'Listening for silences in Almoravid history: another reading of “The conquest that never was'”
Sheryl L. Burkhalter. University of Chicago
Troll Patrol aka Ish Gebor Member # 18264
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Nice reader,
The Empires of the Western Sudan: Ghana Empire
Modern-day and ancient Ghana share no direct historical connections.
quote:Ghana (Wagadu), the earliest known empire of the western Sudan, first entered the historical consciousness of North Africa near the end of the eighth century but probably originated long before. The empire's legacy is still celebrated in the name of the Republic of Ghana; apart from this, however, modern-day and ancient Ghana share no direct historical connections. Despite early texts that discuss ancient Ghana, such as The Book of Routes and Kingdoms by the eleventh-century Andalusian geographer Abu cUbayd al-Bakri, it remains very much an enigma. Famous to North Africans as the "Land of Gold," Ghana was said to possess sophisticated methods of administration and taxation, large armies, and a monopoly over notoriously well-concealed gold mines. The king of the Soninke people who founded Ghana never fully embraced Islam, but good relations with Muslim traders were fostered. Ghana's preeminence faded toward the end of the eleventh century, when its power was broken by a long struggle with the Almoravids led by Abdullah ibn Yasin. Ghana subsequently fell to the expanding Soso kingdom.
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Interesting paper. It reminded me of my studies back at Illinois-Urbana in the many Seminars Charles Stewart led. Stewart's interest was Islamic Africa, so we had to read a lot of Islamic text in Arabic and, especially French since back in the 1970's few texts were translated into English.
This article highlights the need for researchers to learn foriegn languages so they can get a good understanding of the text to write good history.Today it is hard for students to learn good research methods because most seminars and courses usually have one text associated with the class back in the day we had to read multiple sources to be able to interpret a historical event within the context of its meaning relative to the times the texts were written.
Todays specialization make most scholars have a narrow view of history, centered in the limited sources they may have read relating to historical events.As a result they can not see the big picture and are limited in their ability to write history.
The idea of silences in African history is the fact that eventhough writing has a long tradition in Africa, oral tradition has been the main vehicle for tramsmitting history. This is why we find few historical text even from Egypt.The "silence" makes it difficult to always fully interpret hisorical events that have occurned in history with out employing multiple sources, so as to obtain the "big picture".
This article is a great paper that young researchers can study to perfect their method in reading and understanding historical research.
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