Dictionary of islamic architecture

particularly in the area of present-day Mauritania.
The Berbers in this area are known as the Sanhadja
Principal Islamic sites of West Africa

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West Africa
or Muthalamin and were the ancestors of the
Almoravids who invaded Spain in the eleventh
century. They comprised three main tribal groups,
the Lamtuna, Massufa and Godala, who were allied
into a loose confederation. The most prominent of
these groups was the Lamtuna who arrived in the
area in the eighth century and captured the oasis city
of Awdaghast in Mauritania. By the tenth century
most of the Sanhadja leaders had adopted Islam
which they used to wage a jihad against the southern
kingdoms.
The southern part of West Africa below the Sahel
was dominated by the three great empires of Ghana,
Mali and Gao. Each of these empires was composed
of a particular language group; thus Ghana was
controlled by Soninke-speaking peoples, Mali by
Manding peoples and Gao by Song-hay people.
These were not empires in the modern sense but
rather confederations of language and kinship
groups which owed allegiance to a central ruler
whose capital was often mobile. The empires are
difficult to define in territorial terms as they had
differing degrees of control over different peoples
over a wide area. The key to the rise and fall of these
empires was the control of the gold trade with North
Africa.
Ghana controlled an area roughly equivalent to
south-eastern Mauritania and south-western Mali
and flourished between the ninth and eleventh
centuries. During this period Ghana was the main
opposition to the Sanhadja Berbers of western
Mauritania and in 990 captured the Berber city of
West Africa showing Fulbe areas of Futa-Djallon, Sokoto and Adamawa

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West Africa
Awdaghast. Although it was a pagan country there
were large numbers of Muslims in Ghana’s
administration and by the eleventh century the
capital was divided into two cities, a Muslim city
and a pagan royal city. In spite of this the Almoravid
Berbers launched a jihad against the empire and in
1077 destroyed the capital and forced the survivors
to convert to Islam. A reconstituted kingdom of
Ghana managed to survive until 1240 when it was
incorporated into the empire of Mali.
The rise of Mali was due to a number of factors
including the decline of the empire of Ghana and
the discovery of a new oriferous (gold producing)
region on the Niger river. The Mali Empire was
formed by the unification of two groups of Manding
peoples in the thirteenth century, and was located
south of Ghana on the banks of the Niger, although
it later took control of much of the former empire
of Ghana. Unlike Ghana’s, the ruler of Mali was a
Muslim although most of the people within the
empire remained pagan. The most famous of Mali’s
rulers was Mansa Musa who made a pilgrimage to
Mecca in 1324 during which he gave away large
quantities of gold. By the end of the fifteenth
century Mali was in decline due to the devastating
effects of rival claimants to the throne, a shift in
trade patterns and increasing attacks from the
Tuareg and Mossi. The empire which grew to
replace the power of Mali was the Songhay Empire
of Gao, with its centre on the banks of the Niger in
the east of the modern state of Mali. Gao had a long
history stretching back to the ninth century when
it was an important kingdom on the route to Tahert
in Algeria and Ghana and Silgilmasa to the west.
By the ninth century the ruler of Gao was Muslim,
although it is probable that this was merely one of
the king’s religions. During the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries Gao became subject to the
empire of Mali; when this declined at the end of
the fourteenth century Gao began taking over some
of the outer dependencies of Mali. By the end of
the 1460s Ali, the founder of the Songhay Empire,
had taken Djenné and Timbuktu thus gaining
control of some of the principal trading towns of
the Sahel. Ali was succeeded by Askiya Muhammad
who consolidated his territorial conquests and
introduced Islam as the state religion. The empire
flourished for the next hundred years until the
Moroccan conquest of 1591.
In addition to the medieval empires which
dominated West Africa there are a number of
trading cities on the border of the Sahara desert
which, although sometimes incorporated into
empires, were essentially independent. The most
important of these cities were, from east to west,
Oualata, Timbuktu and Agades. Oualata in western
Mauritania rose to prominence in the thirteenth
century after the collapse of Ghana when it was
populated by refugees from Awdaghast and other
cities. The city was predominantly Ibadi with a
mixed Arab Berber population and was one of the
principal towns trading with Sijilmasa in Morocco.
Further west, in the modern state of Mali, is the
famous city of Timbuktu, established as a nomadic
Tuareg encampment in the twelfth century. During
the fifteenth century under Songhay rule the city
became the principal intellectual and religious
centre in West Africa. The city has a mixed
population of predominantly Berber origin
although there are significant numbers of Soninke
and Manding.
Whilst the medieval period in West Africa was
dominated by the great empires the period after the
sixteenth century was characterized by the
emergence of smaller independent cities and
kingdoms. The post-medieval period is also notable
for the integration of Islam into local culture.
Whereas Islam had previously been the religion of
foreign traders and local rulers who adopted Islam
as another attribute of kingship, it now became the
religion of whole groups and villages. In the
nineteenth century this was partially achieved
through jihads or holy wars, but the more common
method of diffusion was through the urbanized
trade networks. The widespread adoption of Islam
throughout West Africa meant that the nature of
the religion itself was modified to conform to local
ritual requirements. In most cases this meant that
local rituals and cultures were adapted to serve
Islamic requirements, although in other cases (such
as among the Ashante) this meant the adaptation
of Islamic forms for use in essentially pagan
societies.
Islamic West Africa south of the Sahel can be
divided into two main language groups, the
Mande-speaking peoples of Mali, Burkina Faso,
Ivory Coast and Ghana, and the Fulbe-speaking
peoples of northern Nigeria and Futa-Djallon in
Guinea. The Mande-speaking peoples occupy
roughly the same area as the empire of Mali,
although the main cities of the post-medieval era
are further east than the old capitals of Kangaba

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West Africa
and Niani. The main Manding cities are Mopti,
Djenné, Ségou, Bobo Dioulasso, Wa and Kong, each
of which functioned as independent or semi-
independent states in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. The most famous of these cities is Djenné
whose origins may be traced back to the thirteenth
century. Although the city did not rise to
prominence until the sixteenth century, by the
nineteenth century it was one of the main towns in
West Africa. Less well known but equally important
in the propagation of Islam was the city of Kong
established by immigrants from Ségou and Djenné
in the eighteenth century. Kong was located further
south on the edges of the equatorial forest (present-
day Ivory Coast) and developed as a centre of
Islamic scholarship and commerce for the
surrounding area.
The Fulbe-speaking people occupy two distinct
areas either side of the area dominated by the
Mande peoples. First to be settled by Fulbe-speak-
ing people was the Hausa area of north Nigeria
where they arrived as Muslim clerics in the fifteenth
century. Hausaland already had an established,