A fricA n Dominion African Dominion A new History of empire in e Arly A nD meDievA l w est A fricA Michael A. Gomez princeton U ni v ersit y pr ess pr inceton & ox for D Copyright © 2018 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR press.princeton.edu Jacket photo: Great Mud Mosque, Djenné, Mali. Courtesy of Ruud Zwart All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Gomez, Michael A., 1955- author. Title: African dominion : a new history of empire in early and medieval West Africa / Michael A. Gomez. Description: Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifers: LCCN 2017029692 | ISBN 9780691177427 (hardcover : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Islam—Africa, West—History. | Slavery—Africa, West—History. | Africa, West—History—To 1884. Classifcation: LCC DT476 .G66 2017 | DDC 966.02—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017029692 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Miller Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 con ten ts Preface · vii prologUe. 1 PART I. EARLY SAHEL A ND SAVA N NAH 9 cHApter 1. The Middle Niger in Pre-Antiquity and Global Context 11 cHApter 2. Early Gao 19 cHApter 3. The Kingdoms of Ghana: Reform along the Senegal River 30 cHApter 4. Slavery and Race Imagined in Bilād As-Sūdān 43 PART II. IMPERIAL MALI 59 cHApter 5. The Meanings of Sunjata and the Dawn of Imperial Mali 61 cHApter 6. Mansā Mūsā and Global Mali 92 cHApter 7. Intrigue, Islam, and Ibn Baṭūṭa 144 PART III. IMPERIAL SONGHAY 167 cHApter 8. Sunni ‘Alī and the Reinvention of Songhay 169 cHApter 9. The Sunni and the Scholars: A Tale of Revenge 193 cHApter 10. Renaissance: The Age of Askia Al-Ḥājj Muḥammad 219 cHApter 11. Of Clerics and Concubines 258 [ v ] [ vi ] contents PART IV. LE DER NIER DE L’EMPIRE 313 cHApter 12. Of Fitnas and Fratricide: The Nadir of Imperial Songhay 315 cHApter 13. Surfeit and Stability: The Era of Askia Dāwūd 334 cHApter 14. The Rending Asunder: Dominion’s End 355 epilogUe. A Thousand Years 369 Notes · 373 Select Bibliography · 469 Index · 479 prefAce wHAt follows fUlfills A qUest that began at the University of Chicago, where, as an undergraduate transfer from Amherst College, I enrolled in the Islamic Civilization sequence and wrote a paper on Islam in early West Africa. Graded a “C-” by a graduate assistant who found the very concept “dubious,” the paper was for reasons unknown to me subse- quently reviewed by the course professor, John E. Woods, who, in chang- ing the grade to an “A-,” counseled me that, if serious, I would need to learn Arabic. It was a fateful intervention. Immersed in other projects since graduate study, I only returned to focus on this subject around 2007, traveling to Mali to canvass and ex- plore the manuscript collections in Timbuktu and Jenne. The early 2012 outbreak of war in northern Mali proved disruptive, but I have proceeded with materials already in hand that, as will be demonstrated, have not been fully exploited. It was also my fnding that the vast majority of man- uscript materials in Mali concern the eighteenth century and thereafter, but there are collections I have yet to see, and more may be uncovered. I therefore look forward to the opportunity to revise my fndings in light of new documentation. I extend heartfelt thanks to all who assisted and extended their hospitality to me, especially Abdel Kader Haïdara, director of the Mama Haïdara Library in Timbuktu. What is before the reader is only sixty percent of its original submis- sion (as a two-volume work), addressing the most critical areas of inquiry. In underscoring the actors and issues themselves, my approach is not at all meant to slight the secondary scholarship; my debt to many will be obvious, especially the pioneering eforts of the late John Hunwick who, with Ralph Austen and Fred Donner, were my advisors, many moons ago. I would also mention the work and mentorship of Boubacar Barry and Lansiné Kaba—principal sources of encouragement over the years. Parts 1 and 2 of the book cover the period through medieval Mali, and given the universal acceptance of the Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History by Nehemia Levtzion and J.F.P. Hopkins, I adopt their rendering and forego haggling over minor disagreements in transla- tion. I reference Joseph M. Cuoq’s Recueil des sources arabes concernant l’Afrique occidentale du XIIIe au XVIe siècle (Bilad al-Sudan) where it pro- vides additional insight, or where appears a pertinent source not included [ vii ] [ viii ] prefAce in Levtzion and Hopkins. Finally, I follow Franz Rosenthal’s classic trans- lation of Ibn Khaldūn’s Muqaddimah. I provide my own translations in parts 3 and 4 of the book; some materials are not available in European languages, while in those for which such translations exist, nuances in the Arabic are important to underscore, with divergences substantive on occa- sion. I dispense with diacriticals for place names, retaining them in Arabic designations for either individuals or groups. Finally, I employ a dual dating system in which the Islamic or Hijri date appears frst, followed by the Gregorian equivalent, as the former bet- ter corresponds to how historical actors actually understood time. In using the terms “early” (third century CE to the seventh/thirteenth) and “medi- eval” (seventh/thirteenth to the end of the tenth/sixteenth century), I do not mean to suggest West African history conforms to European or Asian periodizations (though there is some correspondence). Rather, “early” and “medieval” efectively represent watershed developments in the conjoined region itself. A fricA n Dominion