Empire of Ghana

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Location of the Empire of Ghana

The empire of Ghana was one of the legendary empires of the Middle Ages in West Africa and an example of an empire founded on the southern edge of the Sahara at an unknown time. The name was probably only in circulation in this form among North African traders, locally the empire was referred to either as Wagadu or as the empire of Kaya Magha (Ta'rikh al-Sudan) . The empire is mentioned by name in Arabic sources for the first time in the 9th century and referred to as "gold country". According to the 9th century geographer and historian al-Yaʿqūbī , Ghana was the most important empire in Sudan alongside Kanem and Gao .

To distinguish this empire from the modern state of Ghana , it is sometimes also written as Gana ( DMG Ġāna ) in the literature . However, since the spelling Ghana originated from the common transcription of the Arabic name Ghāna (غانه) for medieval Ghana, it should be left with the internationally used Ghana.

Theories about the founders of the empire

Only oral records exist about the founding of the Empire of Ghana. In the chronicles of Timbuktu , the Ta'rikh al-Sudan and the Ta'rikh al-Fattash we find information from the second half of the 17th century. The Wagadu legend of the Soninke and the original tradition of the Fulbe were only recorded during the colonial period. Archaeological research from the post-colonial period provided additional clues to the settlement history of the area of ​​the Ghana Empire. Starting from this thin source base, historians try to develop a scenario for the foundation of the empire.

Migrants from Syria-Palestine

During the colonial period, Maurice Delafosse 's theory that Ghana was founded by so-called "Judéo-Syria" was particularly influential. The highly speculative theory is based on oral traditions from the Fulbe, according to which the founders of the state invoked Israelite figures such as Yakuba (Jacob) and Suleiman (Solomon), who were at home in Kenana (Canaan) and Sam (Syria). Delafosse assumes that "Judéo-Syria" after Ptolemy I Soter came to power in Jerusalem around 320 BC. Were deported from Israel to Cyrenaica , from where they migrated to West Africa in the 2nd century AD. These immigrants, who were influenced by Israel, founded the Ghana Empire around 300 AD and were overthrown around 800 AD by native Soninke.

Berber nomads of the Sahara

The information in the Chronicles of Timbuktu shows that in the 17th century, Berbers of the Sahara were believed to be the founders of the empire. Al-Sa'di, the author of Ta'rikh al-Sudan, has a tradition according to which 22 kings before the hijra and 22 kings after the hijra ruled in Ghana. These were "whites" ( beiḍān ). According to Ibn al-Mukhtār, the author of Ta'rikh al-Fattash, the founders of the empire were probably Sanhajah and not "blacks" ( sūdān ). N. Levtzion interpreted this information to the effect that later nomadic conquerors left their stamp in the oral traditions, but this does not rule out the establishment of empires by black African farmers. Other authors see the matriarchal succession to the throne as a decisive indication of the establishment of an empire by Berbers. If the chronological details of al-Sa'di are based on a list of kings still remembered in the 17th century, then on this basis the establishment of the state in the 1st century AD should be considered.

Local soninke

In the post-colonial era, founding models were frowned upon due to migration and conquest. In the course of the decolonization of the history of Africa, it was preferred to adopt start-up processes by local actors. The defense model was particularly successful for the border area between the Sahara and the West African savannah. In the context of this model, it was assumed that black African farmers formed state-like organizations to defend themselves against the raids of marauding nomads. The Wagadu legend of the Soninke serves as the most important source for the reconstruction of this founding scenario . Then Dinga, who immigrated from the Orient, founded the kingdom of Wagadu (= Ghana) by making a pact with the black snake Bida in Koumbi , according to which the immigrants should sacrifice a beautiful virgin to the snake every year. In return, they should receive abundant rain and gold. The fall of the empire was triggered by the fact that under the seventh king of Wagadu, the betrothed of the virgin to be sacrificed killed the serpent. In death, however, the snake uttered a curse, according to which the land should dry up and the gold should dry up. Historians suspect that the latter information refers to the collapse of the Ghana Empire at the beginning of the 13th century.

Trade with North Africa

The rulers of the Ghana Empire controlled the lucrative trans-Saharan gold and slave trade in the large area of ​​the Senegal - Niger region . The Arab geographer and writer of the 10th century, Ibn Hauqal , testified this trade for the first time in writing between the Moroccan Sidschilmasa and today's Mauritanian Aoudaghost / Ghana at the north and south end of the great Western Saharan gold route, after Ghana took control of Aoudaghost in 990. In the capital Koumbi Saleh , gold and slaves were exchanged for goods from the Maghreb , horses, fabrics and weapons, but also for the salt of the Sahara. The Wangara traders carried the gold from Buré and Bambouk to Koumbi Saleh, and from there Berber and Arab traders brought it further north.

Expansion of the empire

At the height of its power in the 10th century AD, the Ghanaian empire stretched from Tagant in what is now central Mauritania to the area of ​​the Niger Arc in the east of what is now the Republic of Mali . At times it even extended its rule to the Saharan Sanhajah .

Building the sacred kingdom

Description of al-Bakrī

Al-Bakri , a famous 11th century Arab geographer, mentions in his Kitāb al-masālik wa-'l-mamālik (Book of Ways and Kingdoms) in 1068 the Berber and Arab merchants who were the ruling class in Aoudaghost . He describes the kingdom of Ghana before it was conquered by the Almoravids and notes the capital:

“… The city of Ghana consists of two sub-cities on one level. One of these cities is inhabited by Muslims, it is extensive, has twelve mosques, one of which is a Friday mosque ... The royal city is six miles away and is called al-ghāba . There are continuous houses between the two cities. The residents' houses are made of stone and acacia wood. The king has a palace and numerous domed houses, all of which are surrounded by a wall like a rampart ... The king adorns himself like a woman around his neck and forearms. On his head he wears a crown interwoven with gold, which is wrapped in a turban made of fine cotton. He gives audiences or hears complaints brought against the officials in a vaulted pavilion surrounded by ten horses covered with gold-embroidered covers. Behind the king stand ten servants with shields and swords decorated with gold . The sons of his vassal kings stand to his right in splendid clothes and with gold-braided hair. The mayor of the city and the ministers sit on the ground in front of him. Next to the door are the royal dogs with an excellent pedigree, which hardly ever leave the place and who guard it. Around their necks they wear collars and balls studded with gold and silver ... When a king dies, they erect a wooden dome over the place of his grave. They bring him on a stretcher ... with numerous offerings by his side ... and those of his servants who prepared his food. They close the door of the dome and cover everything with mats and fittings. Then those present throw earth on it until a large tumulus has formed ... "

Archaeological research has shown that the influence of North African traders on the development of Ghana was very small. They functioned primarily as marginal merchants and resided in the trading town of Koumbi Saleh on the southern border of today's Mauritania .

Location of the capital

Presumably there were two centers of the Ghana Empire. The older Tendirma was on the western Niger knee , where the agricultural resources were sufficient to enable a sedentary way of life. Barrows have also been found there, one of which was dated to the 11th century. The younger Koumbi Saleh was in the middle of the inhospitable Senegal-Niger region, where only the control of the lucrative gold trade could have been the reason for the establishment of a residential city. So far, however, only the trading town of Koumbi Saleh has been found, some of which has been excavated by archaeologists. The royal city, which is close to al-Bakri, has not yet been discovered despite intensive efforts.

Islamization under pressure from the Almoravids: 1076

Expansion of the Almoravid Movement

With the emergence of the militant Almoravid movement in the first half of the 11th century, an eminent threat to the sacred kingdom of Ghana developed in the western Sahara. In 1040/41 the king of the Sosso people in the neighboring state of Tekrur becomes Muslim. The Almoravids conquered Sidschilmasa and Aoudaghost in 1054/55. After that, however, they concentrated on North Africa, so that Ghana did not initially come under direct pressure from the Berber religious fighters. It was not until 1076 that the sacred king was overthrown in the course of the further expansion of the Almoravids and Islam spread throughout the empire.

There are two opposing views on the interpretation of the Islamization event recorded by the Arab geographer al-Zuhri in 1076.

Thesis of the conquest of Ghana

It is widely believed that the Almoravids conquered Ghana and thereby spread Islam by force. This assumption is based mainly on the testimony of Ibn Khaldun, who wrote at the end of the 14th century .

Internal revolution thesis

There has recently been a growing view that the overthrow of 1076 and the subsequent Islamization of the royal court were the work of a local Islamic party supported by the Almoravids. The basis for this assumption are on the one hand the statements of the contemporary Arab geographers and on the other hand the evaluation of the steles built by Gao-Saney at the beginning of the 12th century . The continued existence of the Ghana Empire as an independent political unit for around 125 years testifies to the preservation of the basic structures of sacred kingship despite the tendencies towards Islamization.

Decline of the Ghana Empire: 12th century

With the Islamization by the Almoravids, the decline of the great empire began. It is controversial whether the intervention of the pagan Sosso under Sumanguru at the end of the 12th century stopped or accelerated this decline. The legendary Sundiata Keïta founded the second great kingdom of West Africa , Mali , further south under the Malinke , in the first half of the 13th century. He himself or one of his successors conquered Ghana and incorporated it into the Mali Empire.

The Ghana myth

After the Second World War, the spokesmen of the nationalists of the Gold Coast Colony (today: Ghana) declared that the ethnic groups on the territory of this British colony were direct descendants of the people who fled Ghana from the Almoravids. The first Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah in particular emphasized this alleged ancestry, which he tried to prove with the phonetic similarity of "Gana" and " Akan " (the most important language and ethnic group in modern Ghana). There is no evidence of such a link either through historical sources or cultural and linguistic evidence, and leading Ghanaian historians such as Albert Adu Boahen have strongly contradicted this claim. Nkrumah, who headed a state threatened by ethnic tensions in 1957, tried to awaken a sense of nationality across all ethnic boundaries by assigning a common ancestry to all ethnic groups, namely from the first large empire in West Africa that can be identified by name. At the same time, Nkrumah opposed European historians like Sir Hugh Trevor-Roper , who denied black Africa any historicity before the arrival of the Europeans. The Ghana myth no longer plays a role in today's politics in Ghana, but it still seems to have an effect sixty years after the country was granted independence, because ethnic tensions are far less virulent and dangerous to the state in today's Ghana than in neighboring countries in Black Africa. However, more recently, ideologues from the Akan camp, the largest ethnic group in present-day Ghana, seem to want to derive an origin of their ethnic group from the ancient Gana in order to underpin the claim to the priority of their ethnic group, with which they originally had an integrating function reverse the political myth about “Gana” into its exact opposite and use it more for the purpose of dividing the individual ethnic groups.

literature

  • Pierre Bertaux (Ed. And author.): Africa. From prehistory to the present , Fischer Weltgeschichte, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt / M., 1966/1978. 780 ISBN 3-596-60032-4
  • Berthier, Sophie Berthier: Recherches archéologiques sur la capitale de l'empire de Ghana: Etude d'un secteur, d'habitat à Koumbi Saleh, Mauritanie: Campagnes II-III-IV-V (1975–1976), (1980–1981 ) . Oxford 1997.
  • D. Conrad, H. Fisher: The conquest that never was: Ghana and the Almoravids. In: History in Africa 9 (1982), pp. 21-59; 10: 53-78 (1983).
  • François-Xavier Fauvelle: The golden rhinoceros. Africa in the Middle Ages. CH Beck, Munich 2017.
  • Rudolf Fischer: Gold, Salt and Slaves. The history of the great Sudan empires of Gana, Mali and Son Ghau. Stuttgart, Edition Erdmann, 1986. ISBN 3522650107
  • Dierk Lange: Ancient Ancient Kingdoms of West Africa . Dettelbach 2004, here pp. 509-516.
  • Dierk Lange: Africa south of the Sahara - From the sacred states to the great empires. In: J. Fried and E.-D. Hehl (ed.): WBG world history . Volume 3, Darmstadt 2010, pp. 103-116 (here 109-110).
  • Nehemia Levtzion: Ancient Ghana and Mali . New York / London 1973, reprinted with additions 1980.
  • Nehemia Levtzion, JFP Hopkins (ed. And transl.): Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History . Cambridge 1981; reissued Princeton, NJ, 2000.
  • Raymond Mauny: Tableau geographique de l'Ouest africain au môyen age . Dakar 1961, here pp. 72-74, 508-511.
  • Charles Monteil: La Légende du Ouagadou et l'Origine des Soninke . In: Mélanges Ethnologiques . Dakar 1953, pp. 361-408.

Web links

Commons : Ghana Empire  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Levtzion: Ancient Ghana , p. 22 (later correction).
  2. ↑ a b c d Rudolf Fischer, p. 255 (summary) (see lit.)
  3. ↑ Winfried Speitkamp: Small History of Africa , Reclam, Stuttgart 2007, p. 46
  4. ↑ Delafosse, Haut-Sénégal , I, p. 211; II, pp. 22-23. See now also D. Lange, "Migration of the Assyrian tamkāru to Nubia, Darfur and the Lake Chad region", (PDF; 207 kB) in: B. Nowak et al., Europejczycy Afrykanie Inni , Warsaw 2011, 226.
  5. ↑ al-Sa'dī, T. al-Sūdān , p. 9; Transl. 18.
  6. ↑ al-Ka'ti, T. al-Fattāsh , p. 42, trans. 78.
  7. ^ Levtzion, Ancient Ghana , p. 8
  8. ^ Levtzion, Ancient Ghana , pp. 10-11.
  9. ^ Levtzion, Ancient Ghana , pp. 17-18
  10. ↑ Levtzion / Hopkins: Corpus , pp. 79-80.
  11. ^ Levtzion / Hopkins: Corpus , p. 98.
  12. ^ Levtzion, Ancient Ghana , p. 45.
  13. ↑ Conrad / Fisher, "Conquest, I", 21-59; Lange, Kingdoms , p. 510.
  14. ↑ Kwame Nkrumah: I Speak of Freedom: A Statement of Afdrican Ideology. New York 1961, p. 96 f.