007. It is now called The Abdela Sherif Museum. From the help of funding, the museum was renovated and re-opened to the public in 2011.

Abdela established the museum by using his personal archive of Harar music as the first collection of the museum. Back then, the museum was located in Sherif’s place of residence. The museum now preserves cultural artefacts, tools, manuscript and over 600 music recordings on display in the archive.

The collections are a result of donations from individuals in and around Harar. The museum building is of historical importance to Harar as it was once the home of the Duke, Ras Tafari (Haile Selassie I) who became Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974.

Book binding, classification and digitizing of all materials will soon follow. The Abdela Sherif Museum is open to the public daily (Monday – Sunday) from 8am to 12pm and 2pm to 6pm.