For a thousand years, Harar, with its forbidding, three-metre walls surrounding ancient mosques and serpentine alleyways, has been the centre of the Islamic faith in the Horn of Africa.
Now the leaders of the ancient hilltop city are hoping it will become a tourist centre too.
"The future of Harar is as a tourist attraction," said Murad Abdulhadi, the regional president.
Harar was named a Unesco World Heritage site last year, joining some of the world's top landmarks, such as the Grand Canyon in the United States, the Great Wall of China and the Acropolis in Greece.
It is the fourth holiest city in Islam after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, and some people believe it was the birthplace of coffee. Its aroma wafts through the cool air of the Ethiopian highlands.
Some of Harar's attractions defy easy explanation, such as the old man who hand-feeds about 50 hyenas every night, treating them like obedient kittens.
But the city, which lies about 400km from the capital Addis Ababa, lacks modern amenities and suffers from a chronic shortage of water. With only a handful of hotels and the nearest airport more than an hour's drive away, moving Harar into the future is an ambitious plan.
Abdul-nasser Idriss, who heads Harar's tourism department, acknowledges that the city faces "a big problem" in accommodating any more than the 4 500 tourists who come here each year.
But in order to speed up development, the regional government has given a 10-year tax break to anyone interested in building tourist facilities. Federal officials also say they are planning to make Harar and its neighbouring city, Dire Dawa, part of an advertising campaign to lure tourists from neighbouring Djibouti.
Other incentives include awards of land and free technical advice on construction projects, said Mohamoud Dirir, the federal minister of tourism.
Ethiopian officials would not say how much has been invested in Harar so far, but construction is everywhere: unfinished hotels and restaurants dot the road leading into the main part of the city.
Sheik Mohammed Alamoudi, an oil baron who is believed to have invested more than $1-billion (about R7-billion) in his native country, has sent a team to Harar at the request of regional officials to investigate the viability of building the city's first luxury hotel. The city is also planning a water project that will increase Harar's available water supply more than sevenfold. Each resident in Harar now gets just 20 litres of water a day.
But what Harar lacks in modern amenities it more than compensates for in ancient wonders: nearly 100 old mosques, fortress-style walls and alleyways filled with ancient homes.
Still, as Harar moves further into the modern world, many locals say they are proud of their past.
"The basic thing is that we want to protect this culture, to keep it as it is for the next generation," said Zeydan Bekri, a lifelong resident who lobbied the United Nations for five years to get the Unesco designation. - Sapa-AP