Lecture #11: African Civilizations and the Spread
of Islam
AP World History I
African Development
• Differences in geography, language, religion,
and politics contribute to Africa’s lack of
political unity.
– No universal states, nor universal religions
• Christianity and Islam do find adherents in
Africa, sometimes leading to large empires.
Stateless Societies
• Organized around kinship
• Lacking the concentration of political power and
authority normally associated with the “state”
• Little need to tax the people…encouraged people to
move to other sparsely populated areas to create
their own community.
• External pressures, warfare, large building projects
and the impact of long-distance trade causes many of
these societies to move towards the formation of
states.
Common Elements…
• Bantu migrations
offered a linguistic base
for Africans
– Different dialects
• Animism: belief in the
power of natural forces
personified as spirits or
gods in the form of
dancing, drumming, and
sacrifice.
Economics of Africa
• North Africa: involved in
Mediterranean and
Arab Trade system
• Sub-Saharan varies
from one region to the
next
Arrival of Islam
• Northern Africa has
always been part of the
classical world
• After the age of the
Pharaohs, Egypt was an
important part of the
Greek Empire, then
later in the Roman
Empire.
Arrival of Islam
• Toward the end of the Roman Empire, Christianity had
taken hold in Mediterranean Africa.
– Wars between the Vandals and Byzantines disrupt
this
• Between 640 and 700 CE followers of Muhammad
swept across Northern Africa.
• By 670, Muslims ruled Tunisia
– Ifriqiya (Africa) for Eastern North Africa and
Maghrib for Western North Africa
Arrival of Islam
• By 711 CE, Arab and Berber armies had
crossed into Spain, defeated in France in 732
CE.
– Conversion was fast and easy in North Africa
– With Abbasid Empire but eventually breaks into
smaller kingdoms (Muslim Kingdoms)
However…
• Practices differ considerably at the local level.
– Social Stratification
– Ethnic divisions
– Gender differences
• Often led to reformist movements.
What does Islam offer Africa?
• All Muslims are equal within the community
of believers made acceptance easier.
• Islamic tradition of uniting the powers of the
state in a ruler reinforces the concept of the
African King.
• The equality of the umma put Africans legally
at the same level as the Arabs.
North African Christianity
• Christian converts were made in Egypt long
before the conversion of the Roman Empire.
• Christian kingdom of Axum, with communities
in Nubia and Egypt (Copts).
– Copts maintained religious connection with the
Byzantine Empire. When Egypt was conquered by
the Arabs and converted to Islam, the Copts were
able to keep their religion.
Objectives:
1) What are some factors that contribute to the
lack of political unity?
2) What factors caused many African societies
to move towards the formation of states?
3) What role did the Bantu immigrants play in
Africa?
4) What does Islam offer Africa?
North African Christianity
• The Ethiopian kingdom that
grew from Axum was the
most important Christian
outpost.
• In the 13th and 14th Century,
an Ethiopian Christian State
emerges.
• Constant struggle with
Christian Ethiopia and
Muslim Somalia
Kingdoms of the Grasslands
• Merchants and travelers
spread the word of
Islam from North Africa
across the Sahara
towards the Savanna on
the southern edge of
the Sahara
The Grasslands
• The SAHEL was the extensive
grassland belt at the southern
edge of the Sahara.
• TRADE:
• Exchange gold from the
forests of West Africa for
salt from the Sahara (or
goods from North Africa)
• Camels, introduced from
Asia, had improved trade
possibilities.
The Grasslands
• The SAHEL becomes an active “coast”
of trade between the forests to the
south and North Africa.
• States develop along with trading cities
to take advantage of their position as
intermediaries in the trade.
• Their position in the open plains of the
dry Sahel also leaves them open to
attack and drought.
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.
• By the 900’s, its rulers converted to Islam and Ghana was at the
height of its power.
• Almoravid armies invade Ghana 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.
Common elements in Sudanic States
• Patriarch, or council of
elders as leaders
• Territorial core with
peoples of the same
linguistic or ethnic
background
• Rulers were sacred and
were surrounded by
rituals.
• Islam was used to
reinforce indigenous
ideas of kingship.
– Power extended over
• Mali and Songhay fit the
subordinate
description of the
communities which were
fusion
of
Islamic
and
often the result of
African culture.
conquest
Mali
• Created by the Malinke people who broke
away from Ghana.
• Rulers supported Islam by building mosques,
public prayers, and supporting preachers.
– In return, sermons would encourage loyalty to the
king.
– Mali became a model of the Islamicized Sudanic
Kingdoms
Mali
• Economic base was agriculture
• Sundiata: Malinke leader who led towards
prosperity as the state of Mali.
• The Mansa, or emperor
• Crime was severely punished (as evidenced by
Ibn Batuta, the Arab traveler).
– Security of travelers and trade was a key element
to Mali’s success as a state where commerce plays
such an important role
Mali
• Sundiata dies around
1260 CE.
• Of his sucessors, Mansa
Musa was the most
famous (r. 1312-1337)
– Made pilgrimage to
Mecca in 1324
Mali
• Cities and towns of
• By the 14th century
West Africa came to be
Timbuktu had a
modeled after North
population of 50,000.
Africa, but with a
– Contained a library and
university.
distinctive flair.
• Cosmopolitan court life. • 80% of the villagers
lived by the agricultural
• “Port” cities flourish like
lifestyle.
Jenne and Timbuktu/
– Labor intensive
– Polygamy was common
Songhay
• Songhay begins to form
around the 7th century. By
1010, a capital had been
established at Geo on the
Niger River.
– Rulers became Muslim
– Dominated by Mali for a
while
– By 1370’s, had
established themselves
as an independent state
• Under the leadership of
Sunni Ali (1464-1492) the
Empire of Songhay began.
– Tactical commander
– Ruthless leader.
– Successors known as
askia’s.
– Muhammad the Great
expanded the borders of
the empire.
• By the 1600’s, Songhay
dominated the central
Sudan
Songhay
• Remained the dominant power in the region
until the end of the 16th century.
• In 1591, a Muslim army with muskets crossed
the Sahara and defeated the larger forces of
Songhay.
• Songhay split up, but other groups
experienced success in the Western Sudan
– The Hausa peoples of Northern Nigeria
Political Life in the Sudan
• Unified states allowed the various
communities, clans, and ethnic groups to
coexist.
• Movement and fusion of populations was
constant in the Sudan
• Common religion and law provided solidarity
and trust to the merchants.
• Organized under Muslim concept of a ruler
who united civil and religious authority.
Slavery
• Slave trade between Africa and the Islamic
World predated the arrival of Islam
– Muslims viewed slavery as a stage in the process
of conversion.
• Slaves were used as domestic servants, laborers,
soldiers, eunuchs, concubines.
• Concentration on women and children across the Sahel
to the East African coast.
The Swahili Coast of East Africa
• From the Horn of Africa to modern-day
Mozambique lay a string of Islamicized trading
cities with contacts from Arabia, Persia, India,
and China.
• As in the Savanna Kingdoms of West Africa,
Islam was slow to reach the general
population in East Africa, and when it did, it
was a fusion of indigenous beliefs and the new
Islamic faith.
East Africa
•
•
Coastal cities developed from the mixture
of Bantu migrants, as well as with
Indonesian seaborne migrants.
– Settled on the island of Madagascar,
introducing bananas and coconuts.
Coastal villages of fishers, farmers dotted
the coast
East Africa
• Zenj: Arabic for the East
African Coast.
• 13th Century: urbanized
East African trading
ports develop.
– Shared Bantu-based and
Arabic Influenced Swahili
(coastal) language.
• Different Muslim ruling
families, but similar
language united them in
trade.
– Towns such as
Mogadishu, Mombasa,
Malindi, Kilwa, and
Zanzibar.
• Ibn Batuta said of Kilwa
that it was “one of the
most beautiful and wellconstructed towns in the
world”
East Africa
• Kilwa was wealthy
because of its control
over Sofala
– Access to the Gold
produced in the interior
– Farthest point south in
which Indian ships could
reach in one monsoon
season
• Many port towns were
tied to each other in an
active trade network.
– 1300s-1400s: large state
sponsored sailing
expeditions stopped at
the East African coast for
ivory, and gold.
• After 1431, only the Arabs
and Indians continued
this trade.
Central/Southern Africa
• While the impact of trade and Islam radically
altered the West/North/East African “coasts”,
Central and Southern Africa was developing
on its own trajectory.
• By 1000 CE, still small agricultural societies,
preliterate, but with great strides in arts,
building, and statecraft…without writing.
Artists…
• Terra Cotta objects
discovered in Nok, in
the forests of Central
Nigeria dating to 500200 BCE.
• Terra Cotta and bronze
portrait heads were
found among the
Yoruba people of
Nigeria
The Yoruba
and
dominated by a ruling
family and aristocracy.
• Spoke a non-Bantu
language and recognized a
relationship with the
Hausa, who spoke AfroAsian language.
• Small city-states, each
controlling about 50 miles.
• Highly urbanized.
•
Agricultural society supported by a peasantry
Benin
• Similar settlement patterns
as the Yoruba can be found
among Edo people who
formed the state of Benin.
• Ewuare the Great (r. 14401473) extended Benin’s
control from the Niger River
to the Coast.
• The Oba, or ruler, lived in a
huge royal compound.