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Historical Writing in Nineteenth Century Segu: A Critical Analysis of an Anonymous Arabic Chronicle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

John H. Hanson
John H. Hanson*
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
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Extract

All too often Africanist historians use Arabic sources without serious consideration of the circumstances surrounding their composition. Many historians have used the Kano Chronicle, for example, as a primary source for fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Hausaland. Since it is a history of the kings of Kano, organized by reign, one could assume that successive writers, contemporaneous with the reigns, produced a documentary record of their era which was perpetuated by subsequent contributors to the chronicle. Murray Last's recent analysis reveals, however, that one man compiled the Kano Chronicle during the mid-seventeenth century, and that it was updated by subsequent writers a few reigns at a time. Although many historians found it convenient and advantageous to assume that the Kano Chronicle was a reliable primary source, Last clearly demonstrates the need for close textual analysis of any Arabic source used for historical reconstruction.

B.G. Martin errs in the opposite direction. He attributes a nineteenth-century Arabic chronicle to a twentieth-century cleric, Cierno Malik Diallo of Kidira, Senegal. Diallo is actually the custodian of one of several versions of this anonymous Arabic account of Umar Tal's jihad (hereafter Chronicle X). The Umarian chronicles, of which Chronicle X is merely an example are one group of written materials generated in the aftermath of the jihads of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century West Africa. Host of the efforts in documentary analysis have focused on the writings of Uthman dan Fodio, Muhammad Bello, and other members of the Sokoto elite.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 12 , 1985 , pp. 101 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1985

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References

NOTES

1. An earlier version of this paper was presented before a graduate seminar at Michigan State University. I am grateful to all participants for their helpful comments. I also am indebted to David Robinson, Harold Marcus, Emily Tabuteau, and Jay Spaulding for their special concern and commentary. All errors and omissions remain my own responsibility.

2. See, for example, Lovejoy, Paul, “The Role of the Wangara in the Economic Transformation of the Central Sudan in Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries,” JAH, 19 (1978), 173–93Google Scholar; Hunwick, J.O., “Songhay, Bornu and Hausaland in the Sixteenth Century” in Ajayi, J.F.A. and Crowder, M., eds., History of West Africa, vol. 1, 2nd edition (London, 1976).Google Scholar See also Gilliland, Dean, “Religious Change Among the Hausa, 1000–1800; A Hermeneutic of the Kano Chronicle,” Journal of Asian and African Studies, 14 (1979), 241–57.Google Scholar

3. Last, Murray, “Historical Metaphors in the Kano Chronicle,” HA, 7 (1980), 161–78.Google Scholar

4. Martin, B.G., “Notes sur l'origine de la ‘tariqa’ des Tiganiyya,” Revue des Etudes Islamiques, 37 (1969), 267–90.Google Scholar

5. Martin worked from a microfilm copy of Diallo's personal copy of Chronicle X. Philip Curtin had made a microfilm of it during his research in eastern Senegal in 1966. Although Curtin made the original attribution of authorship of Chronicle X to Diallo, Martin made extensive use of the chronicle and should have explored the question further. Several published sources refer to Chronicle X. Henri Gaden, a French colonial official who was translating Mamadu Ali Cam's poetic narrative of Umar Tal's life, borrowed a copy of Chronicle X from Seydu Nuru Tal, one of Umar's grandsons. Gaden frequently refers to Chronicle X in his notes. See Tyam, Mohammadou Aliou (Cam, Mamadu Ali), La Vie d'El Hadj Omar. Qacida en Poular, ed. Gaden, Henri (Paris, 1935).Google Scholar Also during the 1930s, Shaykh Musa Kamara, the prolific Senegalese historian, incorporated several passages from Chronicle X in his Arabic treatise on Umar Tal's See Amar Samb's introduction to Kamara's treatise in “La vie d'El Hadj Omar par Cheikh Moussa Kamara,” BIFAN, 32B (1970), 44–56.Google Scholar The earliest reference to Chronicle X may have been in the early 1880s. A Frenchman mentions a document, written by an Umarian, that had been in the possession of a trader in Medine, a French post on the upper Senegal River. See Dr.Colin, , “Le pays de Bambouck,” Revue d'Anthropologie, 1 (1886), 433.Google Scholar

6. See, for example, ʿUthman b. Fodiye, Muhammad, Bayan wujub al-hijra, ed. and trans, by El-Masri, F.H. (London, 1978)Google Scholar; Fodiye, Abdallah b. Muhammad, Tazyin al-waraqat, ed. and trans, by Hiskett, M. (Ibadan, 1963).Google Scholar

7. Charles Stewart sketches the outlines of three historiographical schools on the history of the Sokoto caliphate in his review of Smaldone, Joseph, Warfare in the Sokoto Caliphate, Journal of African Studies, 6 (1979/1980), 230–32.Google Scholar See also, Sutton, J.E.G., “Towards a Less Orthodox History of Hausaland,” JAH, 20 (1979), 180–81, 194, 195–97.Google Scholar

8. David Robinson discusses the Umarian literature in Crusaders and Defenders: The Holy War of Umar Tal in the Senegal and Niger River Valleys (Oxford, forthcoming). He kindly allowed me to read a draft of this work.

9. Diallo's copy of Chronicle X is more complete than a Bamako version, which David Robinson microfilmed from the personal library of Baka Sylla, and the French translation of Chronicle X in the Fonds Brevié of the Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire in Dakar, Senegal, which Robinson also microfilmed. He allowed me to use his copies of these sources, including a copy of Diallo's version of Chronicle X. Other copies exist, however, in private libraries throughout the Western Sudan.

10. Diallo's copy has 72 folios which I have numbered consecutively from 1 to 72. The folios are in disorder; a consistent chronology requires reading the chronicle in the following order: ff. 1-42/9, ff. 47/1-56/2, ff. 44/9-46/12, ff. 42/10-44/9, ff. 56/2-72.

11. Chronicle X, ff. 7-9.

12. Ibid., ff. 12-13.

13. Ibid., f. 15.

14. Oloruntimehin, B.O., The Segu Tukolor Empire (London, 1972)Google Scholar, passim, Robinson, Crusaders and Defenders, chapter 3.

15. Chronicle X, f. 28.

16. Ibid., f. 34.

17. Ibid., f. 36.

18. Ibid., f. 47.

19. Ibid., ff. 50-51.

20. Ibid., f. 52.

21. Robinson, Crusaders and Defenders, chapter 6. Robinson's interpretation of these years diverges from that of previous historians, who often relied solely on Francophone archives. See, for example, Saint-Martin, Y., L'Empire toucouleur et la France (Dakar, 1967).Google Scholar

22. Chronicle X, f. 65.

23. Muhammad b. Ibrahim, an Umarian recruit from Futa Jalon, described the succession ceremony in Tarikh a l-Is tikhlaf or “The Chronicle of Succession.” Bibliotheque Nationale [Paris], Manuscrits Orientaux, Fonds Arabe (hereafter BNP/MO/FA), no. 5683, ff. 150-51.

24. Oloruntimehin, , Tukolor Empire, 178ff, 225ff.Google Scholar

25. In 1874 Amadu Sheku was proclaimed Commander of the Faithful in a second ceremony before a large contingent of Tijaniyya leaders from North and West Africa. See BNP/MO/FA 5640 (entire corpus). All known references to Amadu as Commander of the Faithful date to after that second ceremony Personal communication, David Robinson.

26. Chronicle X, ff. 6-7.

27. Robinson, Crusaders and Defenders, chapter 9.

28. Significantly, a Segu tradition from the 1860s mentioned all three of Umar's Hausa wives, the mothers of Habib, Mokhtar, and Muntaga. The implication is that the author of Chronicle X dropped the reference to Muntaga's mother to stress the rebellious brothers. Mage recorded the tradition in his Relation du voyage d'exploration de MM. Mage et Quintin au Soudan occidental (Paris, 1867), 142.Google Scholar

29. Ibid., 127, 136, 139, 195, 199-200, 205, 207, 234, 340, 407, 421, 429. Sutuku is referred to as “Sunkoutou” and “Sountoukou.” David Robinson drew my attention to these references.

30. Cam, Vie, 30n.

31. Chronicle X, ff. 29-30.

32. Ibid., ff. 30-31.

33. Ibid., ff. 32-33.

34. Khadduri, Majid, War and Peace in the Law of Islam (Baltimore, 1955).Google Scholar

35. Niane, D.T., Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali (London, 1965), 40.Google Scholar

36. Mage, , Relation, 147–48.Google Scholar

37. Cam, , Vie, 30ff.Google Scholar

38. Mage, , Relation, 186–87.Google Scholar

39. Robinson, Crusaders and Defenders, chapters 7 and 9.

40. Mage, , Relation, 187.Google Scholar

41. Robinson, Crusaders and Defenders, chapter 9.

42. Chronicle X, ff. 24-25.

43. Ibid., f. 53.

44. Other Umarian chronicles were written at Dingiray, Bandiagara, and Nioro. Robinson discusses these chronicles in Crusaders and Defenders, chapter 1.

45. Chronicle X, f. 19, 38-40, 47; Mage, , Relation, 138, 182, 187, 263.Google Scholar

46. Chronicle X, ff. 24-25, 37-38, 53-55, 44-45, 43, 61, 63-64.

47. Mage, , Relation, 149, 152, 154, 160, 167–68, 174.Google Scholar

48. Cam, , Vie, 29, 38-39, 40-41, 47, 62ff, 91ff, 100ff, 147ff, 169ff, 183ff, 193ff.Google Scholar

49. Chronicle X, ff. 24-26, 38, 71.

50. Ibid., f. 43.