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THE FACT OF AFRICAN HISTORY (II)

ISLAM IN WEST AFRICA


THOMAS HODGKIN
lecturer and Writer

IN the present phase of African history, when the colonial e p o c h ,


this relatively brief period of European ascendancy, is drawing
to a close, it is natural to speculate about the future. What
types of political system are likely to replace colonial bureau-
cracy in its various forms—British, French, Belgian, Portuguese,
Spanish? W h a t dominant ideologies will fill the void left by
the ideology of W h i t e supremacy? O n e way of trying to handle
such speculative questions about the future is to consider what
forces have been important in the pre-colonial African past.
N o t that it is in any way inevitable that such forces will plav
a decisive part in the post-colonial future. But at least it is
w o r t h looking back into African history, to try to assess the
influence which particular systems ol ideas and institutions have
exercised. In the case of the W e s t African region—from
Senegal to Chad, and from the southern limits of the Sahara
to the Congo—Islam is clearly a system which can be looked
at in this way: both because of the sheer numerical strength
of the Moslem population of the region, amounting to some
2^- million; and because Islam (like C o m m u n i s m or Catholicism)
is frontierless, presenting a world-view and attempting to appeal
to man universally. W h a t contribution then has Islam made
to the development of African civilizations?
The process of Islamization appears to have begun in earnest
in the savannah belt of W e s t Africa, traditionally known as
' t h e Sudan', in the latter part of the i i t h Century. As in
Anglo-Saxon England, the new faith was first adopted bv the
Princes, and only gradually seeped through to the people.
At about the time when William of Normandy was engaged in
the conquest of England, nomadic Lemtuna Berbers, living in
what is now southern Mauretania, w e r e militantly propagating
their own reforming, puritanical interpretation of Islam by the
method of holy war. While the n o r t h e r n wing of these
Almoravids, under Yusuf al-Tashfin, after founding the city of
Marrakesh in 1062, succeeded in establishing their authority
over Morocco and southern Spain, the southern win^, under
Yusuf's cousin, Abu-Bakr ibn-Omar, was attacking the Empire
90 AFRICA SOUTH

*m&mm

The minaret of the Koutoubia mosque in Marrakesh, 2 2Q ft. high with


mosaic of turquoise blue covering the sides.
IS LA M IN Wi ST A IRICA 91
of Ghana, capturing the capital in 1076 and forcing the ruling
pagan Soninke dynasty to become tributary and accept Islam.
And in the course of the 1 ith century the royal houses of o t h e r
N e g r o African States in the western and central Sudan, of Gao,
for example, and Kanem-Bornu in the region of Lake Chad,
w e r e also converted to Islam, though without, apparently, the
military struggle which occurred in the case of the Ghana
dynasty. (This process of peaceful conversion is perfectly
intelligible w h e n one remembers that, \n all the West African
cities involved in the trans-Saharan trade, there were already
Moslem merchants and wandering scholars from North Africa
installed.)
The spread of Islam in West Africa from the 1 ith century on
took the form of a series of shocks, followed by periods oi
recession, m o r e or less correlated with the rise and decline
of successive powerful, proselytizing dynasties. One such shock
occurred during the 14th century, when the (still surviving)
Keita family ruled the Empire of Mali, extending from Senegal
in the W e s t to the Hausa States (in what is now northern
Nigeria) in the East, with its capital near modern Bamako.
This was the dynasty to which Mansa Musa belonged, the
E m p e r o r w h o became a heroic figure in Europe and appears
in 14th and early 1 cth century European maps as 'Rex M e l l v \
w h o , in 1324-6, paid his famous State visit to Cairo (where he
is said to have inflated the currency by his lavish gifts of gold)
on his way to M e c c a — r e t u r n i n g from the pilgrimage with
the Grenada poet and architect, Es-Saheli, who designed the
ne/w mosques at Gao and T i m b u k t u . It was during this period,
too, that scholars and preachers from Mali introduced Islam
into Hausaland. Another comparable Islamizing wave flowed
through the western Sudan in the 16th century, the period of
the ascendancy of the Empire of Gao under the Askia dynasty,
whose founder, Askia the Great, combined a policy of religious
orthodoxy and a close alliance with the Moslem intelligentsia
(the 'IJlema) w i t h the organization of an efficient system of
imperial administration. It was under the Askias that Timbuktu
enjoyed its greatest influence as an international commercial
and intellectual c e n t r e ; and, among the Hausa States, Katsina
m particular developed as a centre of Moslem learning, fertilized
from T i m b u k t u — a tradition renewed in modern times, since
!t was at Katsina Middle School that many of the present genera-
tion of N o r t h e r n Nigerian political leaders were educated.
92 AFRICA SO U T H

The last great theocratic dynasties belong to the 19th century,


on the eve of European penetration into the western Sudan,
Othman dan Fodio, who inspired, organized, and led the holy
war that brought the Hausa States and some of their neighbours
(e.g., Ilorin, Adamawa) into the framework of a new Fulani
Empire, was himself a puritan revolutionary, in the tradition of
the Almoravids, and, in its initial phases at least, the dominant
impulse behind the Fulani revolt seems to have been religious
revivalism rather than a sheer drive for territorial power.
A generation later a somewhat similar eruption occurred in the
region of the Upper Niger (in what is now the French Sudan).
Here Hajj Omar at-Tall, a Toucouleur who had studied at
Al-Azhar University in Cairo and was linked by ties of friend-
ship, marriage, and political-religious outlook with Sultan
Mohammed Bello of Sokoto, organized an extensive though
short-lived Moslem Empire, whose power was eventually broken
by the French, moving in from Senegal.
In addition to the proselytizing dynasties, the Sufi Orders
have taken an increasing part in the process of Islamization.
These Orders, which combine an esoteric ritual and discipline
with a strong sense of brotherhood within the community, a
hierarchical organization, and an emphasis upon allegiance to a
particular religious leader, or 'Holy Man', operate almost
throughout the Moslem world. In West Africa two Orders have
played a dominant part: the older (12th century), more loosely
organized, more conservative, Qadhiyya, which originated in
Bagdad; and the more recent (late 18thcentury), more tightly
knit, more dynamic, Tijaniyja, with its spiritual centre in Fez,
which is still a growing force, especially in Northern Nigeria.
Naturally the culture of the western Sudan has been pro-
foundly influenced by these nine centuries of Moslem impact.
This is evident in the externals of life—names, dress, household
equipment, architectural styles, festivals, ceremonial, and the
like. But what is more important—and difficult—is to try
to assess the more fundamental difference which Islam has made
to West African civilizations. It is common to talk of Islam
in contemporary West Africa as a 'conservative force\ Yet
historically it is clear that the general effect of Islam, in those
areas of West Africa in which it has become dominant, has
been to stimulate far-reaching changes in ideas and institutions,
not to conserve them.
Probably the most important single development, which
ISLAM IN WEST AFRICA 93
underlies all the o t h e r s , was the opening up of communications
b e t w e e n the western Sudan and o t h e r regions of the Moslem
w o r l d , especially N o r t h Africa and the Middle East. Of course
t h e r e was contact b e t w e e n the peoples of W e s t Africa and the
Mediterranean peoples in Roman and pre-Roman times, and the
introduction of the camel, in about the 3rd century A . D . ,
was a technical advance which led to a great i m p r o v e m e n t in
trans-Sabaran communications. But the spread of Islam trans-
formed the western Sudan into a peripheral area of the Moslem
world, within which an enterprising traveller could (like Ibn
Battuta in the 14th century) move relatively freely, from Mali
to China, without passports, and without ever losing touch
with people w h o shared his metaphvsical assumptions. (Even
w h e n Ibn Battuta found himself shocked by certain aspects of
the behaviour of West African Moslems—their m o r e tolerant
attitude to relations between the sexes, for example—Islam
still provided a c o m m o n standard of criticism.)
From the early 12th century on, West African rulers began
to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, usually by the Egyptian route.
A 13th century Sultan, Kashim-Biri, built a medersa in Cairo
for visiting pilgrims and scholars from Kanem-Bornu. And as
the friendship between King Mansa Musa and Es-Saheli, the
Grenada architect and poet, makes clear, the hajj served (as
in part it serves to-day) as a ^reat international reunion, where
W e s t African Moslems and their rulers could establish new
relationships and a c q u i r e new ideas. These channels of com-
munication helped to stimulate technical progress. It is re-
corded of Mai Idris Alooma of Bornu, roughly a c o n t e m p o r a r y
of Q u e e n Elizabeth of England, t h a t —

"Among the benefits which God (Most High) of his bounty and beneficence,
generosity, and constancy conferred upon the Sultan was the acquisition of Turkish
musketeers and numerous household slaves who became skilled in firing muskets."

At least the governing classes of Moslem W e s t Africa—Princes,


merchants, and intellectuals—came to be aware of the w i d e r
world to which they belonged, even if they interpreted it
(as w e all do) from their own particular standpoint. For
example, Mahmud al-Kati, the 16th century T i m b u k t u historian
°r the western Sudan, explains that " t h e mass ot our con-
temporaries hold that there are four Sultans, not counting the
supreme Sultan (the Sultan of Constantinople), to wit, the Sultan
°* Bagdad, the Sultan of Cairo, the Sultan of Bornu, and the
Sultan of M a l i . " . W h e n in 1 8 2 ] , Sheikh Mohammed
94 AFRICA SOUTH

al-Kanemi, the e l e c t i v e ruler of Bornu, had to w r i t e a letter of


introduction to the governor of Kano, c o m m e n d i n g to him the
British explorers, Denham, Clapperton, and O u d n e y (the first
Europeans in m o d e r n times to visit his c o u n t r y ) , he stressed
the long-standing friendship b e t w e e n the British and the
Moslems and w r o t e of " t h e great assistance they gave to o u r
nation w h e n they delivered Egypt from the hands of the F r e n c h 1 '
(a reference to the Battle of the N i l e ) . The t e r m ' o u r nation'
means, of course, the Moslem c o m m u n i t y throughout the w o r l d ,
and expresses the sense of a certain underlying solidarity within
Islam, in spite of conHicts and divisions—an attitude which
remains valid to-day.
The effects of this opening-up of communications b e t w e e n
West Africa and the Moslem world can be considered from
various points of v i e w — c o m m e r c i a l , cultural, political, among
o t h e r s . W i t h the development, from the n t h century on-
wards, of the trans-Saharan trade was associated the g r o w t h
of the caravan cities of the western Sudan—Walata, Jenne,
T i m b u k t u , Gao, Kano—whose wealth was derived from the
trade, and whose merchants had their trading connections with
the great commercial cities at the N o r t h African end of the
route—Marrakesh, Fez, Tunis, Sfax, Tripoli. There was
also a regular trade b e t w e e n West Africa and Egypt, via Agades
and the Fezzan: Ibn Battuta describes the inhabitants of Walata
(in what is n o w southern Mauretania) as dressed in Egyptian
fabrics. Leo Africanus's account of [6th century T i m b u k t u
and Gao is familiar: k t The inhabitants (of T i m b u k t u ) are very
rich, especially the foreigners who have settled t h e r e — s o much
so that the king gave t w o of his daughters in marriage to two
merchants who were brothers, on account of their great w e a l t h . '
o
" T h e inhabitants (of Gao) are rich merchants, w h o reside on
their farms, selling their merchandise and trading at large.
A vast n u m b e r of Negroes frequents this city, bringing gold in
large quantities, to buy and take h o m e w i t h t h e m goods imported
from Barbary and E u r o p e ; but often they cannot find enough
goods to buy w i t h the large sums of m o n e y they have gained,
so that they are obliged to go back to their o w n country, taking
half or a third of their money with t h e m . " Among the
imports from Barbary and Europe in c o m m o n demand (at what
he regards as inflated prices), Leo Africanus mentions cloth
(including the best Venetian scarlet), horses, swords, spurs,
bridles, fancy goods, and groceries.
IS I A M I N W 1 S I \ I R 1 C A 95

As in the cities of mediaeval Europe, the growth of these


merchant classes tended to make for urban self-government.
Hven when they were formally embodied in one or o t h e r oj the
areat Empires (Mali in the 14th century, Gao in the 16th),
and subject to a governor—a Timbuktu-koi or a Jenne-koi
appointed by the imperial government, local authority seems
in practice to have been largely in the hands of the 'merchants
and scholars', the bourgeois. In 16th century Jenne, for
example, there was a city council, including certain lineage
heads, leaders of the Moslem community (in particular the
Q a d i ) , and merchants. The periodic conflict b e t w e e n city and
E m p e r o r (e.g., under Sonni 'Ali, the late 1 cth century ruler
of Gao) is one indication of the way in which cities succeeded
in establishing themselves as independent centres of p o w e r .
The spread of Islam and the growth of cities helped to stimulate
the intellectual life of the western Sudan. Moslems, like1
Christians and Jews, are 'People of the Book 1 ; and the value
attached within Islam to the ability to read, recite, and (in
principle) understand the Koran, implied, in W e s t Africa as
elsewhere, the spread of literacy through Koranic schools.
But the Koranic schools, in the form in which they still exist
throughout Moslem Africa, w e r e only basic units of the educa-
tional system. Above that there w e r e opportunities for m o r e
advanced forms ot study—in Theology, Moslem Law, G r a m m a r ,
Philosophy, History, Poetry, and the like. Sometimes these
w e r e provided in a relatively unorganized way, through the
system w h e r e b y students would travel from place to place,
settling down tor a p e r i o d — i t might be several years—with a
particular master w h o could instruct them in the held of study,
or in the works of the author, in which they w e r e especially
interested. At the same time, as in early mediaeval Europe,
certain m o r e or less permanent centres came to be established
in connection with particular mosques, where masters and
students gathered together for continuing instruction, study,
and research—taking on the character of embryonic universities.
o ^ J
In W e s t Africa the best known of these centres of higher educa-
tion was the University of Sankore at T i m b u k t u , which seems
to have existed in some form from the 14th century, but enjoyed
its greatest influence and reputation in the 16th.
Scholars from T i m b u k t u enjoyed the kind of mobility that is
characteristic of m o d e r n university life in the West. They
Were in the habit of visiting, and lecturing at, the universities
96 AFRICA SOUTH

of Fez, Tunis, and Cairo (on which Timbuktu was clearly


modelled). And there was a reciprocal movement of scholars
from North Africa and the Arab world. (This circulation of
scholars still, of course, occurs within the Moslem world:
Abdur-rahman al-Ifriqi, whose home is in Gao, holds, or recently
held, a lectureship at Medina.)
Leo Africanus makes clear how much the flourishing state of
Timbuktu university in his day was due to the practical support
which it received from the Askia dynasty:
' 'The king holds men of learning in great regard. That is why books in manuscript
are imported from Barbary, which fetch high prices—so much so that larger profits
are made from the book trade than from any other line of business. There are
(in Timbuktu) many clerics and doctors, all of whom are paid very reasonable
salaries by the king. . . . "

Thus one consequence of the interaction between West Africa


and the Moslem world was the spread of respect—veneration
even—for learning, and for learned men. No doubt 'learning'
as understood in Moslem West Africa was—and still in part
is—scholastic, pre-scientific, having certain obvious analogies
with the learning of mediaeval Europe (another offshoot from
the same classical stem). But how far, one sometimes wonders,
does this kind of scholasticism differ from the modern scholastic-
ism of the linguistic philosophers or the methodologists ? In
any case, there was clearly a continuing tradition of intellectual
standards and disciplines (even at times when political insecurity
was at its worst), to which successive generations of African
students could refer. The representatives of this tradition
produced their historical works, their biographical and auto-
biographical writings, their legal treatises, their theological
commentaries, their poetry. While much of the earlier material
has perished, as a result of attacks from without and revolutions
within, a good deal of 19th century material still exists, and
more is gradually coming to light. One illustration of the
continuing force of the tradition is the fact that so many out-
standing figures in the 19th century history of the western
Sudan—Othman dan Fodio, Mohammed Bello, Mohammed
al-Kanemi, Hajj Omar at-Tall—-were scholars before they became
political leaders.
It is difficult to distinguish what was pre-Islamic from what
was derived from contact with other Moslem States in the
political systems of the western Sudan. The pre-Islamic Empire
of Ghana clearly had characteristics in common with the later
Moslem Empires of Mali, Gao, and Kanem-Bornu: the idea o\
ISLAM IN WEST AFRICA 97
the sanctity of kingship; the magnificence of the c o u r t and the
complication of its rituals; the hierarchy of palace officials;
the imperial guard; an administrative system through which
taxes w e r e collected and public o r d e r maintained. But the
fact that these Moslem W e s t African governments w e r e in
diplomatic relationship w i t h the governments of M o r o c c o ,
Tunisia, and Egypt (the Manual of the Mamluk Chancellery
explained the c o r r e c t style and title to be used in communica-
tions to the E m p e r o r of Mali), as well as personal contacts
b e t w e e n intellectuals on b o t h sides of the Sahara, undoubtedly
m e a n t some cross-fertilization in the field of political ideas.
( O n the strictly legal side Islamization meant, of course, the
partial substitution of the Maliki form of Shari'a Law, adminis-
t e r e d by Qadis, for pre-Islamic customary law.) But h o w far
particular W e s t African States w e r e influenced by particular
schools of political thought within Islam is so far obscure.
In a m o r e general way, Moslem influence seems to have con-
tributed to the strengthening of centralized dynastic p o w e r .
Certainly some of the m o r e successful W e s t African dynasties
(judged from the standpoint of the scale of the Empires which
they controlled, and the effectiveness of the central g o v e r n m e n t )
— t h e Askias in Gao, the Majumi in Kanem-Bornu (who lasted
for approximately a thousand years), and the descendants of
O t h m a n dan Fodio in S o k o t o — w e r e also the most thoroughly
Islamized. The following quotation from The Obligations of
Princes, composed at the end of the i £th century by that some-
what Machiavellian character, Sheikh M o h a m m e d al-Maghili
of Tlemcen (in Algeria), and addressed to M o h a m m e d Rimfa,
Amir of Kano, is one illustration of the kind of political advice
which Moslem clerics offered to African P r i n c e s :
" T h e sojourn of a prince in the city breeds all manner of trouble and harm. . . .
Kingdoms are held by the sword, not by delays. Can fear be thrust back except
by causing fear? Allow only the nearest of your friends to bring you food and
drink and bed and clothes. Do not part with your coat of mail and weapons
and let no one approach you save men of trust and virtue. Never sleep in a place
of peril. Have near to guard you at all times a band of faithful and gallant men,
sentries, bowmen, horse and foot. Times of alarm are not like times of safety.
Conceal your secrets from other people until you are master of your undertaking."

Al-Maghili admittedly represented a particularly rigid, in-


tolerant school of thought within N o r t h African Islam. Before
settling in the w e s t e r n Sudan he had been obliged to leave Tuat
on account of his responsibility for a massacre of the Jews
there, which he a t t e m p t e d to justify on theological grounds.
But for all that, the seven questions about which Askia, as a

4
98 AF R I C A SOUTH

devout ruler, sought his professional advice, give an indication


of the kind of administrative problems with which the new
dynasty was preoccupied: " t h e regulation of commercial trans-
actions ; the suppression of fraud; the establishment of the tax
on land; the tithe upon newly conquered countries; the question
of inheritance; and the measures to be taken to ensure morality
and good manners among the Sudanese."
No doubt—like Christianity in some of its phases—mediaeval
Islam provided an ideological framework within which intoler-
ance, brutal forms of punishment, holy wars, and the enslavement
of unbelievers, could be justified. At the same time the
influence of Islam, and especially of the 'Ulema, on the States
of the western Sudan contributed to the development of the
system of internal security ('so that even the unaccompanied
traveller has nothing to fear from brigands or thieves'), and
respect for justice beyond the limits of the local or ethnic
group, which Ibn Battuta lists among the more admirable
characteristics of the mid-14th century Empire of Mali.
The spread of Islam in West Africa and the opening up of
communications with the Moslem world helped to transform
the social life of the region in at least three ways: through the
growth of commercial cities, linked with the trans-Saharan
trade; through the diffusion of learning; and through the
stimulus given to the development of centralized States. But
why—it is natural to ask—did the flourishing civilizations asso-
ciated with these mediaeval empires of the western Sudan
apparently decline during the period between 1600 and the
beginning of the 19th century, when direct contact with
Europe was established through the journeys of Laing, Caillie,
Hornemann, Denham and Clapperton, and others ? Why, during
a period when, from a scientific, technological, and economic
point of view, there was remarkable and rapid 'progress' (using
the word without any ethical implications) in Western Europe,
was there not merely no advance, but even 'regress' (in certain
respects) in the western Sudan? Allowing for the difference
between the Moslem and the Christian intellectual climates, a
citizen of 14th century Timbuktu would have found himseli
reasonably at home in 14th century Oxford. In the 16th century
he would still have found many points in common between
the two university cities. By the 19th century the gulf had
grown very deep.
This is the kind of large historical question which can onl\
IS LAM IN W KS I AI R IC A 99

be answered here by mentioning certain factors in the situation,


w i t h o u t trying to assess their relative importance. O n e major
event was the invasion which the Moroccan Sultan, Abu'1-Abbas
Ahmad al-Mansur, launched against the Empire ot Gao in i C90,
with the object ot securing control of the gold supplies of
the western Sudan. The disastrous effects and after-effects
of this act of aggression for the civilization based upon Gao
are vividly described in Thucydidean language by Es-Sadi, the
W e s t African a u t h o r of the Tarikh es-Sudan, who himself lived
through the 17th century time of t r o u b l e s :
"From that moment everything changed. Danger took the f3lace of security;
poverty of wealth. Peace gave way to distress, disasters, and violence. Every-
where man preyed upon man. Robbery in all its Forms was universal. War
spared neither life, property, nor rank. Disorder was general, penetrating every-
where, reaching the extreme pitch of intensity."

But, apart from the immediate consequences of the o v e r t h r o w


of the Empire of Gao and the Askia dynasty, how far w e r e t h e r e
also o t h e r longer-term causes at work? To what e x t e n t was the
civilization of the mediaeval western Sudan based upon what is
nowadays called a 'fragile e c o n o m y ' , excessively d e p e n d e n t
upon the export of gold and slaves ? How far did the deep division
b e t w e e n king, c o u r t , ruling oligarchy, and the mass of p r o -
d u c e r s — t o which Leo Africanus refers—contribute to political
disruption? ( 4 t T h e king treats the people in such a way as
their stupidity and gross ignorance deserves, leaving them so
little that they have great difficulty in gaining a livelihood,
on account of the heavy taxes which he imposes on t h e m . " )
H o w m u c h importance is to be attached to geographical factors—
the difficulty of maintaining large centralized multi-national
States dependent upon an inadequate system of communica-
tions, in this open savannah region, exposed to attacks from
both sides—from the n o r t h e r n desert, and from the southern
forest? Above all, how far should the disintegration of the State
system of the Moslem western Sudan after 1600 be regarded as
simply an episode in the general history of western Islam, w h i c h
—after the brief renaissance of the early O t t o m a n period-—
ceased to provide the stimulus which West Africa had enjoyed
during the preceding five centuries, and where a period of
degeneration' coincided with a period of ' e x u b e r a n c e ' in W e s t e r n
Europe. These are questions which are particularly w o r t h
considering at a time when it seems possible that a period of
degeneration in W e s t e r n Europe may coincide with a period of
e
x u b e r a n c e in Moslem Africa.

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