Abba Sabra is the semi-legendary founder of Beta Israel monasticism, remembered as a fifteenth-century figure who came to the community as an Ethiopian Christian monk and tutor to the children of Emperor Zara Yaqob, and was converted to the Haymanot of the Beta Israel. He is said to have introduced the Christian institution of monasticism, adapted to Israelite observance, which sustained Beta Israel religious life until the monasteries of Lay Armachiho were devastated by the great famine of the 1890s. Tradition credits him, alone or with his companion Saga Amlak, with compiling the Te'ezaza Sanbat and shaping the community's distinctive prayer and purity laws. He stands at the boundary of history and legend, and the details of his life survive chiefly in oral and hagiographic memory.