“Every year [prior to 1591], on the order of the king of Timbuktu [the askiya]… two hundred quintals of gold were sent to the Barbary; the war so upset everything that once could not produce four [quintals of gold],…
“In 990 The empire of Ghana annexes the Saharan city of Awdaghust. In 1077-1078 Almoravids take over Tanger, fight the empire of Ghana, and control the trans-Saharan caravan trade; birth of Ibn Tumart, the Almohad Mahdi; Bijaia becomes the captial…
“Scholars have attributed Ghana’s political hegemony to the ruler’s ability to unify Soninke villages and maintain a cohesive confederacy of chiefs under the command of one king. Ongoing raids launched by North African Berbers searching for gold and…
“Mervyn Hiskett describes the Islamic lands of West Africa as the area commonly referred to as “the west and central Sudan”…extending from the desert scrub in the “north” to the southern edge of savanna in the south. From west to…
“The religous identity of Muslims is more easily ascertained by their outward appearance and actions than that of Christians. Their dress, suh as agbada robes, represents part of the traditional dress of northerners, but is also similiar to the…
