Alwa in Sudanic Context

Although we have long considered Alwa to be the more interesting of post-Meroe states in Nubia, the limited archaeological excavations and fewer references in the external Arabic primary sources makes it more of an elusive entity. Mohi el-Din Abdalla Zarroug attempts to redress this with an admittedly speculative but provocative analysis of the kingdom of Alwa. Based on the ethnographic present (after assuming probable cultural continuity in the Nubian heartland for the last several centuries), archaeological surveys, and textual sources from Antiquity, Islamic lands, and later reports or narratives, The Kingdom of Alwa proposes an interesting interpretation of Alwa as the more powerful, wealthiest state of medieval Nubia. Instead of being a peripheral Nubian state, or, as Adams wrongly assumed, a "primitive" state based on the slave trade, Alwa may have been a major state whose influence radiated far to the east and west, perhaps vying with Kanem over influence in Darfur and what later became Wadai. 

Contrary to assumptions or expectations of Makuria being the dominant Nubian kingdom, often based on the far more extensive archaeological research in northern Nubia, Alwa appears to have been able to support higher population densities while benefitting from surplus crops (through riverine and rain-based agriculture), gold exports, hides, and long-distance trade. The interdependency of the pastoralist and agriculturalist populations of Alwa became the basis for a regional economy and local exchange. Gold, iron, ivory, leather, and salt also contributed to this economy, which must have connected Alwa to the Mediterranean, Red Sea, Indian Ocean, Sudanic, and trans-Saharan trade routes. The extent to which Alwa inherited aspects of Meroitic economic or administrative structures is unknown, but Zarroug sees evidence of "Meroitized" Noba in the region during the Late Meroitic Period, according to burial types and the Axumite inscription of Ezana. Geographical factors likely favored continuity, too, suggesting Alwa succeeded Meroe as the center of Nubia. This is also the impression one gains from the external Arabic sources like al-Aswani. 

Zarroug speculates that Alwa relied more on east-west trade routes that linked the kingdom to trans-Saharan routes as well as to the Red Sea. Ruins of structures in Kordofan and Darfur suggest Alwa (and probably Makuria, too) had a presence in western Sudan, likely connecting it to trade routes that led to the Fezzan and North Africa. Although the evidence is still lacking or perhaps waiting on confirmation from finds in Kanem, Darfur, and Soba, Zarroug's theory is quite plausible. We have long wondered to what extent Kanem may have played an early essential role in trade and cultural contacts across the Sudanic belt of the African continent. Hints of it can be seen in the chronicles of Ahmad b. Furtu or al-Idrisi, Ibn Said and oral traditions of Darfur suggestive of Kanem's influence further east. Perhaps Kanem and Alwa (and likely Makuria) exerted influence over the Daju and what later became Wadai as peripheral territories. Over time, secure trade routes developed which could link Alwa to the Fezzan and possibly establish a firmer "Sudan Road." The presence of Muslim traders in Alwa and Makuria may have facilitated this process, so that Christian Nubia did not represent an impenetrable barrier for Muslims of the Central Sudan.  

The Monastic Holy Man and Early Solomonic Ethiopia

In our current quest to read as much as possible on Ethiopian history, with an emphasis on the Solomonic dynasty, we found Kaplan's The Monastic Holy Man and the Christianization of Early Solomonic Ethiopia to be a very readable overview and analysis. Drawing mostly from the hagiographical literature, Kaplan endeavors to elucidate the rise, function and socio-political context of the holy man. As in the case of Peter Brown's study of the Christian holy man, Kaplan finds some commonalities. However, the distinct origins of Christianity in Ethiopia in the Aksumite period, particularly its top-down origins, and the limitations faced by its Church, led to some important differences. This is perhaps most evident in the Ethiopian Church's dependence on Alexandria, and the lack of interest in evangelization shown by the Egyptian bishops and most of the Solomonic dynasts (except for Zara Yaeqob). 

Although monasticism and saints in the Ethiopian tradition predate the Solomonic "restoration" of 1270, Kaplan argues that the reigning dynasty created conditions favorable for monasticism. Local or provincial nobles who would have remained in political office gradually shifted to a religious vocation as heads of monastic communities in order to retain their power or authority in the face of an expanding Solomonic state, especially during the consolidation of the state under Amda Seyon. While Solomonic rulers supported monastic communities through gult lands and gifts, Kaplan's study suggests the monastic holy men, who were mostly from noble families, would have been partly pushed to monastic life in order to preserve their noble prerogatives as abbots. These abbots, who came from noble families and then received gult in some cases, often ran their gult in a similar manner as the provincial nobility or chiefs. While some holy men were not abbots, the vast majority in the hagiographical literature were heads of monastic communities. 

Some "houses" periodically entered into conflict with the Solomonic dynasty over doctrinal issues or the royal government's attempts to control the Church. Yet the noble origins of the monastic holy man and his frequent involvement with the state's military (through prayer and predictions) led to constant relations. Indeed, the holy man came to be a mediator between the government and the masses, just as he served a similar function as the intermediary of the Christian believers and God. The holy man likewise served as healer, tamer of wild beasts, exorcist, and missionary, spreading the Gospel to pagan or Muslim subject peoples. Unsurprisingly, the monastic holy man often became an important figure based on the variety of his services, connections to powerful people, leadership, and spiritual or religious power. Our hagiographical literature reflects this, and since they were initially written to glorify a saint, often contain numerous miracles or stories meant to enhance the stature of the holy man as an almost angelic being. 

Unfortunately, as missionaries, they usually failed to deeply plant the seed of Christian belief. Their ability to gain adherents to the faith was often through showing the superiority of Christianity in magic rituals or, in some cases, through political advantages Christianity presented to pagan secular leaders eager to limit or remove the religious leadership they shared their authority with. This might help explain why the Muslim invasions of the 16th century were often able to quickly convert parts of Ethiopia, since their Christianization never supplanted their previous traditional religious worldview. Nor were converts necessarily deeply imbued with Christian doctrine or belief. Of course, the lack of support for evangelization from the Solomonic state and Alexandria placed severe limitations on what the monastic centers could accomplish. Without an adequately trained clergy in sufficient numbers, Christianization of the empire was necessarily limited.

In spite of its brevity, and the problematic nature of the sources (though often validated by other traditions, chronicles, or sources), anyone interested in monasticism in Ethiopia or Christianity should read this. It helps us gain a better understanding of exactly who the monks and clerical leadership were in Ethiopia. Moreover, it helps to create a clearer picture of what happened on the ground as Christianity expanded beyond the traditional core of the Aksumite and Zagwe kingdoms. We think a possible comparison could be made with the ulama and the state in Borno or the mallam and the holy man. Perhaps there are similarities between the two beyond the superficial, and in spite of the differences between Christianity and Islam. 

African Mathematics: North Africa and Sudanic Africa

African Mathematics: From Bones to Computers by Mamokgethi Setati and Abdul Karim Bangura  is a useful introduction to how various African cultures across time have incorporated mathematical concepts and logic that demolish stereotypes of the 'primitive African' one encounters nearly everywhere in Western academic and popular culture. Largely functioning as an overview and review of other scholarship on the subject of math in Africa, we learn about how numeration systems, fractals, geometry, algebra, Combinatorics, the Fourier Transform, logic, mathematical tiling, magic squares, Number Theory, and various other branches of mathematics can be seen in Africa's written and oral cultures, as well as material culture (hair braiding, pottery, murals, urban and village layout, textiles, crafts, arts, architecture, board games, riddles, and counting systems). Indeed, reading this book will challenge all of one's preconceived notions of 'Africa,' and it integrates the Maghreb and Egypt into the story of African mathematics. Indeed, the widespread use of base-2 calculations in African mathematics from prehistoric times to Ancient Egypt and the Yoruba numeral system would seem to point to some perhaps continent-wide common legacies in mathematics.

Indeed, the Lebombo Bone and Ishango Bone seem to be early prehistoric evidence of doubling system in African counting, the use of base-2 calculations, and perhaps even some sort of calendar for lunar purposes or menstruation. As the authors suggest, this is perhaps all rooted in how early hunter-gatherers had to geometricize their labor and subsistence activities, which in turn led to some forms of mathematical thought and observation. Other early evidence of important African contributions to mathematics can be found in Ancient Egypt, where base-2 calculations were prevalent, as well as strides in geometry, algebra, recognition of the Pythagorean Theorem, unit fractions, the creation of a calendar of 365 days, arithmetic, volume equations (such as the Egyptian formula for the volume of a truncated square pyramid, which was correct!), a complex numeration system that changed over time with new scripts (hieroglypic, hieratic, demotic), and accurate counting for censuses, tax collection, and maintaining an army. The authors suggest that ancient Egypt's centralization likely fueled the need for improved mathematics, since the maintenance of a strong state and the completion of monuments such as temples and pyramids obviously required some advanced mathematics. And this was no static systems of thought, it changed with the new of more efficient writing systems for describing numbers, and also incorporated fractals in temple architecture. Although not discussed by the authors in great detail, ancient Egyptian mathematics and science would have also required a centralized system of measurement for everything from measuring temples and volume to recording the Nile (nilometer). Ancient Egypt's written mathematical tradition survives from the Ahmose Papyrus, Rhind Papyrus, and Moscow Papyrus, which show that by at least the Middle Kingdom, ancient Egyptian mathematics must have been one of the most advanced systems in the world, as well as numerous example problems with answers that reveal the depth of mathematical knowledge.

Besides ancient Egypt, the Maghrebi tradition of matematics from the 9th through 19th centuries, largely drawing from the work of the Algerian scholar Djebbar, shows how various North African mathematicians contributed to the field. Indeed, they were part of the Islamic world and the 'Arab' tradition of mathematics, but also reflected an African contribution, since Berber dynasties like the Almohads cultivated an intellectual climate or became scholars themselves. It is this tradition of Arabo-Islamic North African mathematics and astronomy that contributed to mathematical manuscripts in Arabic across Muslim Spain, North Africa, Egypt, and parts of 'sub-Saharan Africa.' The Maghrebi tradition gave the world scholars such as Abu al-Qasim al-Qurash, Al-Hassa, Ibn al-Yasamin (who was black), Ahmad Ibn Muncim, and Ibn al-Banna who advanced algebra, innovated the use of symbolic writing of fractions (the origins of the horizontal bars used in fractions in Europe came from the Maghreb), studied the operations and order of algebra, abstract manipulation of polynomials, writing of equations, magic squares, Number Theory, Combinatorics, enumerations, and astronomy.

These writings represent a vast North African mathematical, scientific, and philosophical written tradition that, part of the broader Islamic world, was nonetheless very much an African creation, with reverberations in nearby Europe, Africa south of the Sahara, and Moorish Spain. In fact, translations of these writers' works into Latin and Greek by often Jewish scholars, or exposure to these innovative mathematicians by European students directly shaped the future course of mathematical knowledge. Indeed, if Ron Eglash is correct, the transmission of African divination systems through geomancy during this era in the Middle Ages, established the foundations for binary and computing centuries later in Europe. Speaking of divination, an exploration of how local Berber and West African influences impacted this Maghrebi mathematical tradition warrants further study, particularly if Eglash's convincing theory about the impact of African binary in divination proves correct. However, the text states that the Maghrebi mathematical treatises and manuals were copied and influential in West Africa, influencing writings in Timbuktu, but the decline of the Maghreb politically, economically, and socially after the 15th century may have impeded further developments. I must locate some studies by Ahmad Kani of precolonial mathematical and scientific writings of West Africans to complete the picture of how Islamic and Arab-African mathematical systems contributed to the study.

We know that Muslim Fulani scholar Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Fulani al-Kishnawi discovered the formula for calculating the magical constant in magic squares, and that he lived in Cairo for a number of years, where he died after performing the pilgrimage to Mecca. Al-Kishnawi was from Katsina, a Hausa city-state in precolonial Nigeria, and according to Paulus Gerdes, magic squares were common among Fulbe/Fulani groups in West Africa, worn as amulets. It would seem the association of magic squares with actual 'magic' and numerology was quite common in the Islamic world and among relatively non-Islamized West Africans, as well as Muslim kingdoms in the Western and Central Sudan regions of West Africa (mathematics, astronomy, medicine, horticulture, and a variety of influences reflecting local and North African mathematical traditions) were utilized in the last centuries of the precolonial era. Perhaps other instances of mathematics in the Sahel and savanna regions of West Africa merit further discussion, especially in architecture (Eglash discusses fractal elements in Senegal), divination (which Eglash discusses in Bamana sand divination), West African sculpture and art, or the megaliths of the Senegambia. Perhaps, like Nabta Playa in Egypt or similar structures in other parts of Africa, the megaliths serve an astronomical function, similar to how indigenes of the Canary Islands devised lunar calendars and one rooted in the Canopus star, an ancient cosmological system in northwestern Africa.

Algeria: Colonialism and Race

Patricia Lorcin's Imperial Identities: Stereotyping, Prejudice and Race in Colonial Algeria is an interesting study of how colonialism shapes constructs of race in a North African context. Examining French colonial sources from 1830 onwards, Lorcin traces the rise and fall of the "Kabyle Myth" that divided the population of Algeria into two "racial" groups: savage and irredeemable Arabs and Kabyle Berbers who were seen as "white," more civilized because of their sedentary lifestyle, allegedly less devout Islamic practices, fewer restrictions on women, lower incidence of polygamy, and presumed origins among "white" peoples. This binary division of "good Kabyle" versus "bad Arab" collapsed with the rise of settler colonialism in Algeria, which, as Lorcin elucidates, led to a general stereotype and racial discrimination against all "native" Algerians by the end of the 19th century

Anti-Islamic sentiment among the French, the shift from military to civil administration, and white supremacist pseudoscience of the 19th century all contributed to the "Kabyle Myth." Kabyles, imagined by the French as "noble savages" and compared to Germanic tribes of the distant past, were assumed to be capable of elevation under French law and tutelage, ignored their Islamic devotion, and even applied Saint-Simonianism as the intellectual bedrock, according to Lorcin. Even physicians contributed to the racialization of Algerians, dividing Algerians into Kabyles and Arabs. Arabs, as pauperization under colonial rule progressed (including disastrous famine), were racialized as thieves, rapists, savages, lazy, stupid and considered unreliable. Racial discourse from the French even linked "beauty" to advanced civilizations, thereby labeling Arabs as physically unattractive while praising the alleged racial "purity" of the Berbers.

Lorcin's analysis also traces a colonial sentiment of France as a "New Rome" in North Africa and the Mediterranean. This form of neoclassical colonial development facilitated the rise of European settlers, who, as Europeans from lands once held by Rome, could be seen in a new light as proper heirs to the Roman Empire in North Africa. Orientalism and Arabophiles among the colonial intellectuals and administrations also shaped discourse on race, albeit always within the pro-colonial framework. The French association of the Kabyle Berbers with "whites" also played into this, and contributed to the problems and ethnic conflict in contemporary Algeria given the strong forms of Berber nationalism and violence in the Kabylie region. Although one might suppose its obvious, the importance of European colonialism in shaping local constructs of race or even creating and separating identities is quite powerful in the Algerian case, with drastic consequences here and other African nations after decolonisation.

Video on Funj

One of the best things you can find on the Funj Sultanate on the internet. It's not Spalding or Holt, but this Youtube channel did an excellent job introducing the history of Sennar. Unfortunately, it's often accompanied by irrelevant pictures but worthwhile for an overview of a major state in Sudanic Africa. 

Trans-Saharan Africa in World History

We have recently revisited Austen's accessible read, Trans-Saharan Africa in World History, and highly recommend it. Sure, one could find dense, academic articles that see the Sahara as a model for studying African history or intra-African relations, but this is the best book-length work related to the subject that integrates the Maghreb and the Sudanic regions of West Africa into a single narrative. Austen highlights some of the Sahara's economic, religious, cultural, political, and ethnic diversity and contributions to African history and global history in a way that shows how, for several centuries, the Sahara was a global highway that connected various regions of Africa together, as well as becoming an important node in Afro-Eurasian commerce and exchange. Indeed, one learns much about how new trends in ideology and material culture went both ways in the northern half of the African continent, as well as placing it in a broader hemispheric and Islamic perspective so one can clearly see how trans-Saharan Africa was, in some ways, economically co-dependent, even if Austen argues that the Maghreb was less dependent on trade with the Sudan.

And the importance of Islam in regulating and fueling trade, even though trade between the Sahara and the Sudan predates Islam by at least several centuries, going back to the introduction of the camel, surely contributed to both 'shores' of the Sahara as various African societies (and Arabs) influenced each other and shaped the political destinies of states to the far north and the far south. One sees this in the Almoravids and Almohads, which were Berber dynasties with clear links to the world of Islam and trans-Saharan Africa, as well as in relations between Morocco and Songhay, the spread of Sufism and Islamic learning, and even the rise of manufactures and textiles from the Sudan into the Sahara and Maghrib, illustrating how interlinked these economies were. 

Sure, the Maghreb states were more thoroughly Islamized and tied to the 'Arab world' and Mediterranean, but Africans (especially Berbers in the north and the Sahara) profoundly shaped the development of new trends in trade, traversing the desert, the spread of new technology and ideas, the rise and fall of states, and the economic integration of the entire northern half of Africa into the global economy in the era before European hegemony. Indeed, this is something that merits further inquiry, how trans-Saharan commerce, movement and learning contributed to the medieval world, as well as shaping the growth of cities and intellectual thought in Africa.

Heart of the Ngoni

Although this blogger is no fan of Harold Courlander's work on Haiti, his recounting of the Segu epics (with Ousmane Sako) is rather entertaining. The Segu epics, which bring to mind an epic historical fiction novel by a renowned Caribbean writer, should be read together for a fuller appreciation and understanding of Bambara civilization from the 1600s-1900s. Indeed, the story of the origin of Segu goes back far further, to Wagadu and Soninke origins, tying the Bambara with other ethnic groups in the Western Sudan (Mandingue, Soninke, Fula, etc.). And, as non-Muslims whose kingdom led an uneasy coexistence with Muslim groups (in addition to incorporating Muslim mystics) the embellished narratives of past Segu kings or heroes give an idea of social values and ideals along the Niger River at a time when 3 forces were irrevocably transforming West Africa: Islam, the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, and colonialism. While the coming of the white man is only important in the last tale of a Soninke town, and most of the tales focus on important figures and kings at the zenith of Segu's power, before the Muslim jihadists defeated Segu, the aforementioned 3 tides are unforgettably in the background. Anyone who has read the historical epic of Conde will see it immediately in these stories, focused as they are on the great kings and warriors in a time of chivalry and honor.