There is a general understanding that Ethiopia runs counter to other African countries, where basically books were introduced by the Europeans to ‘civilise’ the ‘illiterate’ people during the colonial period. This colonialist point of view is problematic for it obliterates the pre-existence of notable centers of Islamic learning located in the continent, for example Timbuktu and Harar. Moreover, Ethiopians, even before the introduction of Christianity, were already equipped with a writing system of their own for more than 3,000 years (Ayele, 1997), and books were not new when Europeans set foot in the country in the 16th century. In Ethiopia, where Christianity arrived long before the European advent, literacy was provided to a limited range of people seeking clerical careers. Thus, pre-modern education was primarily religious in terms of personnel, textbooks, and places. Clerics taught those children who wished to pursue a clerical career, using religious books at classrooms attached to churches and monasteries.