African states and the culture of Asia, America and Africa

Until the end of the 1st millennium CE most of Africa’s population lived cut off from the outside world: hunters and gatherers in tropical forests and deserts, nomadic and settled herders around the desert, and farmers on the savannas who worked the ground with iron-tipped hoes. In the east, under the influence of trade with Egypt, Arabia and India, the states of Nubia and Aksum (now Ethiopia) had arisen long before. From the 7th century Arab merchants brought salt and other goods to West Sudan; at the crossroads of trade routes settlements such as Aukar, Ghana, Timbuktu, Gao and Mali grew up. Between the Niger and Senegal the first states appeared: Ghana, Mali and Songhai. Ghana arose in the 8th century and peaked in the 10th; its income came from trade duties and from the gold and salt trade. It is said that in 1076 Abu Bakr ibn Umar, leader of the Almoravid movement of North Africa, conquered Ghana (historians do not agree on this), after which Ghana broke up. Mali arose in the 8th century and from the 11th its people adopted Islam; in the 13th century Sundiata Keita (about 1230–1255) built a strong army and took the caravan routes, gold mines and the old Ghana lands; his capital was Niani. In 1324 the ruler Musa I made the pilgrimage to Mecca and gave away so much gold that Mali became famous in the Arab world. In the 15th century Mali broke up. Songhai was the state of the Songhai tribes around Gao; it broke away from Mali and grew strong in the 15th century, and in the 15th–16th centuries dominated the Niger basin, with income from transit trade and gold mines. At the end of the 16th century the sultan of Morocco conquered Songhai. Aksum rose in the 4th–5th centuries and extended its influence to the south coast of Arabia; because of its contacts with Rome and Byzantium its ruler and nobles adopted Christianity. According to tradition, Aksum’s first ruler Menelik was the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (this is a legend).