Rural and Urban Islam in West Africa 9781685855826

Table of contents :
Contents
Maps
Tables
Preface
1 Rural and Urban Islam in West Africa: An Introductory Essay
2 Merchants vs. Scholars and Clerics in West Africa: Differential and Complementary Roles
3 The Economics of Islam in the Southern Sahara: The Rise of the Kunta Clan
4 The Shaykh's Men: Religion and Power in Senegambian Islam
5 Tcherno Aliou, the Wall of Goumba: Islam, Colonialism and the Rural Factor in Futa Jallon, 1867-1912
6 Dyula and Sonongui Roles in the Islamization of the Region of Kong
7 Ahmadiyya and Urbanization: Easing the Integration of Rural Women in Abidjan
8 Court and Periphery in Ethiopian Christianity
9 Liminality, Hijra and the City
Index

Citation preview

Rural and Urban Islam in West Africa

Rural and Urban Islam in West Africa edited by

Nehemia Levtzion and Humphrey J. Fisher

Lynne Rienner Publishers • Boulder & London

The text of this volume was first published

as Volume

of Asian and African Studies by the Institute University

of

20/1

of Middle Eastern

Studies,

Haifa.

Published in the United States of America in 1987 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 948 North Street, Boulder, Colorado 80302 ® 1986 by The Institute of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Haifa

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rural and urban Islam in West Africa. Bibliography: p. Includes index. Contents: Rural and urban Islam in West Africa / N e h e m i a L e v t z i o n — M e r c h a n t s vs. scholars and clerics / Nehemia L e v t z i o n — T h e e c o n o m i c s of Islam in the southern Sahara / E. Ann M c D o u g a l l — [ e t c . ] 1. I s l a m — A f r i c a , W e s t .

2. A f r i c a , W e s t — H i s t o r y .

I. Levtzion, Nehemia.

II. Fisher, H u m p h r e y J.

BP64.A4W366

296'.0966

1987

87-4712

ISBN 1-55587-056-2 (lib. b d g . )

Printed and bound in the United States of America

T h e paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z 3 9 . 4 8 - 1 9 8 4 .

©

Contents Maps

vi

Preface 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Vll

Rural and Urban Islam in West Africa: An Introductory Essay

Nehemia Levtzion

1

Merchants vs. Scholars and Clerics in West Africa: Differential and Complementary Roles

Nehemia Levtzion

21

E. Ann McDougall

39

Lucie G. Colvin

55

Lamin Sanneh

67

Kathryn L. Green

97

The Economics of Islam in the Southern Sahara: The Rise of the Kunta Clan The Shaykh's Men: Religion and Power in Senegambian Islam Tcherno Aliou, the Wall of Goumba: Islam, Colonialism and the Rural Factor in Futa Jallon, 1867-1912 Dyula and Sonongui Roles in the Islamization of the Region of Kong Ahmadiyya and Urbanization: Easing the Integration of Rural Women in Abidjan

8

Court and Periphery in Ethiopian Christianity

9

Liminality, Hijra and the City

MayYacoob

119

Steven Kaplan

135

Humphrey J. Fisher

147 173

Index

V

Maps The Southern Sahara: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

41

Senegambia ca. 1850

63

Futa Jallon in the Nineteenth Century

74

The Volta Basin

100

The Region of Kong

104

Tables Origins of Armadi Members

126

Length of Residence in Abidjan Before Joining Ahmadiyya

126

Frequency of Contact of Aljmadi Members with Rural Home Communities

127

Employment by Sector Among Aljmadis in Abidjan

128

vi

Preface For those who seek to study West African politics in historical perspective, the Islamic revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries may present a turning point. In Guinea, Senegal, Mali, and Nigeria, major political forces trace their origins back to these jihad movements, which were a radical departure from earlier patterns of Islam in West Africa. Accommodation gave way to Islamic militancy and to political articulation. Muslims, who had been peripheral to African society, assumed political power. Studies on the jihad movements unravel many factors that might have contributed to the rise of Islamic militancy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. None, however, has pointed out that the scholars who led these movements emerged in the countryside, and not in the trading towns or chiefly courts with which Islam had been so closely associated for centuries. This observation, suggested in discussions with my colleagues at the Hebrew University, prompted us to look more closely at rural Islam in West Africa. For this purpose an international workshop on rural and urban Islam in West Africa was convened at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem. The nine essays in this book were first presented and discussed at that workshop. All the case studies presented, except one, deal with the area west of the Niger's bend. The exception is Steven Kaplan's essay, which deals with Christianity, not with Islam, in Ethiopia, not in West Africa. This essay, however, has been included because of the comparative insights it adds. I am grateful to the participants, who are the authors of the chapters in this book, for their collaboration and for the time and effort they invested in revising their papers. Humphrey Fisher, co-editor of the book, served as Martin Fellow at the Truman Institute and was therefore in Jerusalem before and after the workshop. My own long-standing personal debt to him is augmented by his contribution to both the workshop and the book. My thanks go to the director and the administrative staff of the Truman Institute for providing such an excellent venue for the workshop, and to my colleagues at the Hebrew University—Michel Abitbol, Victor Azarya, Naomi Chazan and S. N. Eisenstadt—for sharing with us many inspiring ideas. This book was first published as Volume 20/1 (March 1986) of Asian and African Studies by the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Haifa. I am grateful to the editors of that journal for their friendly cooperation in the long process of production, and for their generous permission to publish it as a book. Nehemia vii

Levtzion

NEHEMIA LEVTZION

Rural and Urban Islam in West Africa: An Introductory Essay The Perceived Dichotomy Mecca, the cradle of Islam, was an urban center of trade and religion. In the lands conquered by the Arabs the early converts to Islam were migrants to the towns. Islamization was thus closely linked to urbanization. For some time the towns were Muslim and the countryside remained almost completely unconverted. In Islam, migration to the town is considered meritorious because it is in the town that one can fully practice the Muslim way of life. Muslim culture is urban because Muslim institutions evolved in the towns, through the collaboration of the 'ulama' with the mercantile classes. Merchants, more than any other group, conducted their life according to the sharta.1 Islamization of the countryside and of tribal societies took place at a later stage and was aided by the development and proliferation of sufTorders. In rural Islam there was a greater continuity with the local pre-Islamic culture and social organization. The sharVa made little progress at the expense of customary law. The worship of saints and local shrines was central to the religious experience of rural Muslims. 2 This essay had first been presented as a communication paper to the workshop, to be considered at the beginning of the deliberations. It has been revised to take account of the workshop papers that appear as articles in this volume, and of points raised in the workshop discussions. I a m particularly grateful to H u m p h r e y Fisher for his detailed comments on the draft of this essay. Though I have greatly benefited f r o m contributions by members of the workshop, they do not necessarily share responsibility for the presentation. Some of them, I know, would have approached the subject in a different way. 1

2

G.E. von G r u n e b a u m , Medieval Islam, 2nd ed., Chicago 1953, pp. 173-174; I.M. Lapidus, 'Muslim Cities and Islamic Societies,' in I.M. Lapidus (ed.), Middle East Cities, Berkeley 1969, p. 57; M . G . S . Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, Chicago 1974, vol. 2, pp. 91-131. R.W. Bulliet, Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period, Cambridge, Mass. 1979. pp. 54-55; N. Levtzion, ' T o w a r d s a Comparative Study of Islamization,' in N. Levtzion (ed.), Conversion to Islam, New York 1979, pp. 15-20.

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Generalizations about rural and urban Islam ended with a clear dichotomy between the two: 'The contrast which exists between the rural community and the city in every society was rarely more striking than in the medieval Islamic world.' 3 We find a similar view of modern Islamic societies: 'l'antagonisme entre citadins et ruraux y atteint un degré tel que l'on peut presque parler de deux populations différentes.' 4 The theme of rural and urban Islam in Egypt was central to the studies of the social history of Egypt by my late teacher Professor Gabriel Baer. His favorite starting point was the perception of al-Shirblnï, an Egyptian 'àlim of the eighteenth century, whose book, written in the colloquial, is a mockery of the Egyptian village. Not only the fellahs but also the religious personalities of the villages (fuqard' al-nf) are described as ignorant and superstitious. 5 Evidence from other sources vindicated al-Shirblnl's view of village and city in Egypt as worlds apart. But at the same time there was a considerable mobility between the two, and a large proportion of the leading 'ulamâ' in Egypt, including some rectors of al-Azhâr, were born in villages. The educational system spread out to village communities and provided the basic schooling to sons of the more affluent families who became motivated to pursue their studies in the city. Also, political and economic changes in Egypt in the nineteenth century contributed to the penetration of 'orthodox Islam' into the countryside and to narrowing the gap between villagers and the urban population. 6 French colonial scholarship in Moroccan Islam cultivated the idea of a dichotomy between orthodox Islam of the urban 'ulamâ' and popular Islam of the rural marabouts. Recent studies assert a measure of continuity, not a dichotomy, between rural and urban Islam and more so as a result of social and economic changes in the twentieth century. But the old colonial view of a dichotomy has been granted new life from an unexpected source. Modern Muslim reformists of the Salafiyya, an urban movement, sought to discredit maraboutism and attacked popular Islam of the countryside as ignorant and superstitious that must be destroyed. 7 What follows is an attempt to look at some aspects of the relationship between rural and urban Islam in West Africa, where the two seem to be closer to one 3 4 5 6 7

H . A . R . Gibb and H. Bowen, Islamic Society and the West, London 1950,vol. I , p a r t I , p . 2 7 6 . J. Weulersse, Paysans de Syrie et du Proche Orient, Paris 1946, p. 85. G. Baer, ' S h i r b î n r s Hazz a l - Q u h u f and its Significance,' in G . Baer (éd.), Fellah and Townsmen in the Middle East, L o n d o n 1982, pp. 3 - 4 7 . G . Baer, 'Village and City in Egypt and Syria, 1500-1914,' in ibid., pp. 5 0 - 7 8 . D . F . Eickelman, Moroccan Islam, Austin 1976, pp. 10-12, 2 1 - 2 2 , 2 8 - 2 9 , 214-215.

Introductory Essay

3

a n o t h e r t h a n in some o t h e r p a r t s of the M u s l i m world. T h e r e were, however, periods when o n e of the two was m o r e i m p o r t a n t t h a n the o t h e r in the history of Islam in West Africa; u r b a n Islam until the end of the sixteenth century, rural Islam f r o m the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, a n d u r b a n Islam again since the a d v e n t of colonial rule.

The Economic Basis of Muslim Communities: Trade and Farming F o r at least five centuries Islam in West Africa was closely, p e r h a p s even exclusively, associated with t r a d e a n d towns. Islam spread a l o n g t r a d e routes a n d Muslim c o m m u n i t i e s developed in t r a d i n g towns. Muslim clerics a c c o m p a n i e d the c a r a v a n s of the traders, a n d settled in commercial c o m m u n i t i e s to open schools a n d to render religious services. Capitals of A f r i c a n k i n g d o m s also attracted Muslims, m e r c h a n t s a n d clerics, w h o often settled in a 'Muslim t o w n ' next to 'the King's t o w n . ' T h e mobility of traders s t a n d s in stark c o n t r a s t to the stability of peasants, w h o are a t t a c h e d to the cults of local spirits a n d deities. T r a d e routes crossed the countryside but Islam f o r some time hardly p e n e t r a t e d the rural p o p u l a t i o n . Muslims w h o settled in villages did not interact directly with the peasants. W h a t e v e r cultural influences they radiated was mediated t h r o u g h the chiefs, as described by K a t h r y n G r e e n in the case of the Dyula a n d the S o n o n g u i chiefs in the region of Kong. 8 T h e discussions at the w o r k s h o p b r o u g h t u p the intriguing question whether an Islamic presence in a rural area is ever genuinely rural in itself? O r is it, because of the n a t u r e of the religion, really an extension of u r b a n Islam in a rural setting? E l e m e n t s of u r b a n civilization are carried by t r a d e r s a n d clerics and planted in the c o u n t r y s i d e as Muslim enclaves in a rural milieu. T r a d e c o n t r i b u t e d more to the diffusion of Muslims t h a n to the integration of Islam into the A f r i c a n societies. T h e missionaries of Islam in West Africa were clerics, not traders. T h r o u g h their magico-religious services to n o n - M u s l i m s , first a n d f o r e m o s t to chiefs, they inculcated Islamic elements into the local society as an initial step in a long process of islamization. M a n y of these clerics were a t t a c h e d to chiefly c o u r t s a n d were economically s u p p o r t e d by the rulers. C o m m e r c e a n d artisanship p r o v i d e d the e c o n o m i c basis f o r u r b a n Muslim c o m m u n i t i e s t h a t were able to s u p p o r t a b o d y of scholars, dedicated to the study a n d i m p l e m e n t a t i o n of the law of Islam. Scholars also served as s p o k e s m e n of the mercantile c o m m u n i t y in its relationship with the political authorities. 8

See Kathryn G r e e n ' s article, below, pp. 112-115.

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Merchants and scholars were often members of the same family and merchants who in their youth had reached an advanced stage of studies could later in their life forsake trade and turn to scholarly pursuits. Others were part-time traders and part-time scholars, but they rarely reached a position of leadership in either vocation. 9 Though there are many prophetic traditions in praise of commerce, West African Muslim historiography — both written and oral — played down the role of merchants, who are hardly mentioned even in chronicles written in Timbuktu, a major commercial city. 10 A sense of incompatibility between commerce and religious piety is conveyed by the traditions about the mystic SldT Yahya alTadilsi whose visionary encounters with the Prophet grew steadily less and less the more he became immersed in commerce." The Jakhanke (designated by Lamin Sanneh as 'an Islamic clerical people') assert that they preferred farming to trade, as more conducive to study and teaching. 12 The Jakhanke, however, were not peasants who tilled the land themselves. They exploited slaves for farming as an economic enterprise. Slavefarming gave Muslims the leisure necessary for scholarly activities and provided the basis for the growth of a rural tradition of scholarship and clericalism. The Toronkawa of Hausaland also depended on slave-farming. Following the jihad, in Futa Jallon, Hausaland and Massina, the sedentarization of Fulbe pastoralists was possible only with the labor of slaves. Even in the commercial towns of Walata and Timbuktu scholars were involved in slave-farming. 13 In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries slaves were in great supply in the Western Sudan. Muslims acquired slaves and employed them in farms, under the supervision of a foreman who was himself a slave. Among the Bambara, f o r example, only chiefs and the Muslim Maraka had slave farms, whereas the Bambara peasants owned fewer slaves, who worked in the fields together with members of the household. 1 4 9 10 11 12 13

14

See my own article, below, pp. 24-35. Ibid., pp. 2 2 , 2 8 . 'Abdal-Rahman al-Sa'di, Ta'rikhal-Sudan, ed. and trans, by O. Houdas, Paris 1898-1900, text pp. 50-51, trans, pp. 82-83. L. Sanneh, The Jakhanke: The History of an Islamic Clerical People oj the Senegambia, London 1979, pp. 153-154. On the role of slave-farming among the Fulbe of Massina after the jihad, see W.A. Brown, 'The Caliphate of Hamdullahi, c. 1818—18,64," Ph.D. Dissertation, University of WisconsinMadison 1969, pp. 22, 79, 134, 136. J. Bazin, 'Guerre et servitude a Segou,' in C. Meillassoux (ed.), L'Esclavage en Afriqtue Precoloniale, Paris 1965, pp. 155-158.

Introductory

Essay

5

The abolition of slavery disrupted the way of life of such Muslim communities that depended on slave-farming, like the Jakhanke. These Muslims were forced to begin tilling the land themselves. So important was slavery for these communities that 'the repossession of slaves was invoked as the shibboleth of a populist cause' by the wall of Goumba. 1 5 Humphrey Fisher suggests that the elimination of slavery destroyed the economic foundation of rural scholarship, and might have contributed to the shift of modern reforming energies from the countryside to the city. 16 Labor for farming was also important among the clerical clans in the oases of the Sahara. But there serfs (haratin) and slaves could be replaced or supplemented by clients and students (talamidh). The latter also served as agents of their masters in trade. 17 During the workshop's discussions it has been suggested that clerical estates in the Senegambia seem to represent an adaptation of the Saharan pattern to the conditions of a peasant society. Clerics among the Wolof employed slaves to some extent but they depended more on their disciples with whom they had patron-client relations. 18 That slaves and disciples were considered alternative sources for labor is seen in the case of the Jakhanke, where at the end of his school term a student was redeemed by his parents from his teacher in exchange for a slave or the price of o n e . " Muslim Education: Urban and Rural Enough has been said so far about a tradition of rural scholarship in West Africa to challenge the received wisdom that Islamic learning was an exclusive urban phenomenon. One may observe, however, different levels of learning. The most advanced institutions developed in commercial towns, like Timbuktu, that could support a large number of scholars — both teachers and students. Also, scholars in a large commercial community were in communication with other centers of Islamic learning in West Africa and north of the Sahara. Outside such

15 16 17 18 19

See L. Sanneh's article, below, p. 81. On m o d e r n reformism as an urban phenomenon see below. H u m p h r e y Fisher suggested it in his comments on a draft of this introductory essay. See A n n McDougall's article, below, pp. 53-54. See L. Colvin's article below, pp. 59-60. Sanneh, The Jakhanke, p. 160. H u m p h r e y Fisher suggested, in this context, that the rurally based cleric had an advantage over the city-dweller, for there were fewer opportunities in the town t o make use of students' time and labor. See also a recent study by M. §aul, 'The Quranic School F a r m and Child Labour in Upper Volta,' Africa 54 (1984): 71-86.

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towns Muslim education ranged from imparting rudimentary literacy to training for the performance of clerical services. It is important to stress the lines of communications within a network of Islamic learning. From the centers of higher learning this network extended to the remotest rural Muslim. Students came from the countryside to study in the town, whereas clerics from the town settled in the chiefs' courts away from the commercial towns or established outlying schools. In the fourteenth and fifteenth century, before Timbuktu rose to prominence as a center for trade and Islam, Kabora on the Niger was an important center of Islamic learning. Modibo M u h a m m a d al-Kaborl migrated to Timbuktu sometime in the first half of the fifteenth century, and was the teacher of members of the Aqit family and other Sanhaja scholars who were later responsible for making Timbuktu a center of learning equal to those north of the Sahara. 2 0 Timbuktu then overshadowed all other centers of learning in the Western Sudan, including Kabora, which remained a provincial center of learning. An anecdote tells about a scholar from Kabora, in the first half of the sixteenth century, who taught at Jonjo (another Muslim town on the Niger). One day he was impressed by the comments of one of his students, who had studied in Timbuktu. Having heard the words of wisdom brought from Timbuktu by his student, the scholar exclaimed: T am wasting my time here.' He himself left for Timbuktu. About the same time the two Baghayughu brothers moved from Jenne to Timbuktu, where they became prominent scholars. 21 Scholarship in Timbuktu, in contact with North Africa and Egypt, was of a very wide scope that included many disciplines of the Islamic sciences, like fiqh (jurisprudence), hadith (Prophetic traditions), tasawwuf (mysticism), balagha (rhetorics), nahw (syntax), and tawhid (theology). In each of these disciplines different works were studied, with scholars who became known as specialists in one discipline or the other. As in a modern institution of higher learning students in Timbuktu studied the different sciences with different teachers. Such a cosmopolitan urban milieu differed from the more parochial environment of such Muslim communities like the Jakhanke of the Senegambia and the Dyula trading diaspora. Jakhanke and Dyula followed the scholarly tradition of al-hajj Salim Suware that was based on the study of three textbooks — al-Muwatta', Tafstr al-Jalalayn and al-Shifa' (a corpus of law and traditions, a qur'anic

20 21

al-Sa'di, Ta'rikh al-Sudan, text pp. 47-48; trans, pp. 78-79. Ibid., text p. 61; trans, p. 99 (on the scholar from Jonjo); ibid., text pp. 19, 45; trans, pp. 33, 74 (on the Baghayughu).

Introductory

Essay

1

exegesis and an ethical work). Those students who pursued more advanced studies did so by reading basic manuals of the Malik! school of law. Only few continued with the study of the two principal collections of hadith,22 Compared to Timbuktu the curriculum was rather limited and students were often attached to one teacher. Hence, silsilas (chains of transmission) among the Dyula were lineal as shown in the analysis of the isnads by Ivor Wilks, whereas the lines of transmission in Timbuktu branched off and crossed each other in complex patterns. 23 Though not as refined and sophisticated as scholarship in Timbuktu, clerics and scholars of the Dyula, Jakhanke and other communities in the Savannah were responsible not only for the spread of Islam among non-Muslims but also for maintaining a level of Islamic conformity and for the prevention of backsliding. 24 But their most important role, everywhere and everyday, was the teaching of the young generation. Almost all Muslim children visited qur'anic schools and many of them acquired the rudiments of literacy. In a pre-literate society even restricted literacy asserted the supremacy of Muslims, individually and collectively. Literacy was a major asset in performing magico-religious(the production of amulets) and administrative (correspondence) functions. 2 5 Literacy seems to have been more widespread in the rural Muslim communities of West Africa than in the rural communities of the central lands of Islam where Muslims formed the total population. Boubacar Barry goes even farther when he says that in the nineteenth-century literacy was higher in the Wolof villages than in the villages of France. 2 6 In the eighteenth century learning and spiritual leadership departed from Timbuktu to the Sahara, and the Kunta shaykhs exerted religious influence over most parts of Muslim West Africa. Farther east scholarship among the Toronkawa of Hausaland flourished. The Toronkawa were versed in the major Islamic sciences and attained a level of learning similar to that of sixteenthcentury Timbuktu. The writings of the jihad leaders are a testimony to their erudition. The Toronkawa lived in autonomous communities in the countryside that were rural Muslim enclaves. These communities, sometimes referred to as

22 23 24 25 26

I.G. Wilks, 'The Transmission of Islamic Learning in the Western Sudan,' in J.R. Goody (ed.), Literacy in Traditional Societies, Cambridge 1968, pp. 168-169. Ibid., pp. 182-184; E.N. Saad, Social History of Timbuktu, Cambridge 1983, pp. 247-249. Wilks, pp. 188-193. J.R. Goody, 'Restricted Literacy in Northern Ghana,' in idem, Literacy in Traditional Societies, pp. 199-246. Boubacar Barry, Le Royaume du Waalo, Paris 1972, p. 264.

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jama'at, were created by scholars who withdrew with their disciples away from the towns and the centers of power, following an old tradition of Islamic piety. These jama'at, which probably were supported by slave-farming, developed into important centers of learning. In the Senagambia the two main centers for religious instruction in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were at Pir and Koki. Both were relatively isolated; far from the political capital and off the main trade routes. The most illustrious religious leaders of the Senegambia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries studied at Pir and Koki. Some of them became leaders of militant Islamic movements in Futa Toro and among the Wolof. 27 A similar pattern has been observed by Lamin Sanneh in the Futa Jallon: 'rural enclavement accentuates the habit of withdrawal and retreat and allows religious masters to invoke rules of normative practices.' In the second half of the ninetenth century the religious center of Ndama, in the rural district of Labe, developed from a foyer for the diffusion of the teaching of the Shadhiliyya order to a center for the militant movement of the Hubbube. Following the treaty with the French in 1897, which inaugurated the colonial rule in the Futa Jallon, the clerical town of Fugumba declined: A new religious elite that challenged the old Fulbe aristocracy, migrated to villages where they attracted flocks of disciples from among the disenchanted peasant class and former slaves. The calm of the farming cycle covered undercurrents of rural religious militancy of which the wall of G o u m b a became the best known example. 28 From Bornu in the east to the Senegal and Futa Jallon in the west, from the seventeenth to the beginning of the twentieth century, autonomous Muslim communities in the countryside developed from centers of Islamic learning to foci of religious militancy. Such a pattern calls for a reconsideration of the background to the great Islamic revolutions — the jihad movements — of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with an eye on the rural factor. Background to the Islamic Revolutions In the seventeenth century Islam in West Africa suffered a setback as a result of the collapse of the imperial system of the Western Sudan that had been sustained by the successive hegemonies of Mali and Songhay. Muslims lost the patronage of great rulers, like Mansa Musa of Mali and Askiya M u h a m m a d of Songhay,

27 28

See L. Colvin's article, below, p. 62; D. Robinson, 'The Islamic Revolution of Futa Toro,' in International Journal of African Historical Studies 8 (1975): 181-182, 199. See L. Sanneh's article, below, pp. 84—85.

Introductory Essay

9

who had pursued Islamic oriented policies. The disintegration of the empires gave rise to states of smaller scale. Whereas the great medieval empires had derived much of their wealth from the trans-Saharan trade, states of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries depended more on their agricultural resources. But what Islam had lost in intensity it gained in extension. At the age of the great empires Islam was mainly an urban phenomenon, restricted to scholars, clerics, merchants and royalty. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Islam made inroads into the countryside and won adherents among peasants and fishermen, who had hardly been influenced by Islam before. In Timbuktu, Jenne and other urban centers Muslim scholars were spokesmen for the mercantile community. With the spread of Islam to the rural countryside Muslim leaders began to articulate the grievances of the peasants, couched in religious terms. Preaching among the peasants contributed to the radicalization of Islam. Ca. 1675 the emissaries of Nasir al-DTn preached in the villages of Futa Toro against the tyranny of the rulers. A century later Tukulor clerics appealed to the Wolof against their rulers. In Hausaland, it was the growth of Islam in the countryside that made it possible to support a body of itinerant scholars and preachers. The preaching tours of 'Uthman dan Fodio increased the number of his supporters and generated the fear and hostility of the King of Gobir. 29 He criticized the Hausa rulers for killing, exiling, and violating the honor and devouring the wealth of their subjects in pursuit of their lust and declared that 'to make war upon the oppressor is obligatory by assent.' 30 29

Humphrey Fisher (in his article, below, pp. 162-163) considers th ehijra o f ' U t h m a n dan Fodio from Degel to G u d u as the separation of the reformer from the urban court of Gobir, with which according to this view he had been closely associated. Indeed, according to H a u s a traditions ' U t h m a n d a n Fodio was the tutor of Yunfa, a prince of Gobir. It is also said that ' U t h m a n helped this prince to become the king of Gobir. Murray Last (The Sokoto Caliphate, London 1967, p. 12), presenting the T o r o n k a w a ' s view, suggests that Yunfa came to study with ' U t h m a n dan Fodio at Degel, the countryside residence of the shaykh. It seems therefore that ' U t h m a n was not completely detached f r o m the court of G o b i r , but whatever dealings he had with the rulers were carried on f r o m a distance. 'Abdallah dan Fodio wrote of his brother that he never went to the kings. He made his appearance at the court of G o b i r only after he had a large following and could deal with the ruler f r o m a position of strength. Even then he refused to accept presents f r o m the king as did most of the 'ulamd'. ' U t h m a n presented instead his own program of reforms ('Abdallah b. FudI, Tazyin al-waraqat, ed. and trans, by M. Hiskett, Ibadan 1963, text pp. 27, 30; trans, pp. 86,88-89). Shaykh A h m a d of Massina, before his jihad, lived in a campsite in the vicinity of J e n n e , where he did some studying and teaching, but refrained f r o m taking residence in the town of Jenne itself (Brown, p. 118).

30

'Abdallah b. FudI, Tazyin al-waraqat, text pp. 27, 39; trans, pp. 86, 98; ' U t h m a n b. Ffldl.XYfaft al-farq, ed. and trans, by M. Hiskett in Bulletin SOAS 13 (1960): 567-568; ' U t h m a n b. FudI, Wathiqat ah! al-Sudan, ed. and trans, by A. D. H. Bivar, Journal of African History 2 (1961): 241;

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Shaykh Ahmad of Massina appealed to slave and caste clans of occupational groups and took his stand against a coalition of Fulbe and Bambara in the Sebere province because of the number of his partisans in a province that was most heavily populated by slaves and members of the lower occupational groups. 3 1 It is significant that all of the jihad leaders came from the countryside and not from commercial towns or from political centers of authority. The challenge to the marginal role of Islam in African states could not have come from those who were committed to the existing political order, viz., neither from the traders whose commercial interests needed the security provided by the African states nor from the clerics who rendered religious services in chiefly courts. Moreover, leaders of the Islamic revolutions met the opposition of the old established urban Muslim communities. Yandoto, the town of the 'ulama' in Hausaland, had to be conquered by force during the jihad. Also the 'ulama' and the leading merchants of Dia, Jenne and Timbuktu were hostile to Shaykh A h m a d of Massina. These towns, on the middle Niger, attempted secessions to avoid the restrictions imposed on their trade practices, and were harshly repressed. 32 On several accounts (the appearance of militant Islam as early as the eleventh century or the role of marabouts and its contemporary political implications) Senegambia was an exception to the general patterns of West African Islam. One may explain this, at least partially, by continuous and intensive contacts that existed with the nomads of the south-western Sahara. Also, as Lucie Colvin says, 'Senegambian Islam was more rurally oriented than the Niger and the Central Sudan areas.' 33 After a very promising start in the eleventh and twelfth centuries — when the city-states of Takrur and Silla flourished on the lower Senegal — there were no urban centers of any importance. Marabouts in Futa Toro and among the Wolof lived close to the peasants, and established patron-client relations with some of them. In these regions Islam permeated the countryside much earlier than farther east. It has been suggested during the workshop's discussions that there might have been a special Senegambian pattern of clerics communicating directly with the peasants, whereas farther east, we have already observed, the influence of the Muslims was mediated through the chiefly courts.

31 32 33

M u h a m m a d Bello, Usui al-siyasa, ed. and trans, by B.G. Martin, in Aspects of West African Islam, Boston 1971, p. 81. Brown, pp. 116, 125. Victor Azarya, 'State and Economic Enterprise in Massina,' Asian and African Studies 13 (1979): 171. See L. Colvin's article, below, p. 61.

Introductory Essay T h i s g o e s s o m e way to e x p l a i n w h y the jihâdmovements

11

o c c u r r e d in t h a t a r e a as

early a s the e n d of the s e v e n t e e n t h c e n t u r y . N â s i r a l - D l n ' s emissaries p r e a c h e d a m o n g peasants that had already been Muslims and those who responded b e c a m e k n o w n as toubenan,

'repentants.'34

In F u t a T o r o the T o r o d b e , the clerical clans, were a n integral p a r t of the p e a s a n t society. L e a r n i n g was a t a l o w e r level c o m p a r e d with t h a t of the T o r o n k a w a in H a u s a l a n d . In M a s s i n a the clerics were p a r t of the p a s t o r a l i s t society. S h a y k h A h m a d himself was a h e r d e r a n d his e d u c a t i o n was r a t h e r limited. M o s t of the clerics a r o u n d h i m were n o t d i s t i n g u i s h e d f o r e r u d i t i o n . S u c h a r e f o r m m o v e m e n t , o n a n u n s o p h i s t i c a t e d r u r a l basis, b r e d f o r m a l rigidity ( a n d o n e is r e m i n d e d of a similar p a t t e r n in t h e c a s e of the A l m o r a v i d s ) . 3 5 T h e rigidity a n d p a r o c h i a l i s m of the F u l b e of S h a y k h A h m a d d r e w criticism f r o m the m o r e l e a r n e d a n d s o p h i s t i c a t e d K u n t a a n d the leaders of the S o k o t o C a l i p h a t e . 3 6 I n d e e d this criticism h a d also t o d o with the a n t i - c o m m e r c i a l policy of the p o s t jihâd

s t a t e in M a s s i n a t h a t in its t u r n goes b a c k to the c u l t u r a l a t t i t u d e s of the

F u l b e clerics, as o b s e r v e d by Victor A z a r y a : The elite who carried out the jihâd in Massina and thereafter dominated its center emerged from a cultural background which was distant from, if not hostile to, the commercial world; their traditions considered commercial activities despicable, dangerous and even immoral."

W h e r e a s in the F u t a T o r o a n d M a s s i n a the leaders of the jihâds

h a d been

e m b e d d e d in the r u r a l o r p a s t o r a l i s t societies, in H a u s a l a n d the T o r o n k a w a b e c a m e m o r e clearly d i f f e r e n t i a t e d f r o m the F u l b e p a s t o r a l i s t s . T h e T o r o n k a w a e x p e r i e n c e d a p r o c e s s of a c c u l t u r a t i o n t h r o u g h their e x p o s u r e to l e a r n i n g a n d a s e d e n t a r y way of life. T h o u g h t h e y lived in jamâ'ât, enclaves, they were c u l t u r a l l y the m o s t u r b a n of the jihddists.

Islamic as r u r a l

Yet as F u l f u l d e

s p e a k e r s they a d h e r e d to their F u l b e ethnic identity, w h i c h served t h e m in f o r g i n g a n alliance with the F u l b e p a s t o r a l i s t s . T h e y c o u l d t h u s h a v e c o n f o r m e d

34

35

36 37

C.I. A. Ritchie, 'Deux textes sur le Sénégal (1673-1677),' Bulletin de 11FAN30(1968): 338-353; Lucie Colvin, 'Islam and the State of Kajoor: a Case of Successful Resistance to Jihad, 'Journal of African History 15 (1974): 596-597. Brown, pp. 108, 116-117. On the Almoravids, see N. Levtzion, "Abdallah b. Yâsîn and the Almoravids,' in J.R. Willis (ed.), Studies in West African Islamic History, vol. 1, London 1979, pp. 85-88. C.C. Stewart, 'Frontier Disputes and Problems of Legitimation: Sokoto-Masina Relations m i - m i : Journal of African History 17 (1976): 497-514; Brown, pp. 104, 119, 130. Azarya, p. 167; see also Brown, pp. 50, 55, 61-62; Marion Johnson, 'The Economic Foundations of an Islamic Theocracy: the Case of Macina,' Journal of African History 17 (1976): 481-496.

12

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to a pattern, common not only to other jihäd movements in West Africa but to many Islamic revolutions. As in the case of the Almoravids, the Wahhäbiyya and the Sanüsiyya scholars offered ideological and organizational leadership to mobilize culturally related tribal pastoralists. Lamin Sanneh winds up his contribution to the present volume with remarks made by Ibn Khaldün that religion is a noble calling whose ends are opposed to those of commerce and urban living and that 'countrymen are morally superior to townsmen.' 3 8 Ibn Khaldün's people of the countryside are mostly tribal pastoralists to whom he assigned an important role in the cyclical rhythm of the rise and fall of states and civilizations. Ernst Gellner developed this theme further in stressing the interaction and interdependence of nomad societies and towns in Islam. 39 Though the countryside was the breeding ground for Islamic revolutionary movements, the town remained — as claimed by historians (cited in the first section of this essay) — the locus for the consolidation of formally organized Islamic institutions. It is significant that when successful the jihädists in West Africa established new towns as centers for government and Islam; Sokoto in Hausaland, Timbo and Fugumba in Futa Jallon. Even Shaykh Ahmad of Massina, earlier presented as the leader of a rural oriented movement, ordered the foundation of a new town, Hamdullahi. Only in the case of Futa Toro did a successful jihäd not bring about the creation of a new urban center as a capital. Each of the almamys of Futa Toro ruled from his own village. They failed to establish a central authority, necessary to implement reforms. The jihäd soon lost its dynamism and for al-häjj 'Umar Futa Toro represented an incomplete revolution. 40 The Role of SüfT Brotherhoods in Towns and in the Countryside Considering the dominant role of süß brotherhoods in contemporary West Africa it is surprising that there is no evidence of süfT brotherhoods in West Africa before the eighteenth century. SüfT ideas and practices (mysticism, ascetism, baraka and miracles attributed to saints) were current in Timbuktu and in Hausaland. 4 1 But those brotherhoods that existed at the time in North Africa did not spread to the Western Sudan. According to traditional accounts

38 39 40 41

See L. Sanneh's paper, below, pp. 93-94. E. Gellner. Muslim Society, Cambridge 1981, pp. 22, 29. D. Robinson, Chiefs and Clerics, Oxford 1975, p. 20. M. Hiskett, The Sword of Truth, New York 1973, p. 60; N. Levtzion in The Cambridge of Africa, vol. 4, Cambridge 1977, pp. 419-420.

History

Introductory

Essay

13

the Qadiriyya came into the Sahara at the end of the fifteenth or the beginning of the sixteenth century. Berber marabouts and Tuareg Inselmen are known to have been affiliated to the Qadiriyya. But the tariqa (brotherhood) was very loosely organized and seems to have left little impression on the religious life of the Sahara. The resurgence of the Qadiriyya in the Sahara was associated with SldT a!-Makhtar al-Kuntl, who skillfully employed his religious prestige to acquire wealth and political influence. Individuals, families and tribal factions sought his patronage and became his talamidh, clients or disciples. Sldi al-Mukhtar reinforced their dependency by fostering the spiritual chains of his own branch of the tariqa, to be known as Qadiriyya-Mukhtariyya, and emphasized discipline and loyalty to him as the shaykh of the tariqa.*2 In the segmentary society of the Sahara, free of the constraints of state structures, SldT al-Mukhtar succeeded in building an effective organizational framework that served religious, political and economic (mainly commercial) objectives. He achieved a position of hegemony and reformed Islam without recourse to political militancy. SldT al-Mukhtar criticized the Wahhabls who at that time extended their influence over Arabia. SldT al-Mukhtar opposed military jihad. His son and grandsons depended on his authority when they opposed two successive jihad movements, that of Shaykh A h m a d of Massina and that of al-hajj ' U m a r al-Tjanl. 43 Both movements threatened the religious authority as well as the commercial and political interests of the Kunta. Perhaps the non-militant nature of the Kunta was influenced by their vested interests in trade. 44 The Kunta's successor in the leadership of the Qadiriyya in the southern Sahara was Shaykh Sidiyya (1778-1868). In exerting his religious influence and in the foundation of a cadre of talamidh, he followed the pattern laid down by Sldr al-Mukhtar al-Kuntl. The talamidh, a socioeconomic supra-tribal body, provided the h u m a n resources for the economic activities that included farming 42

43

44

A. A. Batran, "The Kunta, Sid! al-Mukhtar al-Kunti and the office of Shaykh al-Tariqa alQaddiryya,' in J.R. Willis (ed.), Studies, vol. 1, pp. 113-146; C.C. Stewart, Islam and Social Order in Mauritania, Oxford 1973, pp. 36-41; see also Ann McDougall's article below. A. Zebadia, ' l h e Career and Correspondence of Ahmad al-Bakkay of Timbuktu from 1847 to 1866,' Ph.D. Dissertation, University of London 1974; B.G. Martin, Muslim Brotherhoods in Nineteenth Century Africa. Cambridge 1976, pp. 9 3 - 9 4 . Ann McDougall, 'The Ijil Salt Industry: its Role in the Precolonial Economy of the Western Sudan,' Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Birmingham 1980, pp. 227-231. The Caliphate of Hamdullahi in Massina prohibited the trade in tobacco on religious grounds. The Kunta who traded in tobacco ruled that the consumption of tobacco was permitted. Commercial considerations undoubtedly influenced religious attitudes.

14

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Levtzion

on the left bank of the Senegal river, the herding of livestock, and the organization of salt caravans and gum marketing, i.e., the combination of agriculture, pastoralism and trade. Shaykh Sidiyya acted as mediator and kingmaker in the troubled politics of the Hasan in southern Mauritania by converting his charisma and economic power to political influence. 45 Shaykh Ahmad of Massina was initiated into the Qadiriyya by a local master in Massina, not directly by the Kunta. The autonomous community that came into existence outside Jenne was initially made up of devotees of the QadirT brotherhood. Informants in Massina referred to the posl-jihad state of Shaykh Ahmad as a sufTyya, i.e., a sub-brotherhood within the Qadiriyya. Ca. 1838 alhajj 'Umar discovered that the male adults in Hamdullahi were members of the Qadiriyya, tracing their initiation chains back to Shaykh Ahmad. The brotherhood was thus used by Shaykh Ahmad as an organizational framework as SldT al-Mukhtar had done earlier and al-hájj ' U m a r did later. 46 As a süfibrotherhood the Muridiyya (Mourides) of Senegal is an offshoot of the Qadiriyya that had been introduced from across the Senegal river by Moorish marabouts. The Muridiyya represents a case of rural brotherhood, non-intellectual, advocating total dependence of the muridon his marabout. The religious ideology of the Muridiyya elevated farming to an act of piety in the service of God. The dara, the collective farm, was a development of an older institution of the same name. Dara originally designated a place of religious education, where the disciples spent part of the time working in the field of their teacher. Among the Murfds the division of time between study and work changed drastically in favor of the latter. The marabouts, leaders of the Muridiyya, converted religious charisma to economic power and to political influence. This rural brotherhood faced the challenge of large-scale migration from the villages to the towns. In the process of adjustment to urban life the rural daras, collective work groups, were reorganized as urban da'iras, associations of brothers. Though vertical ties of clientage became somewhat looser, horizontal bonds of solidarity survived not only in Dakar but also in Paris. 47 The Muridiyya gained adherents almost exclusively among the Wolof, a n d components of Wolof culture and social organization were important in shaping the development of the brotherhood. But even among the Wolof the Muridiyya

45 46 47

Stewart, pp. 112-131. Brown, p. 118. D. Cruise O'Brien, The Mourides of Senegal. Oxford 1971; idem, Saints and Cambridge 1975; J. C o p a n s , Les marabouts de 1'arachide, Paris 1982.

Politicians.

Introductory

Essay

15

faced the rivalry of the Tijaniyya brotherhood. Some Tijanf leaders among the Wolof developed patron-client relations with their disciples that were similar to the pattern evolved in the Murldyya. But other branches of the Tijaniyya remained faithful to the radical orientation of the brotherhood and had a wider appeal. During the early colonial period the Tijaniyya spread to the railroad towns, 'where trade wealth was beginning to rival the old rural wealth in land and slaves... During the colonial period, when the towns became a refuge for low status persons, escaping rural masters, the Tijaniyya recruited freely.' 48 The Tijaniyya in Senegal is split into several branches. The one led by the family of Malik ST, like the Muridiyya, was a particularistic 'wolofized' brotherhood. Only one TijanT leader in Senegal, Ibrahim Niass (1900-1975), gained international fame. His branch of the Tijaniyya is the most widespread in West Africa, and is referred to as 'Reformed Tijaniyya' because of the emphasis on the teaching of Arabic and Islamic sciences as well as its pan-Islamic orientation. Though it has adherents in Muslim communities of the West African countryside, the 'Reformed Tijaniyya' is very much an urban brotherhood. It played an important role in the politics of Kano, the largest Muslim city in Africa south of the Sahara. There the Tijaniyya challenged the Qadiriyya that had been entrenched as the established brotherhood of the Sokoto Caliphate and of the Fulani aristocracy. The Tijaniyya appealed to the Hausa scholars as well as to young Fulani radicals and became also identified with the city of Kano in its opposition to Sokoto, the seat of the Caliphate. F o r some time, in the 1950s and 1960s, the Qadiriyya served the conservative elements in Northern Nigeria to defend the prevailing system whereas the Tijaniyya was identified with radicals who challenged it; brotherhoods were drawn into party politics. 49 In Northern Nigeria the influence of the brotherhoods was contained by authoritarian government. But when the Tijaniyya was carried down to the south by Hausa immigrants, the brotherhood served as an integrative force in the immigrant urban community. As the authority of the headmen declined among the Hausa migrants in Ibadan, leaders of the Tijaniyya came to dominate the community. They were not only teachers and expounders of the sharVa, but also the sole mediators between laymen and God. Through the mystical hierarchy of the Tijaniyya power concentrated in the hands of the 'big mallams?

48 49

See L. Colvin's article, below. J. Paden, Religion and Political Culture in Kano, Berkeley 1973.

16

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who acquired great influence over the merchants, the backbone of the Hausa community in Ibadan. 5 0 The Tijàniyya among the urban Hausa in Ibadan and the MurTdiyya among the rural Wolof in Senegal are two examples for the role of mallams and marabouts that through the brotherhoods offered alternative leadership and helped in the adjustment to changing political, economic and social conditions. Modern Reformism: An Urban Phenomenon In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as we have seen, reform movements had their origins in the countryside. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in a desperate attempt to stop the invading colonial powers, or to overthrow the newly imposed colonial administration, several mahdfs appeared in different parts of West Africa. All mahdist movements rose in the countryside, away from the seats of power, both traditional African and colonial European. An example of such movement, though not overtly mahdist, was that of the wall of Goumba. 5 1 It was a rural movement in reaction not only to French colonialism, but also to the failure of the old urban aristocracy, both political (Timbo) and religious ( Fugumba). These primary Muslim resistance movements had parallels in armed uprisings in other parts of Africa in which religion (traditional African or Christianity) played inspirational and integrative roles. 52 All those revolts were suppressed by the colonial governments that 'pacified' the African countryside. After the First World War African politics shifted from the villages to the towns and the newly educated elite gradually took over leadership from the traditional chiefs. A similar process may be observed in West African Islam, with the development of modern reform movements that were clearly an urban phenomenon. These movements, which the French misnamed Wahhâbiyya, were influenced by the Salafiyya movements in Egypt and the Maghrib. In both regions these were urban movements that criticized and sought to eradicate popular Islam, so closely associated with rural and tribal societies. 53 Like their 50 51

A. C o h e n , Custom and Politics in Urban Africa, L o n d o n 1969, pp. 141-160. 183-187. See L. Sanneh's article below, pp. 72-73. On other mahdist movements in West Africa, see T. H o d g k i n , 'Mahdisme, messianisme et marxisme dans le contexte a f r i c a i n P r é s e n c e Africaine, 74(1970): 136-141; A. Le Grip, 'Le mahdisme en Afrique noire,' L'Afrique et l'Asie 18(1952): 3-16.

52

T.O. Ranger a n d I. K i m a m b o (eds.), The Historical Study of African Religion, L o n d o n 1972, pp. 18-20. A. M e r a d , Le Réformisme musulman en Algérie de 1925 à 1940, Paris 1967; C.C. Adams, Islam and Modernism in Egypt, London 1932; on the limited potential for the activity of the Muslim

53

Introductory

Essay

17

SalafT mentors the reformists in West Africa called for the purification of Islam and for greater adherence to the sharTa. They believed that this could be achieved through education and opened new schools where modern teaching techniques were employed in the instruction of the Arabic language and of Islam. The center of the 'Wahhâbiyya' was in the town of Bamako in Mali and its ramifications in the Dyula trading diaspora in Mali, Guinea, Upper Volta and the Ivory Coast. 54 As shown by Robert Launay the 'Wahhâbiyya' won adherents mainly from the wealthier merchants, which made it suspiciously the creed of a class that sought to preserve its privileged status. 55 The 'Wahhâbi' reformists came into conflict with the established religious leadership. The conflict between modern urban reformists and the rural marabouts was of greater political significance in Senegal. There the stakes were higher because of the economic power and the political influence of the marabouts. In the 1950s the hold of the marabouts over their adherents had still been firm. But the acceleration of urbanization and the growing influence of the reformists threatened the position of the marabouts. The latter responded by adjusting their own institutions, initiating a process of controlled and restricted reform, mainly in the field of education. The power of the rural marabouts is being gradually eroded also by greater intervention of the state. State technocrats seek to weaken the marabouts as political and economic brokers between the state and the rural population. 5 6 The Ahmadiyya movement, originating in India, has been represented in West Africa s;nce the time of the First World War. Its adherents view it as a reform movement within Islam, whereas the non-Ahmadi Muslims emphasize the doctrinal divergences of the Ahmadiyya from orthodox Islam. The Ahmadiyya in West Africa has conformed very closely to the urban pattern of reformism. This is well illustrated in May Yacoob's contribution to the present volume on the role of the Ahmadiyya in easing the integration of rural women to urban life in Abidjan. 5 7 May Yacoob observed that some of the men who joined

54 55 56

57

Brothers in rural Egypt, see Uri M. Kupferschmidt, 'The Muslim Brothers and the Egyptian village,' Asian and African Studies 16 (1982): 157-170. L. Kaba, The Wahhabiyya: Islamic Reform and Politics in West Africa, Evanston 1974. R. Launay, Traders Without Trade: Responses to Change in Two Dyula Communities. Cambridge 1982. D. Cruise O'Brien on Senegalese Islam, West Africa (London) 5, 12, 19 July 1982; C. Coulon, 'Les m a r a b o u t s sénégalais et l'état,' Revue Française d'Etudes Politiques Africaines 14 (Février 1979): 15-42. See May Yacoob's article, below, pp. 132-134. On the Ahmadiyya in the rest of West Africa see H . J . Fisher, Ahmadiyyah: A Study in Contemporary Islam on the West African Coast, London 1963.

18

Nehemia Levtzion

the A h m a d i y y a in A b i d j a n h a d been affiliated to the ' W a h h â b i y y a ' before they came s o u t h . T h e ' W a h h â b i y y a ' has been identified a b o v e as an u r b a n reform m o v e m e n t . Also, the ' W a h h à b i s , ' like the A h m a d i s , are distinguished f r o m o t h e r Muslims by praying with their h a n d s crossed, and it has been suggested in the w o r k s h o p ' s discussions t h a t the controversy a b o u t this f o r m of p r a y i n g was so bitter t h a t s o m e W a h h à b i s considered themselves closer to the A h m a d i s t h a n t o o t h e r fellow Muslims. U r b a n i z a t i o n , an i m p o r t a n t factor of social upheaval in West Africa, accelerated the process of islamization. Muslim communities in towns of the coast a n d the forest in L a g o s a n d I b a d a n , Accra a n d Kumasi, A b i d j a n and B o u a k e , integrated rural migrants f r o m the n o r t h e r n zones of the S a v a n n a h and helped their a d j u s t m e n t to u r b a n conditions. Even n o r t h e r n e r s w h o had not been influenced by Islam in their h o m e villages f o u n d it a d v a n t a g e o u s to become M u s l i m s u p o n arrival in the town. These Muslim communities built their solidarity vis-à-vis the local p o p u l a t i o n of the south f o r whom the people f r o m the n o r t h remained aliens even after two or three generations of residence. 5 8 In the Muslim t o w n s of the Savannah politics had been influenced by conflicts between reformists a n d conservatives; ' W a h h à b i y a ' in B a m a k o and ' R e f o r m e d Tijâniyya' in K a n o . U r b a n Islam, however, has recently been shaken by e r u p t i o n s of violence of extremist Islamic movements, like the one led by Mai Tatsini in K a n o in 1980 a n d its ramifications in o t h e r towns, like M a i d a g u r i a n d K a d u n a , in subsequent years. The principal instigators of the riots were migrants f r o m outside Nigeria, and they recruited their followers f r o m a m o n g those w h o h a d not been integrated socially, economically and politically into the old established u r b a n communities. These marginal u r b a n g r o u p s were more vulnerable to the unsettling effects of the cycle of b o o m and slump in the oil e c o n o m y of Nigeria. 5 9 It was not accidental t h a t the K a n o riots occurred a year or so after the Islamic revolution in Iran. U r b a n Islam in Africa had by then generated e n o u g h tensions to reverberate. Such o u t b u r s t s , however, alarmed the political a n d religious 58

59

J. Rouch, 'Migration au G h a n a , ' Journal de la Société des Africanistes 26 (1956): 33-126; B.T. Grindal, 'Islamic Affiliation and Urban Adaptation: the Sissala Migrants in Accra,' Africa 43 (1973): 333-346; E. Schildkrout, People of the Zongo: Transformation of Ethnic Identities in Ghana, Cambridge 1978; E.G. Parrinder, Religion in an African City, London 1953; A. Cohen, Custom and Politics in Urban Africa, London 1969. Three studies on the Mai Tatsini movement in Northern Nigeria were presented at a conference at the University of Illinois at Urbana (April 1984) by Paul Lubeck. J o h n Lavers and Allan Christelow. See also A. Christelow, 'The Yan Tatsine Disturbances in Kano — A Search for Perspective,' The Muslim World 75 (1985): 69-84.

Introductory Essay

19

leadership, even the more reformist minded. Measures have been adopted to restore stability even at the price of greater state control over religious activities. Conclusions We started o u r discourse with the perceived dichotomy in the Muslim world between rural and urban communities. The former is associated with popular beliefs and customs, saint worship and a low level of education. The latter is associated with scholarship and adherence to the sharCa. Though one may prove such a dichotomy by picking up examples from the two extremes, there is in fact more continuity than dichotomy between rural and urban Islam. More so because Islam of the countryside is not only that of peasant societies but also that of pastoralist societies. According to Ibn Khaldun it was the interaction between the pastoralists and the urban society that gave Islamic history much of its dynamics. From its very beginnings to the jihàds of the nineteenth century West African Islam was under the influence of the Sahara. The center of gravity — economic, political and religious — shifted several times between the pastoralist societies of the Southern Sahara and the towns of the Sahel. Significantly a new era in the history of Islam in West Africa began when in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the political and religious initiative was taken over by the Fulbe, pastoralists of the Sahel and the Savannah. But the role of the Fulbe pastoralists can only be understood within the wider context of the extension of West African Islam from the town to the countryside that seems to have taken place in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It was then that slave-farming became an alternative economic basis for Islamic scholarship, whereas earlier Muslim communities had depended almost exclusively on trade. Muslim commercial communities maintained a measure of autonomy vis-àvis the African political authorities. Other Muslim communities, however, became attached to chiefly courts and exchanged religious services for gifts and sustenance. Though communities centered on the market and those centered on the court had different religious orientations — the former universalistic and the latter particularistic — all thrived and prospered within the given social, economic and political order and were not interested in bringing about a radical change. It has been our argument in the present essay that the challenge to the existing order and to the marginal role of Islam in African states and societies, could have come only from Muslim scholars who were free of ties to chiefly courts and who had no vested interests in the economy of the state. Such scholars emerged in the countryside, from the jamd'dt, or rural Muslim enclaves of

20

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Levtzion

scholars and disciples, and from the Fulbe pastoralist societies. The development of rural Islamic scholarship was among the preconditions for the Islamic revolutions. One may also look for the connection between the growing number of Muslim scholars in the countryside and the proliferation of religious works, written and oral, in the vernacular languages, which helped communications with the common people and contributed to the radicalization of Islam. Successful jihâds brought about the emergence of Muslim states through conquest which for the first time created political conditions similar to those that had existed in the central lands of Islam ever since the Muslim conquests. In all cases, except for Futa Toro, towns became centers for government and Islam that radiated their influence to the contryside. The primacy of urban Islam in West Africa, established by the jihads, was maintained and strengthened during the modern period.

NEHEMIA LEVTZION

Merchants vs. Scholars and Clerics in West Africa: Differential and Complementary Roles The close association between trade and Islam, in Africa as in other parts of the world, is well known. Islam spread along trade routes, and the exposure of African societies to long-distance trade initiated series of economic and political changes that prepared the ground for islamization. Commercial towns became centers for Islamic learning, and the trading diasporas in West Africa north of the forest were uniformly Muslim. 'It is not always easy,' says I.M. Lewis, 'to distinguish between the islamizing role of Muslim traders, on the hand, and of teachers and holy men, on the other, since these two activities are often associated in Muslim communities and regularly combined in the same person.' 1 The purpose of this paper is to do just that; to look more closely at the differential roles of Muslim merchants and 'ulama' (scholars and clerics), the two prominent representatives of West African Islam. The Role of Traders in the Spread of Islam Beyond the limits of its military expansion merchants carried Islam into the Euroasian steppes, over the Indian Ocean and across the Sahara. Yet, they were rarely acknowledged in local histories. All accounts of conversion to Islam among the Turks and Mongols of the steppes revolved around the proselytizing activities of stiffs and saints. 2 Conversion myths from Indonesia described the arrival of Muslims by sea, but the Muslims aboard the ships were saints, not

1 2

I.M. Lewis, 'Introduction,' in idem (ed.), Islam in Tropical Africa, New York 1966, p. 20. See, for example, J. Fletcher, ' C o n f r o n t a t i o n between Muslim Missionaries and N o m a d Unbelievers in the Late Sixteenth Century,' Tracta Altaica Denis Sinor, Wiesbaden 1976, pp. 136-174.

21

22

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traders. 1 Similarly, in my own field work in the Volta Basin, traditions about the origin of Muslim groups only rarely mentioned trade as the reason for the migration of their ancestor to that area. He was often described as 'a mallam who used to wander about' or 'a mallam who was on his way to Mecca.' 4 As early as the eleventh century the Muslim who converted the King of Malal, according to al-Bakri's account, was not a trader but a scholar or cleric: 'The King had as his guest a Muslim who used to read the Koran and was acquainted with the sunna.'5 The Wangara in Mali, according to the definition of Ta'rTkh al-Fattash, were merchants, and it was as such that they established their colonies in Hausaland. The commercial role of the Wangara in Hausaland is confirmed by Leo Africanus in the sixteenth century and Barth in the nineteenth. But the Wangarawa of the Kano Chronicle and of the anonymous Asl al-Wangariyyin came from Mali, 'bringing with them the Mohammedan religion.' They were clerics, not traders, and their leaders became religious functionaries. 6 More evidence may be marshaled to show that local historiography played down the role of traders in the process of islamization. There is, however, more than a historiographical bias. Though merchants did open routes and expose isolated societies to external influences, they were not themselves engaged in the propagation of Islam, which was the work of professional men of religion. In other words, merchants served as carriers of Islam rather than as agents of islamization. In every commercial caravan there was at least one cleric, to choose the propitious day for setting out, to make charms and to pray for the success of the adventurous trip. 7 It was mainly through these clerics that Islam left traces along the trade routes. Merchants and their commercial agents were absorbed in their

3 4 5 6

7

R. Jones, 'Ten Conversion Myths from Indonesia,' in N. Levzion (ed.), Conversion to Islam, New York 1979, pp. 133-141. N. Levtzion, Muslims and Chiefs in West Africa, Oxford 1968, p. xxiii. N. Levtzion and J . F . P . H o p k i n s (eds.), Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History, Cambridge 1981, p. 82. Ta'rtkh al-Fattash, ed. and trans by O. H o u d a s a n d M. Delafosse, Paris 1913/14, p. 38, trans, p. 65; Leo Africanus, Description de I'Afrique, trans, by A. Epaulard, Paris 1956, pp. 477-479; H. Barth, Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa, London 1965, vol. l , p . 479; H.A.R. Palmer, 'The Kano Chronicle,' Journal of the Antropological Institute 38 (1908): 70; M. Al-Hajj, 'A Seventeenth-Century Chronicle on the Origins and Missionary Activities of the W a n g a r a w a , ' Kano Studies 1 (1968): 7 - 1 6 . On clerics in a H a u s a caravan, see R.L. Lander, Records Expedition, L o n d o n 1830, pp. 274-275.

of Captain

Clapperton's

Last

Merchants vs. Scholars and Clerics

23

business; many of them, in any case, had only the rudiments of Islamic education. 8 The clerics, having no personal interest in trade, often abandoned the caravan when a local chief asked for their religious services. The cleric would be given a wife, often the chiefs daughter, to establish the nucleus of a Muslim community close to the chiefly court. Other clerics followed the merchants to the newly created commercial centers, where they established schools and rendered religious services to the Muslim community as imams and other functionaries. Merchants seem to have been more directly involved as agents of islamization in bringing other traders into the fold of Islam. Non-Muslims who began trading soon realized that they must convert in order to become partners in a commercial network and to be trusted by creditors. 9 Setting Apart: Merchants and Clerics The distinction between merchants and clerics is made by Muslims and nonMuslims alike. It emerged clearly in my interview (1964) with the Larhalle-Naba, one of the four senior ministers of the Moro-Naba (the Mossi paramount). He insisted that the introduction of Islam into Mossi dated from the reign of Naba Dulugu (in the eighteenth century) with the appointment of the first imâm. But, I argued, there had been Muslims among the Mossi since the days of Naba Kundumie (probably early in the sixteenth century). 'Who were they?' asked the Larhalle-Naha. 'The Yarse,' was my reply (referring to the trading community among the Mossi). He protested: 'Les Yarse font le salam, mais ils ne sont pas des croyants; ils sont commerçants et voyageurs.' The Mossi use the term moré for a Muslim and by that they refer to the clerics, whom the Malinke designate karamoro. The definition of the term 'Yargha' (plural: 'Yarse') in Alexandre's dictionary reflects again the Mossi point of view: 'Fraction du peuple Mosé [Mossi], d'origine Mandé, mais actuellement assimilée au reste des Mosé, dont elle ne se distingue que par ses occupations commerciales plutôt qu'agricoles et sa religion, souvent musulmaneHere the identity of the Yarse as Muslims came last, after their Mande origin and commercial occupation, and even that

8

9 10

P. Lovejoy, 'Long-distance Trade and Islam: The Case of the Nineteenth Century Hausa Kola T r a d e , ' Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 5 (1973): 544; M. A d a m u , The Hausa Factor in West African History, Zaria and Ibadan 1978, p. 16. M. Last, 'Some Aspects of Conversion in H a u s a l a n d , ' in Levtzion, Conversion to Islam, pp. 236-246. P.G. Alexandre, La langue more, D a k a r 1953, vol. 2, p. 465 (italics added).

24

Nehemia Levtzion

with the qualification ' s o u v e n t m u s u l m a n e , ' implying that not all those known as Yarse were necessarily Muslims. In her study of K o n g , in the northwestern Ivory Coast, Kathryn Green is concerned with the distinction between S o n o n g u i (warriors) a n d Dyula, but a m o n g the latter she g r o u p s together 'traders a n d teachers [who] became responsible f o r K o n g ' s r e p u t a t i o n as a center of commercial p o w e r and Islamic s c h o l a r s h i p . " 1 Similarly, f o r Lucy Q u i m b y the Dyula are 'referred to as a class of people w h o were scholars a n d merchants without ambitions to political-military command.'12 Ivor Wilks' study on the transmission of Islamic learning a m o n g the Dyula suggests t h a t scholarship was maintained in certain clerical lineages. But not all m e m b e r s of these lineages attained an a d v a n c e d level of Islamic education, and m a n y were engaged in c o m m e r c e o r in f a r m i n g to provide the economic basis for scholarly achievements. 1 3 At the c o m m u n a l level m e r c h a n t s , clerics a n d scholars were members of the same families. But at the individual level the analysis may be in terms of a c o n t i n u u m . On one end were full-fledged scholars o r clerics, and on the other, full-time m e r c h a n t s . In between many Muslims combined trade with teaching a n d o t h e r clerical f u n c t i o n s . It is unlikely, however, that those w h o did ranked a m o n g the leading scholars a n d clerics o r a m o n g the wealthiest merchants. This is, f o r example, what D o n a l d Wright observed a m o n g the D a r b o Dyula of the Gambia: Some itinerant jula became marabouts, though this seems to have been the case mainly in societies where the penetration of Islam had been minimal, where the less refined asrar (Islamic magical practice) of the part-time jula and part-time marabout would still be marketable. Societies having continuous contact with Muslims had resident marabouts ... It was only the rare D a r b o jula who dabbled, with minimal success, in moriya, and it was just as rare for the successful D a r b o marabout to venture into the sale or trade of anything other than his services or amulets. 1 4

S o m e individuals h a d been engaged as full-time traders f o r part of their life a n d later retired f r o m c o m m e r c e to continue their studies a n d to become full-

11 12 13 14

See Kathryn Green's article, below p. 99. L.G. Quimby, ' T r a n s f o r m a t i o n s of Belief: Islam a m o n g the Dyula of Kongbougou f r o m 1880 to 1970,' Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin 1972. I.G. Wilks, 'The Transmission of Islamic Learning in the Western Sudan,' in J.R. G o o d y (ed.). Literacy in Traditional Societies, London 1968, pp. 170-171. D. Wright, ' D a r b o Jula: The Role of a M a n d i n k a Jula Clan in the Long-distance Trade of the G a m b i a River a n d its Hinterland,' African Economic History 3 (1977): 39.

Merchants v.ç. Scholars and Clerics

25

fledged scholars or clerics. This was the personal story of Muhammad alGharnba, leader of the Muslim community in Kumasi at the beginning of the nineteenth century: 'When I was a young man I worked for the good of my body. I traded on the face of G o d ' s earth, and travelled much ... Now my beard is white, and I cannot travel as before, I am content to seek the good of my soul in a state of future rewards." 5 Clerics or Merchants? Two Views of the Jakhanke The problem as to whether a Muslim group is to be identified as mercantile or clerical may best be illustrated by two studies on the Jakhanke of the Senegambia. Philip Curtin treated the Jakhanke as a trading diaspora whereas Lamin Sanneh considered them a clerical people. Curtin used the hyphenated term merchant-cleric because of what he viewed as the inseparable association of the two roles played by the Jakhanke. Merchants and clerics were the 'serious Muslims,' distinguished from those of other occupations, who were 'incompletely Muslim.' Curtin also emphasized the cleavage between the commercial/clerical and the political/military ('the secular state'). He underlined the advantage of fusing clerical and commercial functions: 'it is worth a trader's while to encourage a reputation for magical powers." 6 European visitors to the Senegal river beyond Futa Toro described the autonomous Muslim towns of Ganjaga as 'the republic of the marabouts." 7 These 'clerical towns' served also as the core area for the Soninke commercial network. They maintained their autonomy vis-à-vis the 'secular state' and promoted the solidarity and interests of merchants and Muslims even beyond their own network and their ethnic boundaries. In the seventeenth century, according to Ta'rikh al-Fattdsh, towns like Timbuktu, Diakhaba and G u n j u r u were autonomous, where 'no one had authority but the qâdîThe Arabic terms hukm and sultan suggest that the qâdfs authority was political as well as moral. In Timbuktu the qâdî could threaten the arrest of those who disobeyed him. 18 Clerics and scholars in these communities combined the prestige of learning and the power of magic with moral and political authority. Though trade 15

J. D u p u i s , Journal of Residence

16

P.D. Curtin, Economic Change in Precolonial Madison 1975, p. 67. J.B. Labat, Nouvelle relation de ¡'Afrique 357-358.

17 18

Ta'rikh

al-Fattdsh,

in Ashanti,

L o n d o n 1824, p. 97. Africa: Senegambia occidentale,

pp. 1 7 9 - 1 8 0 ; trans., pp. 3 1 4 - 3 1 5 .

in the Era of the Slave

Trade,

Paris 1728, vol. 3, pp. 338, 355,

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Levtzion

provided the economic basis, it carried less weight than religion and scholarship. Local historiography, written chronicles and oral traditions play down the role of the traders. Lamin Sanneh, who studied the Jakhanke's traditions, found that they considered commerce marginal; only some of them, who remained 'much closer to the commercial spirit of their Sarakhulle [Soninke] cousins, carried on a tradition of trade.' According to Jakhanke traditions, their ancestor al-hajj Salim Suware appointed one of their clans, the Fofana-Girasi, to carry on trade. Though those engaged in commerce were probably not a minority, they were less central to the ethos of the Jakhanke. During their formative period in Jakhabaon-Bafing, under the guidance of al-hajj Salim Suware, the Jakhanke 'shed some of their distinguishing Sarakhulle traits as they were progressively absorbed into the literary Islamic traditions.' 1 9 Thomas Hunter, who studied the ta'rikhs (histories) of the Jakhanke, held a similar view. 'According to their own ta'rikhs the Jakhanke saw themselves as the cultivators-scholars, often associated with merchant groups but not part of them.' 2 0 Not all the people of Touba (in Futa Jallon) are considered Jakhanke; some accumulated wealth and were not 'true men of religion.' Once again, the peripheral roles assigned to traders in their own society is evident. Notwithstanding the Jakhanke's own perception, European observers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries clearly refer to them as the most important and wealthiest traders on the routes leading to the Gambia. Some of those rich merchants lived in clerical villages on the Gambia. 2 1 On the basis of this evidence Curtin analyzed the dispersion of the Jakhanke in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, from Jakhaba-on-Bafing to Bondu and to the Gambia, as a series of adjustments and responses to changes in trade patterns, caused by the growing importance of commerce with the Europeans. Lamin Sanneh, however, says that 'it would be misleading to see trade and commerce as the factors which mainly motivated the Jakhanke dispersions.' 22 Many of their villages were, in fact, off the main trade routes and sometimes even inaccessible. The Jakhanke themselves claim their migrations were motivated by

19 20 21 22

L. Sanneh, The Jakhanke: The History of an Islamic Clerical People of the Senegambia, London 1979, pp. 7, 19, 27. T.C. Hunter, 'The Jabi ta'rikhs-. Their Significance in West African Islam,' Internationa! Journal of African Historical Studies 9 (1976): 451-453. Curtin, pp. 76, 80, quoting Francisco de Lemos Coelho (1669) and Mungo Park (1795-1797). Sanneh, p. 7.

Merchants vs. Scholars and Clerics

27

a desire to avoid involvement in politics and war. 2 3 Also, migration was one way for tajdid, religious renewal, because settling down in one place for a long period could lead to assimilation of local customs and bring a b o u t the degeneration of Islam. The J a k h a n k e were committed to the triad of clerical life: qira'a (study), filakha (farming) and safar (travel). T h o u g h travel may also be associated with trade, what the J a k h a n k e had in mind was the traveling of teachers as a way of canvassing f o r student recruits. 24 It is, however, farming ( f i l a k h a ) which seems to have held special significance as the economic basis for a clerical tradition and for the development of rural Islamic scholarship. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries slaves were in great supply in the Senegambia, and the J a k h a n k e acquired them through purchase, pious gifts, inheritance and as rewards for clerical services. Slave-farming gave the J a k h a n k e the leisure necessary for scholarly activities. The J a k h a n k e considered farming, which enabled sedentary life, more conducive for studying and teaching than trade. Indeed it was the abolition of slavery during the early colonial period that disrupted their way of life. 25 Lamin Sanneh called J a k h a n k e 'a clerical people.' But, surely, not all the J a k h a n k e were clerics, in the sense that they were primarily engaged in teaching, studying and providing religious services. Only a few did so, while the majority pursued other vocations, mainly farming and trade. Still, they were all identified with the heritage of al-hajj Salim Suware, the model scholar-cleric. T h e allimportant clerical activities of the J a k h a n k e must have had an economic basis. Individual clerics could live on contributions, the sale of c h a r m s and other religious services. But the community a a whole was integrated one way or a n o t h e r with the regional economy, in which trade was i m p o r t a n t . The J a k h a n k e therefore responded to changes in trade patterns, and their dispersion followed these directions, but the clerics themselves were not directly dependent on trade. 2 6 In concluding this discussion it is interesting to see how Curtin and Sanneh, each f r o m his own viewpoint, interpreted Richard J o b s o n ' s account (1620) of

23

Curtin (p. 80) was aware of the traditions that consider this one of the reasons for the

24 25 26

J a k h a n k e ' s migrations. Sanneh, pp. 19, 160. Ibid., pp. 219-236. Hunter, p. 453.

28

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Levlzion

those he called 'Mary-bucks.' Both seem to have accepted that Jobson referred indeed to the Jakhanke (and their principal town Jaye, being Diakhaba). Sanneh thought that Jobson referred not to traders but to mobile teaching communities: 'These Mary-bucks are ... going in whole families together and carrying along their bookes, and manuscripts, and their boyes or younger race with them, whom they teach and instruct in any place they rest, or repose themselves....' 27 For Curtin these were traders armed with magical power: '...They have free recourse through all places, so that howsoever the kings and countries are at warres, and up in armes, the one against the other, yet still the Mary bucke is a privileged person, and may follow his own trade, or course of travelling, without any let or interruption of either side....' 28 It is significant, however, that Jobson singled out one man, from among them, who was clearly a trader: 'The onely and principallest man that maintained the greatest Trade, was that Buckar Sano ... because I am as you are, a Julietto, which signifies a Merchant, that goes from place to place.' 29 Scholars and Merchants in Timbuktu In Timbuktu, as in other Muslim cities, scholars and merchants together were the urban notables. But whereas there are numerous biographical notes on the scholars, little is known about the merchants, because the ta'rikhs of Timbuktu, like other Muslim sources, were concerned with men of religion, not with men of affairs. One has to wait for the European visitors to Timbuktu in the nineteenth century, such as Caillie and Barth, for more information about the merchants of Timbuktu. From the European viewpoint the balance is redressed (as it was in the case of the Jakhanke). Elias Saad even feels that 'the role of the scholars or alfas appears minimal in Horace Miner's study of Timbuktu.' 3 0 The close association of commerce and scholarship goes back to the growth of Timbuktu at the expense of Walata, called BTru by al-Sa'dl: The market had previously been at Biru. Caravans used to come there from all points of the horizon. The pick of scholars, pious and rich men from every tribe and country lived there;

27 28 29 30

R. Jobson, The Golden Trade, London 1932, p. 85; Sanneh, p. 27. Jobson, pp. 105-106; Curtin, p. 67. Jobson, pp. 123-125. E.N. Saad, Social History of Timbuktu: The role of Muslim Scholars and Notables Cambridge 1983, p. 169.

1400-1900,

Merchants vs. Scholars and Clerics

29

people from Egypt, Wajala [Awjila], Fazzan, G h a d a m i s , Tuwat, Dar'a, Taflala [Tafilelt], Fas, Sus, Bltu and other places. Then all these gradually m o v e d to Timbuktu where they were joined by different Sanhaja groups. The prosperity of Timbuktu was the ruin of BIru.31

The migration of the leading merchants from Walata to Timbuktu took place in the second half of the fourteenth and the first half of the fifteenth centuries. 32 According to al-Sa'dl, the scholars followed the merchants. We know of several leading scholars who came from Walata to Timbuktu in the first half of the fifteenth century. A qadT who was appointed toward the end of Mali's rule in Timbuktu (i.e., before 1433), al-faqih al-Hajj, had come from Walata together with his brother al-faqih Ibrahim. 33 Muhammad ibn 'Umar, ancestor of the famous Aqlt family, lived for some time in Walata after he had left Massina and before he moved to Timbuktu sometime between 1433 and 1468, when the city was under the rule of Akillu, the Tuareg chief. 34 In 873/1468, escaping the wrath of Sonni 'All, members of the families of al-Hajj and Aqlt, as well as those of the family of And-Ag-Muhammad, escaped to Walata, or, as Ta'rTkh al-Fattash puts it: 'the people of BTru returned to BIru ... each group ran away to its country of origin.' 35 The people from Egypt, North Africa and the oases of the Northern Sahara, who moved from Walata to Timbuktu, 3 6 were the big merchants who controlled the wholesale trans-Saharan trade. The local people of Walata, the landlords who rented houses for the coming caravans, were Massufa, that is, Sanhaja of the Southern Sahara. 37 The Massufa were also predominant in Timbuktu at that period. 38 Some of the leading scholars of Walata and Timbuktu, such as the Aqlt family, were Massufa as well.39 Timbuktu served as the linchpin of a north-south trade, where the salt and other merchandise from the Sahara and North Africa were exchanged for gold and other products of the Western Sudan. In the middle of the nineteenth century, acording to Barth, many of the buildings in Timbuktu and Kabara, its

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

'Abd al-Rahmän al-Sa'dl, Ta'rìkh al-Südän,ed. and trans b y O . Houdas, Paris 1913/14, p. 21; trans., pp. 3 6 - 3 7 . N. Levtzion, Ancient Ghana and Mali, 2nd ed., New York 1980, pp. 156-160. al-Sa'di, p. 27; trans., pp. 4 5 - 4 6 . Ibid., pp. 3 5 - 3 6 ; trans., p. 58. Ta'rìkh al-Fattäsh, pp. 4 8 - 4 9 ; trans, p. 94; al-Sa'dl, pp. 6 5 - 6 6 ; trans, pp. 106-108. al-Sa'dl, p. 21; trans, p. 37 (quoted above). Ibn Battuta in Levtzion and Hopkins (eds.), Corpus, pp. 2 8 4 - 2 8 6 . Ibid., p. 299. al-Sa'di, p. 38; trans., p. 62.

30

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Levtzion

port on the Nile, served 'as magazines for storing up the merchandise.' 4 0 This was undoubtedly the case in earlier periods as well. Landlords were also brokers in this trade system and Elias Saad extrapolated from that about the possible participation of scholars 'in the commerce of the area without occupying a visibly prominent role as merchants.' 'We are inclined to believe,' he adds, 'that the scholars invested primarily in the ownership of urban property at Timbuktu and Kabara and in the storage of goods.' 4 1 There is no evidence in our sources that scholars were in any way involved in the Saharan trade. Yet this assumption ties in with another one of Saad's — that in Timbuktu there was a correlation between wealth and learning: 'It appeared quite probable that the lesser alfds... were drawn from a more modest stratum of small merchants and craftsmen. Similarly, the middle rank of scholars appears to have been drawn from the comfortable merchant families, but not from among the wealthiest families.' Saad admits that the evidence about this correlation 'was often indirect' and that 'at the lowest levels of the social or status stratum, this was largely a matter of inference.' But he adds that 'it was quite clear that the topmost ranks of scholars were drawn f r o m the wealthiest strata in the city.' 42 A h m a d Bada (d. 1626/27) claimed that some of his kinsmen of the Aqlt family were wealthy, 43 and, indeed, it is told that 'Abdallah, son of the ^fli/fMahmud ibn ' U m a r Aqit, had uncounted wealth, with which he was little concerned because of his absorption in studying and teaching. 44 His brother, the qadial'Aqib, had the means to rebuild the three principal mosques of Timbuktu at his own expense, and wanted no one to share with him in this charitable undertaking. 4 5 Their wealth, however, came not from trade, but mainly from donations by the city's merchants and by the askiya. To honor the birth of M u h a m m a d , the first son of the venerated qadi Mahmud ibn ' U m a r , people donated 1,000 golden mithqals in one night. 46 M u h a m m a d {qadi of Timbuktu, 1548/49-1565) was the elder brother of the above-mentioned 'Abdallah and al'Aqib, who undoubtedly also received generous contributions. Donations by the askiya to scholars were often in the form of slaves for farm

40 41 42 43 44 45 46

Barth, vol. 3, p. 274. Saad, p. 143 (italics added). Ibid., p. 230. A h m a d Baba in Kifayat al-Muhtaj, quoted in Saad p. 136. al-Sa'dl, p. 34; trans., p. 56. Ta'rikh al-Fattash, pp. 212-213; trans., pp. 222-224. al-Sa'dl. p. 34; trans., p. 55.

Merchants vs. Scholars and Clerics

31

cultivation. Askiya Dawud (1549-1582) gave Mahmud Ka'ti, then qadi of Tendirma, a farm with 13 slaves. 47 The same askiya is said to have sent 100 slaves as a gift to the qadi al-'Aqib. 4 8 Among those who were massacred by the Moroccans in 1593 were two haratin (sing, hartan) who belonged to the descendants of Sayyid Mahmud (undoubtedly, the