It has become fashionable to see Africa as a dark continent historically and culturally before European colonialism. This naturally is a very narrow view of Africa. For example, it ignores North Africa where the former Roman provinces there continued to flourish in Mediterranean civilization through the Middle Ages, first under the Byzantines and later under the Muslims. The very ancient civilization in Egypt, especially, became a center of Shi'ite Muslim culture and learning at Cairo (founded in 641 C.E.) on the Nile.
The Great Zimbabwe, the capital of the Munhumutapa Empire in Southern Africa, was also completed during the Middle Ages from the 11th through 15th centuries. The first European explorers, arriving a century later in the area, found it in ruins. Until a few decades ago, these ruins were attributed by European archaeologists to Greek or other Mediterranean immigrants. Some even claimed that it was the site of the biblical Queen of Sheba's realm (hence H.R. Haggard's novel "King Solomon's Mines"). Medieval Europeans placed the capital of the mythical Prester John in the same general area. Even though theories of African origin date to 1929, the ruins were appropriated, plundered and suppressed as an authentic African site until recently.
West and East Africa meanwhile saw a huge Islamic influence during this time. The Ghana Empire dominated West Africa in the early Middle Ages until the North African Almoravids conquered and razed its capital in 1076. However, the Almoravids proved as incompetent at holding West Africa as they did at holding the Iberian peninsula and their power soon faded.
The Muslim king Maghan Sundiata (the Lion Prince) subsequently founded the Mali Empire in 1235 after defeating invading forces that had occupied the region in the Battle of Kirina. Sundiata's life is mainly commemorated in the semi-legendary Epic of Son-Jara (the subject of this week's blog), but the battle is also recorded by 14th century Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta, who traveled through the region in the 1350s, in his work "Rihla (Journey)". The Mali Empire survived until 1546. It is best remembered in the west for its great eastern city Timbuktu, which still exists today.
Also in West Africa is the Foumban Sultanate. The Sultanate was founded in the 14th century in what is now the West Province of Cameroon and persists to this day. A museum in the palace (built in 1907) at Foumban preserves a large collection of historical relics, including the first sultan's military gear and war trophies of enemies' jawbones arranged in circular stacks.
On the east coast, Zanzibar is a name as famous as Timbuktu. The city was founded on the island of Umguja off what is now Tanzania around the year 1000 C.E. but it was part of the trade routes from India to the Mediterranean for a thousand years before that. The city remained disunited until the Portuguese under De Gama discovered it in 1499 and conquered it in 1503. It remained a part of the Portuguese Empire until 1698, when the Sultan of Oman took control of the island.
An excuse for ignoring medieval African history has been that it had little to do with history elsewhere at the time and that there is little to say (aside from tribal history, which until the past couple of decades has been ignored as both inaccessible and unimportant). But as you can see from the examples above, medieval Africa had many connections to both the Mediterranean and Asia and quite a high level of civilization. Medieval Africa mattered.
Paula Stiles - I'm an American who's traveled all over the place, including working for the Peace Corps for two years in Cameroon. Until recently, I was ...
