So remarkable was the kingdom of Ghana during the age of Africa’s great empires that Arab and North African visitors praised it as a model for other rulers. The Soninke people inhabited the nucleus of the territory that became the Ghanaian kingdom. They called their ruler ghana, or war chief. By the late eighth century Muslim traders and other foreigners applied the king’s title to the region where the Soninke lived, the kingdom south of the Sahara. The Soninke themselves called their land Wagadou (WAH-guh-doo). Only the southern part of Wagadou received enough rainfall to be agriculturally productive, and it was here that the civilization of Ghana developed (see Map 10.2). Skillful farming and efficient irrigation systems led to abundant crop production, which eventually supported a population of as many as two hundred thousand.

In 992 Ghana captured the Berber town of Awdaghost, strategically situated on the trans-Saharan trade route. Thereafter Ghana controlled the southern portion of a major caravan route. Before the year 1000 Ghana’s rulers had extended their influence almost to the Atlantic coast and had captured a number of small kingdoms in the south and east. By the early eleventh century the Ghanaian king exercised sway over a territory approximately the size of Texas. No other power in the western Sudan could successfully challenge him.

Throughout this vast West African territory, all authority sprang from the king. Religious ceremonies and court rituals emphasized the king’s sacredness and were intended to strengthen his authority. The king’s position was hereditary in the matrilineal line — that is, the ruling king’s heir was one of the king’s sister’s sons (presumably the eldest or fittest for battle).

A council of ministers assisted the king in the work of government, and from the ninth century on most of these ministers were Muslims. The royal administration was well served by ideas, skills, and especially literacy brought from the North African and Arab Muslim worlds. The king and his people, however, clung to their ancestral religion and basic cultural institutions.

The Ghanaian king held court in the city of Koumbi Saleh, which was actually two towns, one inhabited by the king and the other by Muslims. Either to protect themselves or to preserve their special identity, the Muslims of Koumbi Saleh lived separately from the African artisans and tradespeople. Ghana’s Muslim community was large and prosperous, and Muslim religious leaders exercised civil authority over their fellow Muslims. The presence of religious leaders and other learned Muslims suggests that Koumbi Saleh was a city of vigorous intellectual activity.

The king’s elaborate court, the administrative machinery he built, and the extensive territories he governed were all expensive. To support the kingdom, the royal estates — some hereditary, others conquered in war — produced annual revenue, mostly in the form of foodstuffs for the royal household. The king also received tribute annually from subordinate chieftains. Customs duties on goods entering and leaving the country generated revenues as well. Salt was the largest import. Berber merchants paid a tax to the king on the cloth, metalwork, weapons, and other goods they brought into the country from North Africa; in return these traders received royal protection from bandits. African traders bringing gold into Ghana from the south also paid the customs duty. Finally, the royal treasury held a monopoly on the export of gold. The gold industry was undoubtedly the king’s largest source of income.

The governing aristocracy — the king, his court, and Muslim administrators — occupied the highest rung on the Ghanaian social ladder. On the next rung stood the merchant class. Considerably below the merchants stood the farmers, cattle breeders, gold mine supervisors, and skilled craftsmen and weavers — what today might be called the middle class. Some merchants and miners must have enjoyed great wealth, but, as in all aristocratic societies, money alone did not grant prestige. High status was based on blood and royal service. On the social ladder’s lowest rung were slaves, who worked in households, on farms, and in the mines. As in Asian and European societies of the time, slaves accounted for only a small percentage of the population.

Apart from these social classes stood the army. Ghana’s king maintained at his palace a standing force of a thousand men, comparable to the bodyguards of the Roman emperors. These thoroughly disciplined, well-armed, totally loyal troops protected the king and the royal court. They lived in special compounds, enjoyed the king’s favor, and sometimes acted as his personal ambassadors to subordinate rulers. In wartime this regular army was augmented by levies of soldiers from conquered peoples and by the use of slaves and free reserves.

The reasons for ancient Ghana’s decline are still a matter of much debate. The most commonly accepted theory for Ghana’s rapid decline is that the Berber Almoravid dynasty of North Africa invaded and conquered Ghana around 1100 and forced its rulers and people to convert to Islam. Some historians examining this issue have concluded that while Almoravid and Islamic pressures certainly disrupted the empire, weakening it enough for its incorporation into the rising Mali empire, there was no Almoravid military invasion and subsequent forced conversion to Islam.4