African civilizations

The Kingdom of Ghana

The region lies just south of the Sahara Desert and is mostly savanna grasslands.
The first outsider to mention Ghana, the kingdom of the Soninke tribe, was an Arab geographer named al-Fazari, writing in the court records of Baghdad in 773. However, the name is confusing for more than one reason. First, the natives called it Wagadu.(9) The king's title was Ghana, and people gradually switched from calling this place "the kingdom of the Ghana" to simply Ghana, much like how the name of a South American king, the Inca, eventually became the name of his people. Second, the kingdom was located on the north bank of the Senegal and Niger Rivers, in what is now southeast Mauritania and southwest Mali, approximately five hundred miles northwest of the modern nation of Ghana.

Read more at:  http://www.ducksters.com/history/afr...ient_ghana.php
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Important archaeological discoveries late in the 1970's have revealed a more complex and much earlier development, well before Ancient Ghana of 300 AD, of early state-like communities and even early cities. Surveys and excavations in this 'Middle Niger' region completed in 1984 at no fewer than forty-three sites of ancient settlement, proved that they belonged to an Iron Age culture developing there since about 250 BC, that the settlements grew into urban centres of natural size and duration'.

Ancient Ghana ruled from around 300 to 1100 CE. The empire first formed when a number of tribes of the Soninke peoples ( who excelled in the use and manufacture of iron had the advantage of superior weapons) were united under their first king, Dinga Cisse. The government of the empire was a feudal government with local kings who paid tribute to the high king, but ruled their lands as they saw fit. Historians say that the use of the horse and camel, along with iron, were important factors in how rulers were able to incorporate small farmers and herders into their empires.

The main source of wealth for the Empire of Ghana was the mining of iron and gold. . The peoples of West Africa had independently developed their own gold mining techniques and began trading with people of other regions of Africa and later Europe as well. Iron was used to produce strong weapons and tools that made the empire strong. Gold was used to trade with other nations for needed resources like livestock, tools, and cloth. They established trade relations with the Muslims of Northern Africa and the Middle East. Long caravans of camels were used to transport goods across the Sahara Desert.

At its heart was Kumbi-Salah which acted as a hive of extensive trade and attracted caravans from a variety of regions. Famed for its gold from the Wangara region, commented upon by the Arab writer Ibn Fazari who called Ghana the land of gold, compered it in size to its northern contemporary Morocco, while salt came to the city from the Sahara. Due to their expertise with iron and other metals, ancient Ghana traded in some of the finest artefacts in the area. Along side cotton, it was also known for its leather work called 'Moroccan Leather' despite the fact that it indeed originated in Ghana.

More wonders came from these African lands as attested too by another Arab geographer Ibn Haukal who commented in amazement on the lucrative trade that flourished in the region. His comments made in 951 CE mentions a cheque produced for the sum of 42,900 golden dinars written for a merchant in the state of Audoghast from a partner in Sidjilmassa in the north! Tales abound of one particular gold nugget weighing 30 pounds! This was truly a land of astonishing wonders and lavished wealth. A far cry from the misconception of the African languishing in barbarity and ignorance!

Ibn Khaldun again makes mention of the lifestyle of the ancient Ghanaians while quoting from a book written in 1067 by Abu Ubaid Al-Bakri. He describes the Muslim quarter which had sprung up to facilitate the trans-Saharan trade with north Africa, containing 12 mosques, buildings of stone and acacia wood, schools and centres of education. It was described further as 'the resort of the learned, of the rich and pious of all nations'.

In 990 CE Audoghast to the north was captured and included into the sprawling Ghanaian Empire. It was a fine addition and boasted a dense population including many from as far away as Spain. Its streets were lined with elegant houses, public buildings and mosques. The surroundings were rich in pastoral lands including sheep and cattle, making meat plentiful. Wheat was found in the market places in abundance imported from the north, honey from the south and a variety of foodstuffs from other regions. Robes of blue and red from Morocco was a popular fashion at the time. All which exchanged hands with payments of gold dust, cowrie shells or salt.

Around 1050 CE, the Empire of Ghana began to come under pressure from the Muslims to the north to convert to Islam. The Kings of Ghana refused and soon came under constant attacks from Northern Africa. At the same time, a group of people called the Susu broke free of Ghana. Over the next few hundred years, Ghana weakened until it eventually became part of the Mali Empire.

Around 1054, the Almoravid rulers came south to conquer the Kingdom of Ghana and convert the people to Islam. The authority of the king eventually diminished, which opened the way for the Kingdom of Mali to begin to gain power. The trade that had begun, however, continued to prosper.

Two important sources that have told historians about the history of the Kingdom of Ghana are the writings of a Spanish Muslim named Al-Bakri and archaeological finds. Archaeologists have worked at excavating a site that many believe to be one of the king's cities of the Kingdom of Ghana, Kumbi Saleh.

Historians used to believe that the Arabs brought civilization to Ghana and the rest of West Africa, but recent discoveries like Jenné-Jeno now tell us that the Arabs merely finished the job, by introducing Islam and the Arabic alphabet. The political evolution, from tribe to city-state to confederation to centralized kingdom, most likely took place in the fifth or sixth century, quite some time before the first trans-Saharan contact.

sources:  http://xenohistorian.faithweb.com/africa/af05.html

http://www.africankingdoms.com/

http://www.ducksters.com/history/afr...ient_ghana.php

http://answersafrica.com/ghana-empire.html

Most of African philosophy seemed to be tied to religion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa...phy#Pre-modern

West Africa[edit]
The most prominent of West Africa's pre-modern philosophical traditions have been identified as that of the Yoruba philosophical tradition and the distinctive worldview that emerges from it over thousands of years of its development, as well as the cosmologies and philosophies of the Akan, Dogon and Dahomey.
Historically the West African and North African philosophical traditions have had a significant impact on Islamic philosophy as a whole as much of the Islamic philosophical tradition was subject to the influence of scholars born or working in the African continent in centres of learning such as Cairo in Egypt and Timbuktu in Mali. Many of these intellectuals and scholars created a philosophical tradition in these cities.

The Kingdom of Mali

Mali first appeared as a tribal kingdom around the ninth century, but until the reign of Sundiata Keita (1230-55), it had always been in Ghana's shadow. By 1300, Mali not only ruled Ghana but also Senegal and Gambia (giving the kingdom an outlet on the Atlantic), Walata, Gao, and Tadmekka. Gao was the home of the Songhay, a tribe we'll be hearing a lot from in the next chapter, and Tadmekka was a source of copper, a commodity so much in demand that foot-long rods of copper were used as currency.

The Kingdom of Mali came to control the gold trade that the Kingdom of Ghana had controlled before it, but it also expanded its trading in many ways. The Kingdom of Mali controlled the salt trade in the north and many caravan trade routes. Additionally, it traded extensively with Egypt and the copper mine areas to the east.

The most celebrated king of Mali was Mansa Musa. He greatly extended Mali's territory and power during his reign. He made a name for himself in distant regions throughout the Muslim world through his pilgrimage to Mecca, which is in present-day Saudi Arabia. Sixty thousand people and eighty camels carrying 300 lbs. of gold each accompanied him to Mecca.

Several great centers of Islamic learning were also established during the Kingdom of Mali. Among them were the legendary Timbuktu, Djenne, and Gao. Scholars came from all over the Muslim world to study at these places, which have a long and rich history of learning in religion, mathematics, music, law, and literature.
It was in these cities that vast libraries were built and madrasas (Islamic universities) were endowed. They became meeting-places of the finest poets, scholars, and artists of Africa and the Middle East.
Timbuktu, in particular, had become legendary in the European imagination, representing all the wealth of Africa. The kings of Mali made it a great religious center as well as a commercial center. Over the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 150 madrasas (Moslem religious schools) were built, and the copying of religious manuscripts became an important industry. By the early sixteenth century, Timbuktu had a population of 40,000, and its book trade provided a better profit than any other kind of commerce. Timbuktu's most prominent landmark is the Sankore Mosque, built in the fourteenth century. The walls are made out of adobe, and every year, after the rainy season, the structure needs to be resurfaced with fresh mud; the poles sticking out are then used as scaffolding.

In the capital Niana the Mansa erected the famous Hall of Audience a grand structure which boasted some of the finest examples of architectural techniques of the time including cut stone, adornments of arabesques, windows framed in gold and silver, wooden floors framed in silver foil and surmounted by a dome.

Although many people in Mali maintained their indigenous religions during this time, Islam was becoming well established throughout the kingdom. The people in the gold-producing area remained pagan, and when a Mali king tried to convert them, it threatened to disrupt gold production, and the pressure for conversion was withdrawn.

The fourteenth-century traveler Ibn Battuta visited ancient Mali a few decades after Musa's death and was much impressed by the peace and lawfulness he found strictly enforced there. The Mali empire extended over an area larger than western Europe and consisted of numerous vassal kingdoms and provinces. Following Mansa Musa's death, Mali went into a long decline, shrinking to the size of its original territory by 1645.

Ibn Battuta describes the Malians as such:
The blacks are seldom unjust and have a greater abhorrence to injustice than any other people. Their Sultan shows no mercy to anyone who is guilty of the act. There is complete security in their country. Neither traveler nor inhabitant in it has anything to fear from robbers or men of violence.

By way of establishing diplomatic ties with other African nations Emperor Mansa Musa sent hand picked gifts of friendship to the sultan of Morocco Abu Al-Hassan who in like manner send lavish presents but Emperor Mansa Musa died before they could reach his court. His successor Mansa Suleiman nonetheless received the gifts and established a tradition of similar exchanges for years to come.

By the fifteenth century, and like Ghana before it, the empire of Mali fell victim to internal feuding, droughts and invasion.
Mansa Musa's brother Sulayman (1341-60) managed the realm effectively, but none of the kings that followed were very competent, and the Mali empire declined as fast as it had risen. Part of the problem was the issue of succession; even in the beginning, Sundiata seemed to want the throne to pass from brother to brother, not from father to son. Within two generations after Mansa Musa's death, his vast fortune was spent. In 1375 Gao became independent, and the Songhay built an empire of their own that soon eclipsed Mali. Our list of Mali kings stops abruptly with the crowning of one Mahmud in 1390, leading some scholars to believe the kingdom broke into two or three parts at the end of the fourteenth century.
By 1400 the Senegambia region was also independent; most of Senegal and Gambia came under the domination of a settled tribe, the Wolof, while a pastoral tribe, the Fulani, migrated east toward the Niger River. On the banks of the upper Niger, the last part of Mali survived until the 1490s, but from the mid-fifteenth century onward, Songhay was West Africa's most important state.

the reason why they have all those "spikes" is practical. it helps the inhabitants to keep maintenance of the building.

UNESCO about Timbuktu :

Home of the prestigious Koranic Sankore University and other madrasas, Timbuktu was an intellectual and spiritual capital and a centre for the propagation of Islam throughout Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries. Its three great mosques, Djingareyber, Sankore and Sidi Yahia, recall Timbuktu's golden age. Although continuously restored, these monuments are today under threat from desertification.

Founded in the 5th century, the economic and cultural apogee of Timbuktu came about during the15th and 16th centuries. It was an important centre for the diffusion of Islamic culture with the University of Sankore, with 180 Koranic schools and 25,000 students. It was also a crossroads and an important market place where the trading of manuscripts was negotiated, and salt from Teghaza in the north, gold was sold, and cattle and grain from the south.

The mosques are exceptional examples of earthen architecture and of traditional maintenance techniques, which continue to the present time.

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/119/

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/119/video

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22704960

How Timbuktu's manuscripts were smuggled to safety 4 June 2013

When Islamist rebels set fire to two libraries in Timbuktu earlier this year, many feared the city's treasure trove of ancient manuscripts had been destroyed. But many of the texts had already been removed from the buildings and were at that very moment being smuggled out of the city, under the rebels' noses.

"These manuscripts are really precious to us. They are family heirlooms. Our history, our heritage," says Dr Abdel Kader Haidara, owner of one of Timbuktu's biggest private libraries, containing manuscripts dating back to the 16th Century.
"In our family there have been generations and generations of great scholars, great astronomers, and we have always looked after these documents."

Under their strict interpretation of Islam, the rebels soon began destroying shrines they considered "idolatrous". The documents held in Timbuktu since its glory days as a centre of Islamic learning in the 13th to 17th Centuries were equally vulnerable.
As a precaution, Haidara and other big book-owning families, together with officials of the state-run Ahmed Baba Institute, had already removed most documents from major collections, hiding them in private homes.
After the destruction of the shrines, it became clear a more radical approach was necessary.
"We realised we needed to find another solution to take them entirely out of Timbuktu itself," says Haidara. "It was very difficult. There were loads of manuscripts. We needed thousands of metal boxes and we didn't have the means to get them out. We needed help from outside."

"One car could only take two or three metal boxes at the most. So we did it little by little."

Haidara estimates that only a few hundred manuscripts were destroyed.

When the European Renaissance was just gaining force, this exotic city on the edge of the Sahara Desert had already been established as the cultural center with a rich literary tradition.

However, in 1591 this miracle was destined to perish under the onslaught of Moroccan invaders. Many outstanding scientists who lived in Timbuktu, were forced to flee or were relocated ny force to the northern regions of Africa.

Scientists estimate that in the Timbuktu town there is no less than 100,000 manuscripts, and 700,000 to a million manuscripts alltogether in Mali.

Scientists believe that in their cultural and historical significance the manuscripts of Timbuktu can be compared with the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. They are a symbol and the essence of African Islamic medieval culture. The texts written in both Arabic and African languages shed light on the historical role of Timbuktu as a guardian of peace in a very troubled region. Ancient manuscripts of Timbuktu demonstrate a vivid example of peaceful coexistence and tolerance in a multicultural world. There are manuscripts on various topics and subjects - such as mathematics, chemistry, physics, optics, astronomy, medicine, theology, history, geography – most areas of human knowledge.

During the occupation of the north of Mali by al-Qaeda in 2012, the residents hid their manuscripts and buried them in the backyards. Out of 40,000 manuscripts from the libraries 4,000 manuscripts - among which were many old Quran writings - were burnt by Islamic radicals, and 10,000 remained intact.

The owner of the Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library donated the digital images for everyone to see. Some manuscripts, which were taken in the colonial time can be seen in London, Paris and other cities. An exhibit of some items is also available at the Library of Congress.

Besides being ravaged by time, the manuscripts are facing other threats - improper storage conditions, being illegally sold at the art market or being sold by the poor refugee families for a piece of bread to survive.

In 2016, a book about the manuscripts and the efforts to save them in the midst of the assault and occupation of northern Mali by Islamists jihadis, was published. The book, The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu, provides vivid details about the collection of the manuscripts into libraries, and subsequent efforts to remove them to safety during the dangerous conflict, in which the Islamist jihadis threatened to destroy them.

https://socialfeed.info/from-ancient...et-the-2491742

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mali-al-qae...-trial-1577333

Here is one of the larger pyramids in Sudan.

Most of the pyramids is ruined, but some of the pyramids is conserved.

Inside one of the pyramids in the complex.

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestor...iapyramids.htm

The chambers would look something like this according to Reisner.

Excavation of the pyramid complex by American Archaeologist George Reisner. Here is the link of his excavation(below) link

https://books.google.com/books?id=J8...ramids&f=false