Download #18 Africa—Sudanic empires (Mali, Ghana, Songhay), and the

#18 Africa—Sudanic empires (Mali, Ghana, Songhay), and the Swahili Coast
I. Sudanic Empires
A. The Sudanic empires of Western Africa were a group of powerful states that developed south of
the Sahara Desert between the A.D. 700s and 1500s. The most prominent of these states were
Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. The Sudanic empires developed vast commercial networks, trading
grains and gold from the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa for salt from the Sahara.
B. Larger states were ruled by a dominant group. Islam provided a universal faith and a fixed law
that served common interests. Indigenous political and social patterns persisted in the unified
states.
C. Rulers reinforced authority through Muslim officials and ideology, but existing traditions
continued to be vital, since many of their subjects were not Muslims. The fusion of traditions
shows in the status of women.
D. Many Sudanic societies were matrilineal and did not seclude women. Slavery and a slave trade to
the Islamic world lasting more than 700 years had a major effect on women and children.
1. Ghana (700-1100)
a. Ghana, the first great Sudanic trading empire, was founded by Soninke peoples. By about
800 Ghana was a wealthy kingdom, and it reached its peak in the mid-1000s.
b. After the empire began to decline as the Almoravids, a Muslim group from North Africa,
gained control of the Saharan trade routes and parts of the Sudan. Although Ghana
survived until the 1200s, it never regained its former power.It was controlled by Sundiata
in 1240 AD, and absorbed into the larger Mali Empire.
c. Fueled by its economic vitality, the kingdom of Ghana rapidly expanded into an empire.
This trade primarily involved gold, salt, copper, and even human beings.
Both gold and salt seemed to be the dominant sources of revenue, exchanged for products
such as textiles, ornaments and cloth, among other materials. Many of the hand-crafted
leather goods found in old Morocco also had their origins in the empire.
2. Mali (800-1550)
a. Mali, along the Senegal and Niger Rivers, was formed among the Malinke peoples, who
broke away from Ghana in the thirteenth century.
b. Ruler authority was strengthened by Islam. Agriculture, combined with the gold trade,
was the economic base of the state. The ruler (Mansa) Sundiata (d. 1260) receives credit
for Malinke expansion and for a governing system based on clan structure. Sundiata's
successors in this wealthy state extended Mali's control through most of the Niger valley
to near the Atlantic coast.
c. Mansa Kankan Musa’s (1324) pilgrimage to Mecca during the fourteenth century became
legendary because of the wealth distributed along the way. He returned with an architect,
Ishak al-Sahili, who created a distinctive Sudanic architecture using beaten clay.
d. Mali's population lived in agriculturists villages. Despite poor soils, primitive technology,
droughts, insect pests, and storage problems, the farmers, working small family holdings,
supported themselves and their imperial states.
e. At its peak (1200-1300), the Mali Empire covered an area that encompasses significant
portions of the present-day country of Mali, southern and western Mauritania and
Senegal.
3. Songhay (Songhai) (1300-1600)
a. The Songhay people dominated the middle reaches of the Niger valley.
Songhay
became an independent state in the seventh century.
b. 1010, the rulers were Muslims and had a capital at Gao. Songhay won
freedom from
Mali by the 1370s and prospered as a trading state.
c. The empire was formed under Sunni Ali (1464-1492), a great military
leader, who
extended rule over the entire middle Niger valley.
d. Daily life followed patterns common in savanna states; Islamic and
indigenous
traditions combined. Men and women mixed freely; women
went unveiled and young
girls at Jenne were naked.
e. Songhay remained dominant until defeated by Moroccans in 1591. Other states that
combined Muslim and pagan ways rose among the Hausa of northern Nigeria.
f. In the fourteenth century, the first Muslim ruler of Kano made the Hausa city a center of
Muslim learning. Along with other Hausa cities, Kano followed the Islamic-indigenous
amalgam present in the earlier grasslands empires.
g. Traders and other Muslims widely spread influences, even in regions
without
Islamic states.
II. Swahili Coast
A. The expansion of Islamic influence in the Indian Ocean facilitated commerce. It built a
common bond between rulers and trading families and allowed them to
operate under the
cover of a common culture. Apart from rulers and merchants, most of the population, even in the
towns, retained African beliefs. A dynamic
culture developed, using Swahili as its language,
and incorporating African
and Islamic practices. Lineage passed through both maternal and
paternal lines.
There was not a significant penetration of Islam into the interior.
B. A series of trading ports, part of the Indian Ocean network, developed along the coast and
islands between the Horn of Africa and Mozambique. Town residents were influenced by Islam, but
most of the general population remained tied to traditional ways.
C. Swahili is primarily a Bantu language with some Arabic elements; it is written in the Arabic
alphabet. Like the language, the Swahili culture was a mixture of
the two cultures, Bantu and
Arabic, and we call the civilizations of the
African east coast "Swahili" to reflect the hybrid
nature of those civilizations.
D. Later, Swahili civilization carved out a small territory even further south around Sofala in
Zimbabwe. While the northern cities remained localized and had
little
influence on
African culture inland from the coast, the Sofalans actively went
inland and spread Islam and
Islamic culture deep in African territory.
1.
The major Swahili city-states were Mogadishu, Barawa, Mombasa
(Kenya), Gedi, Pate, Malindi, Zanzibar, Kilwa, and Sofala in the far south.
These
city-states were Muslim and cosmopolitan and they were all
politically
independent of one another; nothing like a Swahili empire or
hegemony was
formed around any of these city-states.
a.
These cities were also culturally cosmopolitan: they were formed
from a cultural mix of Bantu, Islamic, and Indian influences, but
commerce brought Chinese artifacts and culture as well as Indian
culture.
b.
These city-states began to decline in the sixteenth century; the
advent of Portuguese trade disrupted the old trade routes and made
the
Swahili commercial centers obsolete.