Abu Abdullah ibn Battuta

• Born in Tangier, Morocco, in 1304

• Died in 1368 in Fez

• Dictated his travels post facto to Ibn Juzayy

• His Rihla is the only documentation of his life

The Rihla

• Rihla is a category of travel, that in search of learning and knowledge

• Hajj - travel for the pilgrimage to Mecca

• Hijra - migration in search of better living conditions

• And so on

Rihla or “Journey”

• Ibn Battuta dictated an account of his journeys to a schola named Ibn Juzayy

• A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling, but is often simply referred to as the Rihla, or “Journey”.

• Fictional in places, the Rihla still gives as complete an account as exists of some part of the world in the 14th century.

Historical Developments

In Africa, as in Eurasia and the Americas, state systems demonstrated continuity, innovation, and diversity and expanded in scope and reach.

State systems in Africa:

• Great Zimbabwe

• Ethiopia

• Hausa kingdoms

The Bantu Migrations

• Spread Linguistics

• Spread Iron metallurgy

• Spread Agricultural techniques

• Sahara began to dry out in 2500 BC

• Land became dry and parched

• Encouraged migration of the people

• Migrators spoke many different languages that came from a singular root language. This language is called Bantu

Songhai

• Power = controlled trade routes

• 1464: Sunni Ali - builds empire through conquest

  • Professional army that was mobile

  • Captured Timbuktu (Mali’s capital)

  • Acquired Djenné through marriage (trade city)

Hausa Kingdoms

• Society grouped by a common language

• Local rulers controlled farm lands from walled cities w/ horsed-armies

• Wealth: Farming & Trade

• Kano & Katsina (major trade outposts)

• Slave Trade

• Zazzau – sells captives to other city-states for goods

• Collection of farming states in the area of Nigeria & Benin

• Ifo & Oyo largest kingdoms

• Kings = religious & political leaders

• Descended from 1st ruler of Ife (religious authority)

• Secret society of political & religious figures limit kings

• Cities (centers of trade) supported by farms = growth, trade, & art

Benin

• Began in the 1200s near the Niger Delta

• Ruled based on descent

• 1400s - major state = powerful army

  • Lagos to Niger Delta

• Artistic culture - brass and copper

• 1480s: Benin began trading with Portugal

  • Beginning of the slave trade

Mansa Musa

• Richest man ever

• Ruler of Mali (1312 - 1337 CE)

• Mali was one of the richest kingdoms in Africa

Great Zimbabwe

• A medieval city in the south-eastern hills of Zimbabwe

• It was the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe during the country's Late Iron Age.

• Construction on the monument began in the 11th century and continued until the 15th century. The edifices were erected by the ancestral Shona.

• The stone city spans an area of 7.22 square kilometres (1,780 acres) which, at its peak, could have housed up to 18,000 people.

• Great Zimbabwe is believed to have served as a royal palace for the local monarch. As such, it would have been used as the seat of political power.

• Among the edifice's most prominent features were its walls, some of which were over five metres high. They were constructed without mortar (dry stone).

• Eventually, the city was abandoned and fell into ruin.

Christianity in Ethiopia

• Rulers of Axum had adopted Christianity in the 4th century

• Over the centuries of Islamic expansion, Ethiopia became a Christian island in a Muslim sea

  • Protected by mountainous geography

  • Distance from Muslim powers

• Islam cut Ethiopia off from the Christian world

• Fascination with Judaism and Jerusalem

• Believed they were descended from King Solomon

• 12 linked underground churches were constructed in the 12th century attempting to create a new Jerusalem on Ethiopian soil

• 60% of modern Ethiopia maintains ties to this ancient Christian church

Slavery in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southwest Africa

• Africans organized their societies around the family unit, and gold supply often dictated which society held the most power—until the start of the Atlantic slave trade.

• Chattel slavery, in which people were treated as personal property, in the Nile Valley. It appears there was a slave-trade route through the Sahara that brought sub-Saharan Africans to Rome, a global center of slavery.

• Debt bondage- pledge of a person's services as security for the repayment for a debt or other obligation, where the terms of the repayment are not clearly or reasonably stated, and the person who is holding the debt and thus has some control over the laborer, does not intend to ever admit that the debt has been repaid

  • The services required to repay the debt may be undefined, and the services' duration may be undefined, thus allowing the person supposedly owed the debt to demand services indefinitely. Debt bondage can be passed on from generation to generation

• The Indian Slave Trade involved Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

• Slaves were taken from and the routes they took across the Indian Ocean, their destination being the Cape Colony in Colonial South Africa.

• Zanj Rebellion: a black-slave revolt against the Abbāsid empire.

  • Basran landowners had brought several thousand East African blacks (Zanj) into southern Iraq to drain the salt marshes east of Basra.

  • The landowners subjected the Zanj, who generally spoke no Arabic, to heavy slave labour and provided them with only minimal subsistence.