2. West African Civilizations
• Formed diverse civilizations in different
geographical areas
• Built large trading empires in Ghana, Mali,
Songhai, and Axum
• Became part of the global trade network
• Were introduced to Islam
• Maintained traditions around village, family, and
religious beliefs
• Griots told history through poems and stories
such as the legend of Sundiata, founder of Mali
3. Ghana
• The “first” of the West African Kingdoms
• Rose to power in the 3rd Century CE by taxing
the heavy Gold-Salt trade within its borders.
• 9th- 11th centuries: rulers converted to Islam
and Ghana was at the height of its power.
• Ghana invaded in 1076, and even though it
survives, its power was in decline, such that by
the beginning of the 1200’s (13th Century), new
states emerged in the savanna.
4. Mali
• Replaced Ghana
• 1230-1600 CE
• Located on the Niger River
• Traded Gold for Salt
• Had a golden age under Mansa Musa
• Mansa Musa travelled to Mecca and brought
religious scholars back to West Africa with him
• Turned Timbuktu into a major center for learning
in the Muslim World
5. Songhai
• Replaced Mali
• 15th-16th centuries
• Continued the Gold and Salt trade
• Brought into decline as a result of the trans-
Atlantic slave trade
6. Islam in Africa
• Merchants conducting trade across the Sahara
first introduced Islam into north-western
Africa
• Mali King Mansa Musa wanted to make his
kingdom a center of learning, so he took a
pilgrimage to Mecca then returned with
scholars
• Islam was accepted because it taught equality
7. • As Islam spread, some of the practices changed
to meet the needs of the people in western Africa
• Ibn Battuta on the nakedness of Muslim women
in Mali:
– Among their bad qualities are the following. The
women servants, slave-girls, and young girls go
about in front of everyone naked, without a stitch
of clothing on them. Women go into the sultan's
presence naked and without coverings, and his
daughters also go about naked. Then there is
their custom of putting dust and ashes on their
heads, as a mark of respect, and the grotesque
ceremonies we have described when the poets
recite their verses. Another reprehensible practice
among many of them is the eating of carrion,
dogs, and asses.
8. • Ibn Battuta on the grotesque rituals of the poets in
Mali:
– On feast-days after Dugha has finished his
display, the poets come in. Each of them is inside
a figure resembling a thrush, made of feathers,
and provided with a wooden head with a red
beak, to look like a thrush's head. They stand in
front of the sultan in this ridiculous make-up and
recite their poems. After that the chief of the
poets mounts the steps of the pempi and lays his
head on the sultan's lap, then climbs to the top of
the pempi and lays his head first on the sultan's
right shoulder and then on his left, speaking all
the while in their tongue, and finally he comes
down again. I was told that this practice is a very
old custom amongst them, prior to the
introduction of Islam, and that they have kept it
up.
