For centuries, the expansive Sahara desert isolated northern and western Africa from each other. In the fifth century C.E., the introduction of the Arabian camel allowed for the establishment of regular trade routes across the Sahara. This trans-Sahara trade accelerated in the seventh and eight centuries as Arab Muslim forces conquered North Africa and turned to the western Sudan region for gold and slaves. In exchange for their precious goods, West Africans received items such as horses and salt, as well as exposure to the tenets of the Islamic faith. Excepted here are accounts by a Spanish Muslim of the West African kingdoms of Ghana and Mali.

Ghana is a title given to their kings; the name of the region is Awkar, and their king today, namely in the year 460, is Tunka Manin. He ascended the throne in 455 [1063 C.E.]. The name of his predecessor was Basi and he became their ruler at the age of 85. He led a praiseworthy life on account of his love of justice and friendship for the Muslims. At the end of his life he became blind, but he concealed this from his subjects and pretended that he could see. When something was put before him he said: “This is good” or “This is bad.” His ministers deceived the people by indicating to the king in cryptic words what he should say, so that the commoners could not understand. Basi was a maternal uncle of Tunka Manin. This is their custom and their habit, that the kingship is inherited only by the son of the king’s sister. He has no doubt that his successor is a son of his sister, while he is not certain that his son is in fact his own, and he is not convinced of the genuineness of his relationship to him. This Tunka Manin is powerful, rules an enormous kingdom, and possesses great authority. . . .

Around the king’s town are domed buildings and groves and thickets where the sorcerers of these people, men in charge of the religious cult, live. In them too are their idols and the tombs of their kings. These woods are guarded and none may enter them and know what is there. In them also are the king’s prisons. If somebody is imprisoned there no news of him is ever heard. The king’s interpreters, the official in charge of his treasury and the majority of his ministers are Muslims. Among the people who follow the king’s religion1 only he and his heir apparent (who is the son of his sister) may wear sewn clothes. All other people wear robes of cotton, silk, or brocade, according to their means. All of them shave their beards, and women shave their heads. . . .

Their religion is paganism and the worship of idols. When their king dies they construct over the place where his tomb will be an enormous dome of wood. Then they bring him on a bed covered with a few carpets and cushions and place him beside the dome. At his side they place his ornaments, his weapons, and the vessels from which he used to eat and drink, filled with various kinds of food and beverages. They place there too the men who used to serve his meals. They close the door of the dome and cover it with mats and furnishings. Then the people assemble, who heap earth upon it until it becomes like a big hillock and dig a ditch around it until the mound can be reached at only one place.

They make sacrifices to their dead and make offerings of intoxicating drinks.

On every donkey-load of salt when it is brought into the country their king levies one golden dinar, and two dinars when it is sent out. From a load of copper the king’s due is five mithqals,2 and from a load of other goods ten mithqals. The best gold found in his land comes from the town of Ghiyaru, which is eighteen days’ traveling distant from the king’s town over a country inhabited by tribes of the Sudan whose dwellings are continuous.

The nuggets found in all the mines of his country are reserved for the king, only this gold dust being left for the people. But for this the people would accumulate gold until it lost its value. The nuggets may weigh from an ounce to a pound. It is related that the king owns a nugget as large as a big stone. . . .

The king of Ghana, when he calls up his army, can put 200,000 men3 into the field, more than 40,000 of them archers. . . .

On the opposite bank of the Nil [the Niger River] is another great kingdom, stretching a distance of more than eight days’ marching, the king of which has the title of Daw. The inhabitants of this region use arrows when fighting. Beyond this country lies another called Malal [later Mali], the king of which is known as al-musulmani [“the Muslim”]. He is thus called because his country became afflicted with drought one year following another; the inhabitants prayed for rain, sacrificing cattle till they had exterminated almost all of them, but the drought and the misery only increased. The king had as his guest a Muslim who used to read the Quran and was acquainted with the Sunna [Islamic traditions]. To this man the king complained of the calamities that assailed him and his people. The man said: “O King, if you believed in God (who is exalted) and testified that He is One, and testified as to the prophetic mission of Muhammad (God bless him and give him peace) and if you accepted all the religious laws of Islam, I would pray for your deliverance from your plight and that God’s mercy would envelop all the people of your country and that your enemies and adversaries might envy you on that account.” Thus he continued to press the king until the latter accepted Islam and became a sincere Muslim. The man made him recite from the Quran some easy passages and taught him religious obligations and practices which no one may be excused from knowing. Then the Muslim made him wait till the eve of the following Friday [the Islamic day of rest], when he ordered him to purify himself by a complete ablution, and clothed him in a cotton garment which he had. The two of them came out towards a mound of earth, and there the Muslim stood praying while the king, standing at his right side, imitated him. Thus they prayed for a part of the night, the Muslim reciting invocations and the king saying “Amen.” The dawn had just started to break when God caused abundant rain to descend upon them. So the king ordered the idols to be broken and expelled the sorcerers from his country. He and his descendants after him as well as his nobles were sincerely attached to Islam, while the common people of his kingdom remained polytheists. Since then their rulers have been given the title of al-musulmani.

N. Levtzion and J. F. P. Hopkins, eds., Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History, trans. J. R. Hopkins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 78–83, 85–87.

READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS