Contribution to the History of Songhay

Jean Rouch's Contribution à l'histoire des Songhay is rather outdated yet still useful for insights on Songhay history and culture. A reputable ethnographer who studied Songhay religion and magic extensively, Rouch's understanding of their history unsurprisingly emphasizes Islam as an alien element that laid the foundations for the collapse of the Askia. Despite this problematic frame for Songhay history, Rouch's work is one of the best earlier attempts to make sense of Songhay history from its shadowy early origins at Kukiya to the late colonial period. 

Unfortunately, Rouch repeated some of the mistakes of Delafosse and early colonial scholars. For instance, the Za dynasty were said to have been Christianized Lemta Berbers who left Tripolitania around 670. In addition, the early state of Ghana (Wagadu) is attributed to Judaeo-Syrian colonists. These mistakes inhibit a deeper understanding of early Songhay, one which clearly indicates an important role for the Sorko, Gow, and farming populations living near and along the Niger as the foundation of the first Songhay polity. This later inhibits Rouch's analysis of the Za, Si, and Askia dynasties since Islam, promoted by Askia Muhammad, is blamed for the fall of Songhay. Sonni Ali, on the other hand, was the champion of a "black" state that brought Songhay to its zenith, something commemorated in Songhay oral traditions, religion, and Rouch's problematic view of Islam's relations with Songhay religion. 

Of course, later scholars have benefitted from new approaches to the Timbuktu chronicles, epigraphic evidence from Bentia & Gao, as well as archaeological excavations at Gao and other sites in Mali to throw into question a number of theories held as gospel in Rouch's day. The picture that emerges now is one far more dynamic and one that calls into question some of the older generation's stereotypes of Kukiya as the fount of "black" Songhay paganism and even the historicity of Ali Kulun. Nonetheless, Rouch's insights are occasionally insightful here, particularly his proposed translations for Za dynasty rulers recorded in the Timbuktu chronicles. His familiarity with Songhay oral tradition and religion also adds a new dimension to the ways in which Sonni Ali and other rulers are remembered for building their empires through military conquests aided by magic or occult knowledge. 

Development and Regression on the Middle Niger

Le développement et la régression chez les peuples de la boucle du Niger à l'époque précolonial by Michael Tymowski is an ambitious work. An attempt to make sense of around 1000 years of economic progress and regression along a key part of the Western Sudan (centered on the Middle Niger), Tymowski relies heavily on the Timbuktu chronicles, external Arabic sources, and oral traditions. He persuasively makes the case for economic development with the growth of urban centers, limited private land tenure, and accelerated long-distance trade, which later declined in the 1600s and 1700s. This shows that the history of "development" in sub-Saharan African areas has always been dynamic, and not simply one of timeless "backwardness" or irrelevance. 

However, Tymowski's study is quite outdated and relies on French translations of sources in Arabic. It also relies heavily on Jean Rouch and other somewhat outdated scholarship on Songhay ethnography and oral traditions, even repeating the unproven claim that the Dia/Za dynasty of early Songhay rulers were actually Lemta Berbers. In addition, he heavily relied on the problematic Tarikh al-Fattash chronicle for assertions about servile/caste populations. This dependence on French translations of Arabic sources and outmoded scholarship on Songhay ethnography and oral traditions suggest possible limitations of Tymowski's study. While one must acknowledge that the aforementioned Timbuktu chronicles are probably reliable for the 1400s and 1500s (at least more so than for earlier centuries), Tymowski's attempt to derive meaningful conclusions or theories about the economic development of the Mali Empire and Songhay Empire may be misleading or problematic. Nonetheless, there are a number of intriguing ideas about the relationship between the towns (Gao, Djenne, Timbuktu) and the countryside, as well as the role of the state in promoting land tenure arrangements along the lines of property property or through state domains (those of the askias) that controlled and promoted the redistribution of goods. 

Christianity in the Sudan

Giovanni Vantini's Christianity in the Sudan is a dated work which, by and large, is mainly about Christian Nubia. Heavily based on the corpus of "Oriental" sources (plus some European ones) Vantini published, much of the text is like reading that compilation with some narrative commentary. It was a refresher for certain points in the history of medieval Nubia that we have forgotten about, but without any deeper investigation of the source materials, rather limited. Fortunately, advances by archaeologists and studies of Old Nubian and other textual sources has shed more light on the nature of the Nubian political system, economic structure, and religion. For instance, Dotawo is now more widely accepted as being the same state as Makuria. Sadly, Alwa, in Upper Nubia, remains a mystery in Vantini's text, but that is no surprise given the year this work was published (1980). More intriguingly for those interested in the later centuries of medieval Nubia, one can find here useful Western sources on Nubia and some important references to the Vatican's attempts to replant the Christian seed in Nubia. Some of this correspondence even touches upon the Kwararafa south of Borno, confusingly believed by some Europeans in Tripoli to have been Christians. Last, but certainly not least, some European sources also alluding to the survival of Christianity in pockets of Nubia as late as the 1740s suggest fruitful areas of research for scholars interested in Christian traces in Nubian culture. 

The Northern Factor in Ashanti History

Ivor Wilks wrote an intriguing monograph several decades ago, The Northern Factor in Ashanti History. Due to our similar interest in the "northern factor" in Yoruba history (and, to a lesser extent, Dahomey and Borgu history), we found it imperative to actually read it. Wilks presents what may be a sometimes exaggerated role of Islam in 18th century and early 19th century Asante, but it does seem quite likely that trade routes to the North through Begho and later centers was of paramount importance. Like the Oyo Yoruba state, the Asante state appears to have tapped into both Atlantic and broader Sudanic/trans-Saharan trade routes. 

Unlike Oyo, the Ashanti did not require large amounts of imported horses for cavalry units. Nonetheless, the gold and kola nuts of Ghana were highly valuable commodities that brought traders from both the Western and Central Sudan into the region. Through control of or taxation of trade routes used by these northern traders, the Asante state could derive great revenues as well as import cloth and other goods not available from the trade with Europeans on the coast. Aspects of this history is revealed by written sources from Gonja and the north. European accounts plus other sources similarly shed light on the importance of these northern ties that linked this part of Ghana with the Middle Niger, the Sahara, and Hausaland. 

West African Muslims from far afield, in addition to Muslims from areas to the north conquered by Asante, were also a valued community for their literacy, the esteem in which their religion was held, and their economic importance. Whether or not Dupuis's "sketch" of Asante history as revealed to him by manuscripts and conversations with notable Muslims in Kumasi is very reliable for how the Asante themselves saw their history, it is nonetheless important to recall that the Asante rulers sponsored a history, or chronicle,  written by Muslims. The attempt by Wilks to reproduce the accounts given to Dupuis reveals just how problematic this source material can be, though it does reveal how one could and should endeavor to utilize Arabic and European sources (plus oral traditions) to make sense of the history of the Asante. 

Medieval Arabic Epigraphy from Mali and Songhay History

Arabic Medieval Inscriptions from the Republic of Mali: Epigraphy, Chronicles and Songhay-Tuareg History by P.F. de Moraes Farias has long been on our reading list. One of the essential studies that endeavors to incorporate medieval epigraphic sources into our understanding of the history of the Songhay and the eastern arc of the Niger, this important work, despite its (necessarily) occasional speculative nature, raises a number of questions about the received wisdom on the history of Mali. First, by exploring the problematic way in which Heinrich Barth, Delafosse, and others have problematically assumed the 17th century Timbuktu chronicles can be treated as a reservoir of basic facts and data without any deeper ideological or textual analysis, this study illustrates how and why the funerary and non-funerary epigraphic evidence has been ignored, sidelined, or treated as peripheral. 

However, the funerary sources, as early sources covering dates from the early 11th century until the end of the 15th, are actual textual sources from the period before the rise of Sonni Ali and Askia Muhammad I. They shed (some) light on earlier rulers at Gao and Saney with more than just the kingslists that appear in the 17th century chronicles. Moreover, by ignoring the innovative nature of the tarikh genre in the 17th century Western Sudan, and the specific political and socioeconomic conditions which shaped its development after the fall of the Songhay imperial state and the establishment of the Arma, modern scholars have underappreciated the creativity of the chroniclers and their own motives. Furthermore, the chroniclers themselves lamented the lack of sufficient or detailed records from the early history of the Western Sudan, so epitaphs and other inscriptions from the 11th-15th century become exceptionally important sources to supplement our meager knowledge of that era.

That said, the inscriptions obviously cannot tell us everything. They do, however, provide a vista onto how the deceased and those who erected stelae or inscribed tombstones for the dead conceived of time, the calendar, their connection to the larger world of Islam, and hints of kingship, ethnicity, language, or cultural change. Part of this can be seen in Bentyia, where inscriptions record Songhay, Berber, and what appear to be Mande names. The intense interplay between Songhay and Tuareg cultures also challenges us to rethink casual or simplistic assumptions about "race" and culture, too. For instance, the askia title, which appeared in inscriptions centuries before the rise of Askia Muhammad at the end of the 15th century, may have a connection to a word of Berber derivation referring to a male slave (though this is a complex question that requires deeper familiarity with Songhay linguistics and oral tradition). It's quite clear, too, from reading de Moraes Farias, that the Ali Kulun character of Tuareg oral literature was likely the source for how the Timbuktu chroniclers sought to make sense of the period of Mali imperial domination of Gao and the eastern Niger. This suggests that some of the narratives about that period reported in the chronicles are unhistorical and the chronology of Malian rule and the different dynasties that ruled Gao will remain up for debate. 

Whether or not the epigraphic evidence can be used to postulate how kingship might have operated at Gao before the period of Mali's domination is uncertain, but de Moraes Farias's theory of rotating succession in the 11th-13th centuries is an intriguing one., After all, based on the funerary inscriptions from the early 1100s and 1200s at Gao and Saney (another site near Gao), he speculates that there may have been two lines or royal clans who alternated kingship. The first one was definitely Muslim by the second half of the 1000s, and the second one, the so-called Zuwa 'dynasty' may have either been officeholders who shared power with the earlier 'dynasty'. 

Besides raising questions about the Timbuktu chronicles and how medieval inscriptions in Arabic force us to rethink or reconceptualize space, belief, and culture in the medieval Sahel, one is also left with tantalizing references to what may have been early Sufist influence in the Sahel at Junhan. One is also left wondering why it funerary inscriptions were in vogue at Gao, Saney, Bentyia, and Essuk (Tadmakka) but no evidence for the practice has been found yet in Kanem. One would expect that similar connections with Tripoli, Qayrawan and other parts of the Maghrib (as well as similar Saharan and Sahelian Berber populations) did not lead to the development of funerary inscriptions at sites like Njimi (or perhaps at Manan, the earlier capital of Kanem which remains unknown). If the early prominence of Ibadis in Kanem's trans-Saharan trade is a factor, something similar was also an inhibiting factor at Gao.

The Sokoto Caliphate

Murray Last's The Sokoto Caliphate is perhaps outdated, but still highly useful for an overview on the history of Sokoto. Beginning with the regional background and the origins of Uthman Dan Fodio early Community of followers, Last covers the jihad, the early expansion and consolidation of the Caliphate, its administration, and the vizierate. Basing his work mainly on local Arabic sources penned in the 19th and 20th centuries, Last's work is supplemented by the journals, letters, and colonial-era documentation when available. Thus, the portrait of the Caliphate is undoubtedly one of its elite. Those eager to find a deeper social history or economic history of the Sokoto Caliphate will be disappointed. Indeed, the study itself is mainly focused on Sokoto and its hinterland, meaning those eager for a complete history of Sokoto that includes the developments in all its emirates during the period from, say, 1804-1903, will not find it here. Nonetheless, Last's history is still significant in its rich use of the aforementioned sources to demonstrate how Uthman Dan Fodio's successors created an Islamic state which managed to survive for a century, transforming the larger Central Sudanic region in the process. 

In fact, through its early days battling with Gobir and establishing a new state after their hijra, to the establishment of a more established administrative structure during the reign of Muhammad Bello as caliph, one must note the accomplishments of the jihad. First, the Hausa kingdoms were transformed in a process that drew from Fulani, Hausa, Tuareg and other ethnic groups supporting it (or, indifferently allowing it). Second, the Shaikh and his successors were able to transcend a strictly Fulani base for power by moving beyond a solely Fulani/Fulani clan alliances and marriages. Third, Bello was able to promote the settlement of "cattle Fulani" in the sparsely settled area of Sokoto's hinterland, thereby encouraging them to become sedentary, more productive and more amenable to thorough Islamization. Fourth, the jihad established a state system in which the moral authority of the caliph was strong enough to never be successfully rebelled against by the major emirates. Fifth, the Sokoto rulers cultivated a unity through their adherence to Islam and the guidance of Islamic Law and religion as recommended in the writings of Uthman dan Fodio and his brother and son. Unlike their "pagan" and other enemies, the forces of the Sokoto caliphate were usually more unified, even when the major emirates to the east only sent "presents" as tribute or did not fully participate in the annual campaigns.

Of course, Sokoto's growth and economic importance also transformed the Central Sudan. Borno, which lost some of its territory to the forces of the jihad, mainly coexisted peacefully with Sokoto after al-Kanemi's heroic saving of the kingdom. Relations with Baghirmi were to be peaceful in order to secure an eastern route to the Nile, when the Mahdi was supposedly to appear (Islamic millennialism in the Sokoto Caliphate is a topic worthy of additional study). The Tuareg and Agades were of course already linked to Hausaland via the salt trade and other forms of commerce, but the Sokoto Caliphate's expansion likely helped to secure it as the economic center of the vast region. Studying its economic history and the role of slavery, textile production, the salt and kola nut trades, and trans-Saharan commerce will be our next areas of research. 

The Tabaqat and Sudanic Africa

MacMichael's abridged translation of the Tabaqat in A History of the Arabs in the Sudan and Some Account of the People who Preceded Them and of the Tribes Inhabiting Dárfūr, Volume 2 is outdated and probably riddled with errors. That said, it is, to our knowledge, the most complete English translation of a major source on the history of the Islamic holymen of the Funj Sultanate. Written in the early 1800s by Muhammad wad Dayf Allah, it contains rich biographies loaded with anecdotes, stories, miracles, and portraits of the lives of major figures in Sudanese Islam since the 16th century. Moreover, some of the biographies illustrate the Islamic ties to Kordofan, Darfur, Borno, Wadai, Hausaland, the Maghreb, Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula, and more. Let us take a closer look at some of these ties to Sudanic Africa

First of all, it is interesting to note that one of the major founding figures associated with Sufism in Sudan was Tag El Din Bahari, a native of Baghdad (in the translation of MacMichael, his full name is given as Muhammad El Bahari Tag El Din El Baghdadi). He arrived in the Sudan after completing the pilgrimage and is frequently mentioned in the text for his students and acolytes. There is no evidence of contacts for this Sufi teacher and al-Baghdadi of Air, yet one cannot help but notice the presence of two Iraqi Sufis of major import in both the Air region and in the Funj Sultanate in the 16th century. Given the evidence of later contacts by the 1600s between the Eastern Sudan and Central Sudan, one should delve deeper into the history of Sufism and Eastern influences on its practices in Air, Hausaland, and Borno, possibly tracing signs of influence or exchange with the domain of the Funj rulers. 

Additional signs of contact with the Central Sudan can be seen in the case of Muhammad ibn Adlan el Shaf'ai El Hoshabi, said to have done missionary work in Borno and Hausaland (256). Alas, there is no precise date given to make sense of the chronology of his time in the Central Sudan. Yet we know from Krump's account of his travels in the Sudan, that caravans including Borno and Fezzan Sufis and travelers were going to the Funj Sultanate. Thus, by the early 18th century, it was at least not unheard of for Sufis to travel between the Fezzan and Borno and the Sinnar Sultanate in caravans. Indeed, one of the holymen included in the Tabaqat was allegedly from the Fezzan, Abdulla el Sherif (227). In fact, some of the holymen of Funj kingdom even studied under West Africans in eastern lands. For instance, Khogali ibn Abd el Rahman ibn Ibrahim studied in Medina under Sheikh Ahmad el Tabankatawi el Fellati (250). The latter, whose precise origins are unclear in MacMichael's translation, was probably from the Western or Central Sudan but established in Medina, where he was an influential scholar of Islamic studies. Amusingly, MacMichael translates the anecdote of Khogali ibn Abd el Rahman ibn Ibrahim stopping Bukr of Darfur from attacking Sennar by striking him with his rod (251).

Additional holymen from the Funj sultanate who traveled to western lands included Abu Surur El Fadli, who taught in Darfur and was murdered in Wadai by his concubines (229). Likewise, Abu Zayd ibn el Sheikh Abd el Kadir traveled to Darfur and Borku during the reign of Sultan Ya'akub, said to have ruled in Wadai from 1681-1701 and to have lost a war with Ahmad Bukr of Darfur (281). Last, but certainly not least, Hasan ibn Hasuna ibn El Haj Musa, who died in 1664, was a wealthy holyman who owned many slaves and livestock. He was said to have traded many horses to Tekali, Borku and Darfur (244). This last individual's trading ventures establishes the tie between commerce and religion as well as the significance of the horse trade with areas far to the west of the Nile. Undoubtedly, the expansion of Muslim-ruled states in Darfur and Wadai favored this economic, cultural, and religious exchange with both the Funj Sultanate and Borno. Alas, the absence of a Tabaqat for Borno, Kanem, Wadai and Darfur makes it harder to explore these connections and movements that entailed commerce, Sufism, and Islamic scholarship.