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Turkish Archival Sources for West African History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

B. G. Martin
B. G. Martin*
Affiliation:
Indiana University
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Extract

About 1960, the study of West African history took a new turn as historians became aware of the interest and value of Islamic sources for their work, particularly manuscript materials in Arabic. To be sure, the use of Arabic sources for the history of West Africa is nothing new: in 1841, W. Des-borough Cooley published his The Negroland of the Arabs Examined and Explained; or, an Inquiry into the Early History and Geography of Central Africa. But Cooley's pioneering book was discounted by later British and American writers on Africa as the work of an eccentric. In the 1880's and 1890's, many of these writers were spellbound by their vision of what Christianity might do for the African, while others were preoccupied by what they deemed to be the morally indefensible activities of the Muslims as slave-raiders and traders in West and East Africa. As late as the 1930's, the well-known British anthropologist C. K. Meek indicted Islam in northern Nigeria when he wrote: “The institution of slavery is a pivotal feature of Islamic society, and we are justified with charging Muhammadanism with the devastation and desolation in which Northern Nigeria was found at the beginning of this century.” Other writers, like Sir A.C. Burns for Nigeria, and A. W. Cardinall and W. E. F. Ward for Ghana, dismissed the Islamic side of West African history in few words, or gave it no mention at all. There were other reasons for this lack of emphasis. In northern Nigeria, for example, many British officials were apprehensive of an outbreak of “Mahdism” among the Muslims; and very frequently, French officials looked on Islam as a rival political system, dangerous and potentially subversive.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , December 1967 , pp. 59 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1967

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References

NOTES

1. This article has been published in Stern, S. M. (ed.), Documents from Islamic Chanceries (Oxford and London: Faber & Faber/Bruno Cassirer, 1967)Google Scholar, together with full Arabic texts, Turkish texts, translations and a commentary.

2. London, J. Arrowsmith, 1841, reprinted 1966 by F. Cass, London.

3. SirBurns, A. C., History of Nigeria (6th ed., London, 1963)Google Scholar; A. W. Cardinall, The Natives of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast; Their Customs, Religion, and Folklore (London, 1920)Google Scholar; Ward, W. E. F., A History of the Gold Coast (London, 1948)Google Scholar.

4. See Letham, J., secret report on Mahdism, Northern Nigeria Government, 1927 Google Scholar.

5. See Martin, B. G., review article of Freeman-Grenville, G. S. P., Medieval History of the Tanganyika Coast, Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, VII (Accra, 1965), pp. 120–137 Google Scholar.

6. In a forthcoming article on Turkish materials for the history of the whole of Africa north of the Sahara, Ethiopia, Horn of Africa, etc.

7. Šertoǧlu, Mithat, Muhteva Bakimindan Beşvekâlet Arsivi (“The Contents of the Prime Minister's Archives”) and Öz, Tahsin, Arsiv kilavuzu (“A Key to the Archives”) (Istanbul, 1956 and 1940)Google Scholar.

8. See Martin, B. G., “Seven Arabie Letters from the Tripoli Archives,” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, II, 3 (1964), pp. 350–372 Google Scholar.

9. Mantran, Robert, Inventaire des documents d'archives turcs du Dar el-Bey (Tunis), Université de Tunis, Publications de la faculté de lettres, 5e série, sources de l'histoire tunisienne, Paris, 1961 Google Scholar.

10. See the chapter “Algeria in the Age of the Ottoman Turks,” in Aziz, Yaḥya Bū', Al-Mu'jaz fi ta'rīkh al-Jazā'ir (“An Outline of Algerian History”) (Algiers, 1965), pp. 132–158 Google Scholar, esp. p. 155.

11. Ibid., pp. 140-141. Another good source for these matters is Samih, Aziz, Simali afrikada Türkler (“The Turks in North Africa”) (Istanbul, 1936–1937)Google Scholar.

12. khâqân: khan of khans.

13. ghâzi: a warrior who participates in a jihad.

14. See d'Anania, Giovanni Lorenzo, Cosmografia, overo il fabrica del mondo (Naples, 1573 Google Scholar; Venice, 1576 and 1582). This source may not be as original as Leo Africanus, but it contains (Part III) a long section on Africa which deserves translation and publication.