People
Mansa Musa
ruled Mali from 1312-1337, richest man in the world? collapsed currency of Cairo from fomous Hajj (1324-1325) inspired epic accounts in arabic and european languages
Indian Ocean Monsoons
•The Indian Ocean has 2 monsoons a year
–Wind from northeast: travelers come from Arabia and Asia
–Wind from southwest: travelers return home to Arabia and Asia
–Travelers usually stayed in Swahili cities for 4-6 months between monsoons, not wanting to cut their journeys too close to the changing winds
•This meant that there were usually more long-term foreign visitors along the Swahili Coast than in other medieval cities; without ruling empire, but with shared religion, they interacted on basis of equality
•Swahili society was matrilineal, so women’s families owned land; women strategically married distant merchants to solidify trade links and diplomacy
•Linguistic and cultural borrowing was widespread…
Ibu Battatta's Rihla (1354)
•Text about his journeys: Rihla (full title: “A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Traveling”)
–Inspired a popular genre in Arabic writing: tour of Islamic world
•Dictated in Arabic to poet Ibn Juzayy in Morocco in 1354 (Marco Polo’s similar account of travels to Asia published in 1300)
–
•Caveats!
–Textual account, but also like oral history—relied on his memory
–Sometimes Ibn Battuta was confused—which river was this?
–His scribe also plagiarized and embellished sections
–Scholars must evaluate it against oral tradition and other sources
–But what might Battuta and other travelers tell us about Mali that oral traditions might not tell us?
Ibu Battattah
•Similar to the Venetian Marco Polo
•Born 1304 in Tangier, Morocco
•Sunni legal scholar (‘ulama)
–Arab-speaking urbanite, from Berber family of legal professionals
•1325: he set out on a pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca, which turned into a journey around the Islamic world lasting 29 years, taking him through nearly 50 modern countries, to study and work
•1325-1327: travels in North Africa, just after Mansa Musa’s hajj
•Late 1320s/early 1330s: sea voyage from Arabia to Swahili Coast of East Africa and back
–Rihla is vague about the specific dates for this journey, but it lasted 6 months
•1330s-1340s: traveled through Mongol Empire, before returning to Morocco amidst plague
•In 1352-1354, mourning family he had lost in the plague, he crossed the Sahara, to the fabled Mali Empire
Swahili City-States
•Swahili cities were independent city-states, run by merchants and sultans
•Merchants and sultans who ran Swahili cities were doing quite well without an empire
•Swahili leaders could band together on the basis of a shared language, and a shared Muslim identity
•Tensions between coastal Swahili elites and poorer people in cities and interior (nyika; Swahili often called inland people by the Arabic word Zanj), who were generally not Muslims until the 19th century or later—> Swahili elites banded together, trading and raiding inland
•Traders from Arabia and Asia visited medieval Swahili cities from Indian Ocean regularly, and generally stayed for awhile without settling permanently.
This is because of traders, merchants and monsoons
Caravels
Spanish/Portuguese small ships that were able to navigate the Atlantic Ocean to Africa
Sologon in Sundiata
Mother of Sundiata Keita, wise ugly woman, spirit of the woman who was the spirit of the Buffalo of Do, prophesized to be mother to the great ruler of Mali, greater than Alexander the Great
Timbuktu
•In the 1300s and 1400s, Mansa Musa and successors invested heavily in education, in the trading city of Timbuktu
–Sankore University attracted scholars from across the Islamic world
•
•After a new wave of succession disputes led to Mali’s collapse, the Islamic Songhay Empire took over most of its territory
–
•Timbuktu thrived through the 1500s, its “Golden Age”
–When the Berber traveler Leo Africanus visited in 1509, there were 100,000 people in Timbuktu– a quarter were students from Arabian Peninsula; huge libraries emerged
–Timbuktu was conquered by Moroccan invaders in 1591; declined with Atlantic trade
Queen of Sheba
•Earliest written reference appeared in the Hebrew Bible
•Ruled in Ethiopia and/or Yemen, 10th century BCE?
•Called Bilqis in the Quran, and Makeda in the Kebra Nagast
•Different stories in different religious traditions: always in relationship with King Solomon of Israel
•Bible: came to Solomon to trade; tested his wisdom with riddles
•Quran: came to Solomon to trade; converted to Judaism
• Kebra Nagast: came to Solomon to trade; tested his wisdom, converted, and conceived a son, Menelik I