1. Aim: How should medieval Africa and India be remembered?

3. I Great Zimbabwe (900 – 1500 CE)
A) Bantu settled by the Limpopo river.
B) They built stone enclosures to protect their livestock.
C) By 1300 Zimbabwe “Stone House” was a city-state that traded with India and China.
D) Zimbabwe’s decline by 1500 is unknown. It may have been due to invading Europeans.

4. II Western African Civilizations

5. Western African Civilizations Continued…
A) Ghana “Warlord” – 1050 CE
Developed by the Niger and Senegal rivers. Capital at Kumbi Saleh. Animistic.
Ghana became wealthy by controlling the gold – salt trade.
Social Structure: King- Nobles – Peasants - Slaves
The Almoravid Muslim invasion of 1076 – 1077 CE weakened the Ghanaian empire, allowing Mali to conquer it.
“He [the King] took through his agents a certain weight of gold or its equivalent value as import duty on ‘every donkey-load of salt that enters the country’, and twice as much again on ‘every donkey-load of salt that goes out.’”(Davidson, 2005)
Kumbi Saleh

6. Western African Civilizations Continued…
B) Mali – 1450 CE
King Sundiata conquered Ghana and began the Kingdom of Mali. Mali expanded its borders and developed a complex network of trade routes that linked the Sahara, the savannah and the forest!
Like Ghana, Mali was near gold mines; but unlike Ghana it was also in control of kola forests, and the copper and salt enriched areas. UNLIKE Ghana, Mali was unified by Islam.
Mansa Musa ruled Mali 1312 – 1337 CE. Muslim, he went on his hajj to Mecca in His caravan included 60,000 travelers, and 80 camels, each loaded with 300 lbs of gold!
Mansa Musa made his city, Timbuktu into a center of trade and learning.
Social Structure: King – Nobles - Judges & Administrators - Artisans & Peasants Slaves.

7. Western African Civilizations Continued…
People from North Africa desired gold, and people from West Africa needed salt. Salt was mined northeast of Ghana in the Sahara Desert. Tribes close to Ghana in West Africa had access to gold mines (the locations were kept secret). Anyone who wished to trade gold for salt had to travel through Ghana and pay a tax. The trade was done by silent barter; the traders would leave their goods in a guarded location, and never meet the people they were trading with face to face!

8. Sahara Salt “Farm”

9. The Djenna Mosque at Timbuktu
Unfortunately Boko Haram terrorists from the modern nation of Mali have recently destroyed many of Timbuktu’s sacred places, including burning ancient texts.

10. Western African Civilizations Continued… Mansa Musa Primary Source
The following description of the visit to Cairo in 1324 by the King of Mali, Mansa Musa, was written by Al-Umari, who visited Cairo several years after the Mansa Musa’s visit. “From the beginning of my coming to stay in Egypt I heard talk of the arrival of this sultan Musa on his Pilgrimage and found the Cairenes eager to recount what they had seem of the Africans’ prodigal [wasteful] spending. I asked the emir Abu…and he told me of the opulence, manly virtues, and piety of his sultan. “When I went out to meet him… he did me extreme honor and treated me with the greatest courtesy. He addressed me, however, only through an interpreter despite his perfect ability to speak in the Arabic tongue. Then he forwarded to the royal treasury many loads of unworked native gold and other valuables… This man [Mansa Musa] flooded Cairo with his benefactions. He left no court emir nor holder of a royal office without the gift of a load of gold….They exchanged gold until they depressed its value in Egypt and caused its price to fall.” …

11. Mansa Musa Tops the 10 Wealthiest People in Human History
Mansa Musa Tops the 10 Wealthiest People in Human History! – Celebrity Net Worth’s List, 2012
1. Mansa Musa I, (Ruler of Malian Empire, ) $400 billion 2. Rothschild Family (banking dynasty, ) $350 billion 3. John D Rockefeller (industrialist, ) $340 billion 4. Andrew Carnegie (industrialist, ) $310 billion 5. Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (last Emperor of Russia, ) $300 billion 6. Osman Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VII (last ruler of Hyderabad, ) $236 billion 7. William the Conqueror (King of England, ) $229.5 billion 8. Muammar Gaddafi (former Libyan leader, ) $200 billion 9. Henry Ford (Ford Motor Company founder, ) $199 billion 10. Cornelius Vanderbilt (industrialist, ) $185 billion

12. Ibn Battuta was a Moroccan Muslim explorer and traveler.
Ibn Battuta in Mali, 1352
Ibn Battuta was a Moroccan Muslim explorer and traveler.
“The sultan of Mali is Mansa Sulayman... He is a miserly king, not a man from whom one might hope for a rich present. It happened that I spent these 2 months without seeing him, on account of my illness. Later on he held a banquet in commemoration of our master [the late sultan of Morocco] Abu'l-Hasan, to which the commanders, doctors and preacher were invited, and I went along with them… the Koran was read through... When the ceremony was over I went forward and saluted Mansa Sulayman. The qadi, the preacher, and Ibn al-Faqih told him who I was, and he answered them in their tongue [language]. They said to me, "The sultan says to you 'Give thanks to God,'" so I said, "Praise be to God and thanks under all circumstances.” … When I withdrew the [sultan's] hospitality gift was sent to me... Ibn al-Faqih came hurrying out of his house barefooted, and entered my room saying, "Stand up; here comes the sultan's stuff and gift to you." So I stood up thinking--since he had called it "stuff"--that it consisted of robes of honor and money, and lo!, it was 3 cakes of bread, and a piece of beef fried in native oil, and a calabash [gourd] of sour curds. When I saw this I burst out laughing, and thought it a most amazing thing that they could be so foolish and make so much of such a paltry matter.”

14. III Kingdom of Benin (1300 – 1897)
A) Located on the Niger river B) The Guinness Book of Records (1974 edition) described the walls of Benin City and its surrounding kingdom as the world’s largest earthworks carried out prior to the mechanical era and 4 times longer than the Great Wall of China. Hardly any of the walls remain today. C) Skilled in the art of making figurines from bronze, copper, and ivory
In 1691, Portuguese ship captain Lourenco Pinto observed: “Great Benin… is larger than Lisbon... The houses are large, especially that of the king, which is richly decorated and has fine columns. The city is wealthy and industrious. It is so well governed that theft is unknown and the people live in such security that they have no doors to their houses.”

15. IV Swahili Trading States East Africa
South of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, a number of Muslim city-states developed along the East African coast. A) Sailors used monsoon winds to move around Indian Ocean. B) Trade network linked East Africa with Persia, Arabia, India, and Southeast Asia. C) By 1100 CE, coastal market towns became thriving city-states: Mogadishu, Kilwa, Mombasa. D) Merchants traded gold, ivory and slaves for pottery, glassware, and textiles from Persia, India, and China. E) Architecture featured African and Arab characteristics. Local Bantu languages blended with Arabic into the new language of Swahili. F) As many foreign traders were Muslim, Islam gained hold along coast.

18. Fort, Kilwa

19. Great Mosque, Kilwa Swahili Coast

20. Door, Zanzibar Swahili Coast

21. Delhi Sultanate India 1210 - 1256
After the decline of the Gupta, Muslim armies from Central Asia were regularly raiding the kingdoms of northern India.
Muhammad of Ghor created a permanent Muslim empire in northern India when he was assassinated, having no sons, his empire was divided among his Turkic slaves. One of them, Qutbu I-Din Aibak, established the Delhi Sultanate in Delhi 1210 CE. Hindus were protected but had to pay a tax
Due to Mongol invasions, many Persian scholars fled to India  new culture blending Islamic & Indian elements. New language of Urdu developed: blend of Persian, Arabic & Delhi dialect. New religion of Sikhism.
Many Indians converted to Islam to avoid high taxes and to advance in government Decline: Tamerlane sacked Delhi in 1398

22. Jama Masjid Mosque, Delhi
Delhi Sultanate Social Hierarchy
Foreign Muslims (Persians, Arabs, Turks…)
Indian Muslims (They were not as respected as many were recent converts to Islam)
Hindus
Peasants Slaves
Status of Women:
Sati continued among the wealthy castes.
Veiling for Muslims.
Polygamy common for wealthy Muslims.

23. Key Vocabulary Benin Delhi Sultanate Ghana Great Zimbabwe
King Sundiata
Mali
Mansa Musa
Sikhism
Songhai
Timbuktu
Urdu
Modern Women, Mali