Trans-Saharan Trade
Senior 1 · History and Citizenship
Trans-Saharan Trade
Lesson 4 of 5
25 min
In about 1510 a young diplomat from Fez, al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan, visited Timbuktu, then part of the Songhai Empire. Europeans later knew him as Leo Africanus. His description of Africa was printed in Italian in 1550 and in English in 1600. Read part of what he wrote about the city.
"The inhabitants, and especially strangers there residing, are exceeding rich … Here are great store of doctors, judges, priests, and other learned men, that are bountifully maintained at the king's cost and charges. And hither are brought divers manuscripts or written books out of Barbary, which are sold for more money than any other merchandise."
Leo Africanus, The History and Description of Africa, translated by John Pory (London, 1600); Hakluyt Society edition (1896), vol. 3, pp. 824–825. Spelling modernised. Public domain.
Reading notes: "strangers" means foreigners; "doctors" here means learned teachers of religion and law; "priests" means Muslim prayer leaders (imams); "Barbary" is the old European name for North Africa; "the king" is Askia Muhammad of Songhai.
Definition
Manuscript: a book or document written by hand, not printed. Timbuktu's manuscripts were copied in ink on paper, often in Arabic script. Example: a handwritten book on astronomy kept in a Timbuktu family library.
Definition
Literacy: the ability to read and write. Example: students in Timbuktu learning to read and write Arabic in Qur'anic schools.
Definition
Scholar: a person who studies a subject deeply and teaches or writes about it. In Timbuktu, scholars taught Islamic law, theology, Arabic grammar, history, astronomy and medicine. Example: Ahmad Baba (1556–1627), who wrote more than 40 books.
Definition
Ajami: the writing of African languages, such as Fula, Songhai, Tamasheq, Bambara or Hausa, in Arabic script. Example: Songhai poems written in Arabic letters, found among the Timbuktu manuscripts.
Worked example: can we trust Leo Africanus on Timbuktu?
Use the six questions you learned in Unit 1.
Verdict: the details of wealth may be exaggerated, but his central claim, that Timbuktu was a city of scholars where books were highly valued, is strongly corroborated.
Islam came to West Africa mainly through trade, not conquest. It travelled along the trade routes, step by step:
This is why a city on the edge of the desert became one of the great centres of learning in the Muslim world. Timbuktu had no single university building: students gathered around individual scholars who taught in mosques such as Djinguereber and Sankore and in their own homes.
Historians sum up the results of the trade under several headings. Some were positive, some were harmful, and many were both.
| Area | Positive effects | Negative effects |
|---|---|---|
| Economic | West Africa gained salt, horses, cloth and metal; kings and merchants grew rich; jobs for guides, camel drivers, porters and craftsmen | wealth stayed mostly with rulers and big merchants; West Africa's gold and ivory were exported, not used at home |
| Political | the rise of large, well-organised states: Ghana, Mali and Songhai | wars to control gold fields and trade towns; raids to capture people for sale |
| Religious and educational | the spread of Islam, Arabic literacy and schools; centres of learning at Timbuktu and Djenné; books and manuscripts | older local religions were weakened in the towns and at court |
| Towns | growth of trading cities such as Timbuktu, Gao, Djenné, Walata and Agadez | towns depended on the trade and declined when it moved away |
| Social | contact and marriage between North and West Africans; new ideas, clothing and foods | enslavement of millions of people taken north; divisions between rich and poor |
| Culture | a new style of earth-built mosques; Arabic words entered West African languages | some local traditions were looked down upon as "pagan" |
Important
For centuries Timbuktu's families kept manuscripts in wooden chests at home. Many are histories, legal opinions, letters, poems, and works on astronomy and medicine, some in Arabic and some in African languages written in Ajami. Most have still never been studied.
In April 2012, armed groups seized northern Mali and occupied Timbuktu. They destroyed some of the city's shrines, and the librarians feared the books would be next. Over the following months, librarians and families, led by the archivist Abdel Kader Haidara and his association SAVAMA-DCI, secretly packed the manuscripts into chests and moved them south to Bamako, the capital, by road and by river. About 350,000 manuscripts were carried to safety. By the time the occupiers were driven out in January 2013, 4,203 manuscripts had been burned or stolen, but the great majority survived. Many have since been photographed so that scholars anywhere can read them.
The story shows that the trade's legacy is not only gold: the books it brought, and the learning it made possible, are still treasured by the people of Mali.
Tip
Memory hook: the trade carried goods, God and grammar: goods (gold, salt), faith (Islam) and writing (Arabic literacy and books).
TED-Ed: "The hidden treasures of Timbuktu". Watch for the reasons why Timbuktu's families have hidden their books more than once in the city's history.
In groups: Timbuktu's families risked their lives to save old books. In Unit 1 you saw how Rwanda kept its history in oral traditions and, later, in archives and museums. If Rwanda's heritage were in danger, which records or objects would you save first, and why?
Practice
Sources and credits
The rest of this lesson, its diagrams, tables, worked examples and practice items, and the unit exercises were written by Ganzaa.
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
