About this, I took a look to a recent work (2016), “The Almoravid and Almohad Empires”, by Amira K. Bennison, pp.37-38:
"The Arabic narrative, such as it is, posits that Abu Bakr b. ‘Umar returned to the Almoravids’ southern base or capital at Azuggi in modern Mauritania with a handful of Maliki jurists, including Abu Bakr Muhammad al-Muradi from Qayrawan, (45) to orchestrate the Almoravid advance south against the Soninke kingdom of Ghana, which was successfully conquered around 1076–7 and subsequently collapsed. Abu Bakr, aided by his sons, continued raiding against the non-Muslims of the desert and Sahel and was killed by an arrow c. 1087. (46)
The subsequent history of the Almoravids in the south is almost a complete void and even the ‘conquest’ of Ghana raises questions that may never be fully answered. In a famous article titled ‘The conquest that never was’, Conrad and Fisher reviewed and rejected the evidence for a northern ‘white’ Almoravid conquest of ancient Ghana in the form of an offensive against the sedentary ‘black’ inhabitants of the Sahel, in favour of a more collaborative venture between the ‘white’ Almoravids and the ‘black’ inhabitants of Ghana who became Muslim around the same time, with the latter rather than the former as the dominant partner. (47) However, the counter-argument is that authors writing in Arabic were unfamiliar with the Sahel and not interested in it and, therefore, sparse or contradictory textual evidence does not mean that a conquest did not take place or that the Saharan Almoravid empire did not exist. Moreover, the basic idea of a dichotomy between ‘white’ Almoravids and ‘black’ Sahelian Africans is very problematic given the high levels of marriage, concubinage and cooperation between the Sanhaja Berber tribes and the non-tribal peoples of the Sahel. (48) Yusuf b. Tashfin, for instance, is often described as having ‘black’ features. (49) The most recent summation of the debate traces the European imperial lineage of a conquest thesis based on the ‘white’ domination of ‘black’ peoples and reiterates the lack of hard evidence for an Almoravid conquest of Ghana. (50)
The nature of the Almoravid encounter with Ghana – conquest or partnership – and the ethnic and religious origins of those involved is impossible to determine in the absence of new sources. However, the Almoravids clearly achieved control of the salt trade and the gold flow north, their primary economic objective, and Islam did take root among the population of Ghana, their religious objective. Abu Bakr maintained Almoravid control of the Sahara at least in the vicinity of Azuggi, and the expansion of the Sanhaja eastwards appears to have been led by the Almoravid Masufa, a group with strong marriage and maternal connections to the Lamtuna, who migrated into the vast zone between Sijilmasa and Waraqlan, led quite possibly by Abu Bakr’s son, Yahya, known as al-Masufi due to his maternal lineage. (51) Cultural ties also existed between the Sahel and the Almoravid north. For instance, archaeological evidence from Gao-Sane, conquered or converted seven years after Ghana according to al-Zuhri, in the form of luxurious tomb stelae made of carved marble from an atelier in Almeria, show that these kings were certainly influenced by the Almoravids, if not adherents of the Almoravid movement or Berbers themselves.(52)
Footnotes:
45 Lagardere, Le djihad andalou, pp. 165–6.
46 Bosch Vila, Los Almoravides, pp. 99–102.
47 Conrad and Fisher, ‘The conquest that never was’.
48 Burkhalter, ‘Listening for silences in Almoravid history’.
49 Lagardere, Almoravides I, pp. 79–80; Messier, Almoravids, p. 55.
50 Masonen and Fisher, ‘The Almoravid conquest of Ghana’.
51 Burkhalter, ‘Listening for silences in Almoravid history’, pp. 108–9.
52 See de Moraes Farias, Arabic Medieval Inscriptions from the Republic of Mali; Hunwick, ‘Gao and the Almoravids’; Lange, ‘Les rois de Gao-Sane et les Almoravides’.
I have read that work already, the problem here, as with several past works is that it often fabricates things that are not in the sources.
For example: "The Arabic narrative, such as it is, posits that Abu Bakr b. ‘Umar returned to the Almoravids’ southern base or capital at Azuggi in modern Mauritania with a handful of Maliki jurists, including Abu Bakr Muhammad al-Muradi from Qayrawan, (45) to orchestrate the Almoravid advance south against the Soninke kingdom of Ghana"
What Arabic source states that he went to Azuggi to "orchestrate the Almoravid advance south against the Soninke kingdom of Ghana"? What actual source states this? I went over what the sources state
here.
I will go into more detail about Ibn Abi Zar's motivations for some of his fabrications and alterations in that other thread on Ghana and the Almoravids that was started in the African history section of the forum, when I reply to some of the posts there, but for now it should be noted that not even Ibn Abi Zar makes such a claim.
As for "the Soninke kingdom of Ghana, which was successfully conquered around 1076–7 and subsequently collapsed".
The sources subsequent to 1076 or 1077, such as al-Idrisi and al-Sarakshi, show quite clearly that Ghana did not "collapse" at all. They were even in correspondence with the Almohads.. How can historians be talking about the "collapse" of Ghana when Ghana's power probably outlasted the Almoravids according to the sources we have available to us?
Then there's this: "However, the Almoravids clearly achieved control of the salt trade and the gold flow north, their primary economic objective"
What does "control of the gold flow" mean exactly? We have medieval Arabic sources stating that Takrur exported gold and that merchants from the Maghrib went to Takrur to obtain gold from there. Takrur was a west African state which was perhaps the earliest kingdom to convert to Islam in west Africa (going by al-Bakri's account in his work
The Book of Routes and Realms), and soldiers from Takrur fought alongside the Almoravids (against the Gudala Berbers) at a very early period when Yahya ibn Umar, the emir of the Lamtuna and the brother of Abu Bakr ibn Umar, was still the leader of the Almoravids (Yahya ibn Umar died in that battle against the Gudala), and before the Almoravids had an actual empire. If later on the Maghrib was mostly under the control of the Almoravids for some period of time then such gold as was exported from Takrur (or other places in west Africa) to the Maghrib - as had been happening for centuries before the Almoravids even existed - would naturally have flowed to Almoravid controlled lands in the Maghrib. So what does gold flowing to north Africa from west Africa have to do with any supposed conquest of this or that west African state by the Almoravids, when gold was exported to the Maghrib even before the Almoravids existed and when the Almoravids had been in an alliance with a Muslim west African state even as far back as that early period when Yahya ibn Umar led them? Why would they need to conquer anyone to get access to gold after already allying with Takrur, which was a gold exporter?
Then this "and Islam did take root among the population of Ghana, their religious objective".
Al-Bakri, in
The Book of Routes and Realms, indicates clearly that a substantial part of Ghana was Muslim already before 1068 - half of the capital was Muslim, and there were mosques, salaried imams, Islamic jurists, scholars, etc., most of the ministers were Muslim, and the predecessor of the then current non-Muslim king was renowned for his friendship towards and good treatment of the Muslims of Ghana. Al-Bakri states all of this clearly. This is all before any supposed battle or whatever is claimed to have occurred between the Almoravids and Ghana. Saying Islam "taking root among the population" of Ghana was due to the Almoravids makes no sense. Given how many Muslims were already there, conversion of the kings to Islam was probably only a matter of time.
Then this part: "For instance, archaeological evidence from Gao-Sane, conquered or converted seven years after Ghana according to al-Zuhri"
This is wrong and a complete misrepresentation of the text. Al-Zuhri absolutely does not say that Gao was "conquered or converted seven years after Ghana" or anything like that.
This is what al-Zuhri actually says in the text: "Near to Ghana at a distance of fifteen days' travelling there are two towns, of which one is called NSLA and the second Tadimakka [sic]. Between these two towns is a distance of nine days' travelling. The people of these two towns turned Muslim seven years after the people of Ghana turned Muslim." (
Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History, pp. 98-99).
"Tadimakka" is Tadmekkat, not Gao. And since al-Zuhri mentions Gao (as 'Kawkaw') elsewhere in his work, and nowhere links it with that unidentified town of "NSLA" or with anything else he is describing in that passage; this has nothing to do with Gao. Nowhere does al-Zuhri state anything like what the author writes there. There's no mention of any conquest or conversion of Gao. The author's memory failed them completely or they deliberately fabricated a claim.
Then this: "in the form of luxurious tomb stelae made of carved marble from an atelier in Almeria, show that these kings were certainly influenced by the Almoravids, if not adherents of the Almoravid movement or Berbers themselves."
The author cites Paulo F. de Moraes Farias, John Hunwick, and Dierk Lange but (with the possible exception of Hunwick, who seems to have put it forward as a speculative hypothesis, but did not make an assertion that this was really the case) these authors did not argue that these kings were "Berbers themselves"; in fact in his article "From Ghana and Mali to Songhay: The Mande Factor in Gao History" (an article, which, from start to finish, is mostly just speculation anyway as a number of his articles on Gao were) Lange argues against the idea that they were Berber. Paulo F. de Morias Farias wrote about early Gao, Islam in Gao, and about these tombstones imported from Spain recently, in his article "Islam in the West African Sahel" in the book
Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara (2020) and nowhere does he state that the stelae show they were "adherents of the Almoravid movement" or "Berber themselves". In fact he emphasizes the specifically west African cultural aspects recorded on the tombstones in the fact that the stelae commemorate unmarried women who held a position as "queen" (not by virtue of being married to a king) at the same time that a king was ruling - a sort of paired rulership of a king and a queen from different dynasties/families found in other parts of west Africa.
In any case Hunwick's and Lange's articles on the Almoravids and Gao are literally mostly supposition and speculation, not works where they demonstrate that any of the speculative scenarios they propose are actually in the sources, or follow directly from the evidence available. None of the medieval Arabic written sources have anything about Gao or its kings being Berber in any way, or being subordinate to the Almoravids or anything like that. The whole notion actually seems quite bizarre when one reads what is actually written about Gao in those sources.
