Muslim Traders, Songhay Warriors and the Arma Muslim Traders

This book looks into the interplay between different social groups Christian Holst that existed on the Middle Niger Bend between 1549 to 1660. The groups mainly under scrutiny are Muslim traders and scholars – the “Ulema” and the worldly lords that ran the polities that had laid claim to the region of the Middle Niger Bend; first the Ask- Muslim traders, Songhay warriors yas, then the Arma. The changing relationships between these and the Arma different groups and of individuals within them are analysed within the wider historical background of the rise and fall of the The social destruction of the Middle Niger Bend from 1549 to 1660 Songhay Empire and the subsequent takeover of the region by the Moroccan Arma that had conquered the heart of the Middle Niger Bend in 1591. This work explores the interaction between the groups through the framework of honour, religion and ances- try and traces the initially successful cooperation between rulers, traders and scholars to its breakdown and the final social disinte- gration of the Middle Niger Bend. Muslim traders, Songhay warriors and the Arma Muslim traders, ISBN 978-3-7376-0212-9 Christian Holst 9 783737 602129 Christian Holst Muslim traders, Songhay warriors and the Arma The social destruction of the Middle Niger Bend from 1549 to 1660 kassel university press This work has been accepted by the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Kassel as a thesis for acquiring the academic degree of Doktor der Philosophie (Dr. phil.). Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Winfried Speitkamp Co-Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Anne-Charlott Trepp Defense day: 26th of October 2015 Bibliographic information published by Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. Zugl.: Kassel, Univ., Diss. 2015 ISBN 978-3-7376-0212-9 (print) ISBN 978-3-7376-0213-6 (e-book) DOI: http://dx.medra.org/10.19211/KUP9783737602136 URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0002-402137 © 2016, kassel university press GmbH, Kassel www.upress.uni-kassel.de Printed in Germany Table of Contents 1. Introduction............................................................................................... 5 2. Literary Review........................................................................................11 3. Methodology: How to deal with ethnicity?............................................. 19 4. Sources and their problems..................................................................... 33 5. A short history of the Middle Niger Bend............................................... 46 5.1 The Rise of Songhay...................................................................................... 46 5.2 The War for Sunni Ali’s legacy and its aftermath ........................................... 53 5.3 The Moroccan factor ..................................................................................... 62 5.4 The Moroccans attack.................................................................................... 69 6. Muslims on the Middle Niger Bend........................................................ 81 6.1 First Muslims ................................................................................................ 81 6.2 The merging of the worlds - Sudan and Bidan ............................................... 96 6.3 The merging of the worlds - Rulers and the Muslim estate........................... 110 6.4 The fall and dispersion of the Muslim estate................................................ 124 7. Honour, Islam and the Arma ................................................................ 136 8. Slavery and horses................................................................................. 158 8.1 Slavery under Songhay................................................................................ 158 8.2 Slavery under the Arma ............................................................................... 171 9. The social dissolution of the Middle Niger Bend.................................. 184 9.1 Clash of ideologies ...................................................................................... 184 9.2 1588 - The last revolt and the ruin of Songhay............................................. 206 9.2 The Arma and the Others............................................................................. 226 -3 - 10. Conclusion ........................................................................................... 269 11. Maps..................................................................................................... 275 12. Rulers of Songhay from Sunni Ali until the Moroccan invasion ..... 279 13. The Pashas ........................................................................................... 281 14. Bibliography ........................................................................................ 283 Primary Sources................................................................................................ 283 Secondary Sources ............................................................................................ 287 -4 - 1. Introduction The sub-Saharan world is often seen as completely separate from the rest of the world and is frequently simply ignored. Even if it is taken into account it is only dis- played, paradoxically, not in its own right but only as the subaltern part of something larger. It becomes the object of European history or the extension of the North African world. In both cases it is not seen as the subject of its own past. Nevertheless it was, like other major cultural zones, on the one hand a vigorous place that possessed unique dy- namics that shaped its own cultural responses to the different environments in which it was placed and at the same time was connected to the wider world surrounding it. In fact, it is useless to speak of “THE sub-Saharan world.” As is the case with Asia, Europe and other major areas of the globe, sub-Saharan Africa is split up into a host of different environments, peoples and ways of living which are too disparate in order to fit them under one big umbrella. Each of these areas was a highly dynamic place with, to use Fernand Braudel’s term, a deep history, stretching back millennia. This story takes place in a region often called the “Bilad al-Sudan”1 - more specifi- cally in the part often called “Takrur”. Translated into English it simply means “Land of the Blacks” and was used as a description by Arab geographers for the land south of the Sahara stretching from the Atlantic coast of West Africa all the way to the Red Sea. This strip touches on its northern limits the Sahara, an area which is called the Sahel, Arabic for “coast”. Here, the sea is the desert and its ships the camels. The south is marked by the deep forests of modern day Ivory Coast, Cameroon and the Central African Repub- lic. In between these two the Bilad al-Sudan is dominated by the Savannah. Large, seemingly infinite plains stretch from horizon to horizon, home to shrubs and bushes. This division was instated by the ancient Arabs that had divided Africa along the lines 1 In Arabic, the pronunciation of the final “l” of “al” (definite article) changes de- pending on the initial letter of the following word (sun- or moon letter). This is sometimes reflected in transliterations. In such a case “al-Sudan” becomes “as-Sudan” etc. However, this makes it harder to find references in other works which is why “al” is used throughout. -5 - of its climatic differences: North Africa, the Sahara, the Savannah and the rain-forests. For them, the continent more or less ended there, as no Arab had contact with a human living inland further south. The Bilad al-Sudan was barely understood by these early Arab writers and instead of being used to describe its inhabitants on its own terms it was more an effort to set apart the “Blacks” from the “Berbers” and the “Arabs”. Linked to this classification was a clear order: Arabs at the top, Blacks at the bottom and Berbers in between. The response from the inhabitants of the Bilad al-Sudan to being relegated to the bottom rung was differentiated and sometimes somewhat curious. Whereas the intellectual titan of the Sudan, Ahmad Baba, argued for equality between the groups as long as the individual members adhered to Islam, others, like Ahmad al-Shinqiti, tried to argue that they in fact were part of the North African world, the “Trab al-Bidan”, despite them living in the at the southern fringes of the Sahara and thus not black.2 The Bilad al-Sudan had made early contact with the Muslim world, beginning in the eighth century C.E. leading to the introduction of Islam and to diplomatic and commer- cial links. The Bilad al-Sudan is often split into several sub-regions: Nubia, Beja and Ethiopia in the east and the Bilad al-Takrur in the west.3 Takrur was described first by al-Bakri (1014–1094) as a town situated on the lower Senegal river. Its usage was wid- ened by later authors like al-Umari and al-Qalqasandi and used as a term for the territo- ry of Mali and later for West Africa in general. In this sense it was taken up by natives of this part of the world as well. The Wolof term “Tocolor” from which the French “Toucouleur” is taken shows the modern day link to this past.4 Ahmad Baba, the most famous scholar to have come from this region, called himself “Takruri” and local chron- icles like the Tadzkiret al-Nisian, finished in 1751, used it as well. It is however not

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