¹ The Ta'rīkh es-Sūdān (hereafter TS) had dated Tondibi to 12 April 1591. See Abdallahes-Sa'di, Abderrhahman ben, Ta'rīkh es-Sudan (Paris, 1964 edn.), 219.Google Scholar However, all other sources, including Maḥmūd Kâti's Ta'rīkh al-Fattāsh (hereafter TaF), and the Moroccan and Spanish ones, placed it in March.

² Among the works found useful for an understanding of this history, special consideration must be given to Es-Sa'di, TS; Maḥamud Kâti (and unidentified grandson), Ta'rīkh al-Fattāsh (Paris, 1964 edn.)Google Scholar; al-Wafrānī, Muḥammad, Tadhkirat al-Nisyān, French trans, and Arabic text, ed. Houdas, O. as Tedzkiret en-Nisian (Paris, 1964 edn.)Google Scholar; Diego de, Torres, Histoire des Chérifs et des royaumes de Maroc, Fez et Tardavant, d'Angoulesme, Le Due, trans. (Paris, 1667;Google Scholar attached to Marmol, vol. 3); Muḥammad al-Wafrānī, Nuzhat al-Hādī, French trans. Houdas, O. as Nozhet el-Hadi: Histoire de la dynastie saadienne au Maroc (1511–1670) (Paris, 1889);Google Scholar Lévi-Provençal, Évariste, Les historiens des Chorfa: Essai sur la littérature historique et biographique au Maroc du 16^e au 20^e siècle (Paris, 1922)Google Scholar; Terrasse, Henri, Histoire du Maroc, 2 vols. (Casablanca, 1949–1950)Google Scholar; Tourneau, Roger Le, ‘La naissance du pouvoir sadien vue par l'historien al-Zayyanī’, in Institut Damas, Français de, Mélanges Louis Massignon, vol. 3 (Damas, 1957), 65–80Google Scholar; Charbonneau, A., ‘Essai sur l littérature arabe au Soudan d'après le Tekmilet-ed-dibadje d'Ahmed-Baba, le Tombouctien’, Annuaire de la société d'archéologie de la province de Constantine, vol. xix, 2 (Constantine, 1855);Google Scholar E., Lévi-Provençal, ‘Un document inédit sur l'expédition sadide au Soudan’, Arabica: Revue d'études arabes, ii (1955), 89–96Google Scholar; Lt. Colonel H. de, Castries, ‘La conquête du Soudan par el-Mansour’, Hespéris, iii (1923), 433–88Google Scholar, which includes the letter by the anonymous Spanish agent titled ‘Relacion de la Jornada que el Rey de Marruecos ha heco a la conquista del reyno de Gago…’, and al-Manṣūr's, ‘Letter to the ‘ulamamacr;’ and Sharīf of Fez’ in 1591Google Scholar; Berque, Jacques, Problèmes de la culture marocaine au 17^e siècle (The Hague, 1958)Google Scholar; Delafosse, Maurice, ‘Les relations du Soudan avec le Maroc à travers les âges’, Hespéris, iv, ii (1924)Google Scholar; Julien, Charles-André, Histoire de l'Afrique du nord (Paris, 1952)Google Scholar; Capitaine, Préfontan, ‘Les Arma’, in Bulletin du Comité d'études historiques et scientifiques de l'A.O.F. ix (1926).Google Scholar

³ Some of these leaders were associated with the zazūlīyya brotherhood then very influential in southern Morocco, and also benefited from the system of classic alliances (liff). For more information see Jerome B. Weiner, ‘Rise of the Sa'did Dynasty in the 16th Century’, a paper prepared for the 1976 Middle Eastern Studies Association; see also Tourneau, R. Le, ‘La naissance du pouvoir sadien’, Terrasse, H., Histoire du Maroc, ii, 160–4Google Scholar; Ch-André Julien, op. cit. 204–23; Castries, De, ‘La conquête du Soudan’, 437Google Scholar; Cenival, Pierre de (ed.), Les sources inedites de l'histoire du Maroc et du Portugal (Paris, 1934)Google Scholar; Laroui, Abdallah, The History of the Maghrib: An Interpretive Essay, translated from the French by Manheim, Ralph (Princeton, 1977), 245–8;Google Scholar Cour, Auguste, L'établ-issement des dynasties des chérifs ạu Maroc et leur rivalité avec les Turcs d'Alger (Paris, 1904).Google Scholar

⁴ After the Sultan Mulāy Muḥammad's forces took Marrakesh in 1544, he asked the Askiya Isḥāq to hand over to Morocco the Taghāza salt mines. The Askiya in his reply said: ‘The Aḥmad who listened to such advices could not be the present Aḥmad, and the Isḥāq who will accept them is yet to be born;’ then to show his power he launced an expedition which raided southern Morocco and then returned to the Sudan. See Es-Sa'di, TS, 163–4.

⁵ For example, Mūlāy Abdallah al-Ghalib Billāh (1557–74) and Muḥammad al-Muttawakil (1574–6) encouraged trade with Elizabethan England while they received assistance from Philip II against the Turks and exchanged gifts with the Askiya Dāwūd. The army of King Sebastian of Portugal was decisively defeated at Alcazar Kebir in 1578 by Mūlāy Abd al-Malik (1576–78).

⁶ Philip II was fearful of England's growing influence in Morocco, and thus thought that ceding this fort might increase Spain's position at the court in Marrakesh.

⁷ Braudel, Fernand, La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l'époque de Philippe II (Paris, 1949), 368.Google Scholar See also his ‘Monnaies et civilisation: de l'or du Soudan à l'argent d'Amérique, Annates: É.S.C. i, i (Janvier-Mars 1946), 9–22.Google Scholar In this article, Braudel stated that ‘from the last decade of the fifteenth century, Sudanese gold begins no longer to arrive, at least not in the same quantity, in the cities of North Africa’ (12). The bullion famine of the fifteenth century and the importance of the Sudan as a major gold supplier are shown in Day, John, ‘The Great Bullion Famine of the Sixteenth Century’, Past and Present, lxxix (05 1978), 3–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar This article is valuable despite many misspellings of African names and other questionable assumptions (see pp. 37–8).

⁸ Braudel, , La Méditerranée, 368.Google Scholar Salah Reis' expeditions to Wargala in the Sahara in 1552 also had strong economic motivations.

⁹ Willis, John Ralph, ‘The Western Sudan from the Moroccan Invasion (1591) to the Death of al-Mukhtār al-Kunti (1811)’, in Ajayi, J. F. Ade and Crowder, Michael (eds.), History of West Africa, i (New York, 1976), 512;Google Scholar J. O. Hunwick, ‘Songhay, Borno and Hausaland in the Sixteenth Century’, Ibid., 273. Nehemia Levtzion also gives some consideration to Islam: see his ‘North-West Africa: From the Maghrib to the Fringes of the Forest’, in Gray, Richard (ed.), The Cambridge History of Africa, iv, From c. 1600 to c. 1970 (Cambridge, 1970), 142–222.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Castries, Lt. Colonel de, ‘Lettre d'El-Mansour aux Chérifs, aux jurisconsultes et à tous les notables de Fez’, in Hespéris, iii (1923), 486–7.Google Scholar

¹¹ The history of Islam's spread in the Sudan long before the rise of the Sa'did dynasty in 1554, and the absence of scholars in Judar's army further indicate that the invasion had little religious motivation. For more information, see Kâti, , TaF, 304–14Google Scholar; Es-Sa'di, , TS, 258–66Google Scholar; Charbonneau, A., ‘Essai sur la littérature arabe au Soudan’, 31–42Google Scholar; Cissoko, S. Mody, ‘L'intelligentsia de Tombouctou aux 15^e et 16^e siècles’, Bulletin de l' I FAN, série B, xxxi (1966), 927–52;Google Scholar Hunwick, J. O., ‘Ahmad Bābā and the Moroccan Invasion’, J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, ii, iii (1962), 311–28;Google Scholar Hunwick, J. O., ‘Further Light on Aḥmad Bābā al-Timbukti’, Ibadan Research Bulletin Centre of Arabic Documentation, ii, ii (1966), 19–31Google Scholar; Baba Kaké, Ibrahima, ‘Un grand érudit de la Nigritie au 16^e siècle: Aḥmad Bābā le Tombouctien’, Présence Africaine, lx (1966), 34–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Islam and Islamic values reached a zenith in Jenne and Timbuktu, as the Moroccans witnessed among the exiled scholars.

¹² According to de Castries, Judar's army did not travel through Tuwat; and Terrasse has suggested that the 1581 campaign tested the mercenaries' endurance and the possibility of carrying heavy pieces of artillery across barren rugged terrains. De, Castries, ‘Lettre D'El-Mansour aux Chérifs’, 448Google Scholar; Terrasse, H., Histoire du Maroc, ii, 203.Google Scholar

¹³ Delafosse, , ‘Les relations du Soudan avec le Maroc’, 163.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Castries, De, ‘Lettre d'El-Mansour’, 442.Google Scholar Terrasse thought that this was a mere pretext because no jihad was proclaimed and because Muslims were influential in Songhay; see Terrase, H., Histoire du Maroc, 203.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Es-Sa'di, , TS, 217.Google Scholar

¹⁶ This was al-Manṣūr's own word. By ‘modern’ he might imply the technological superiority of the then recently made weapons.

¹⁷ This view is substantiated by the Sultan's answer to some sceptical advisers: ‘The Sudan being richer than the Maghrib, its conquests would be more profitable than to drive out the Turks which would call for great efforts with very little to gain’, Muḥammad al-Wafrānī, , Nuzhat al-Hādī, 152Google Scholar; also quoted in Bovill, E. W., The Golden Trade of the Moors (London, 1970 edn.), 166.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Undoubtedly, the Portuguese preponderance in the Atlantic and Philip II's claim to Arguin and the Saharan coasts encouraged Moroccan–British relations. The two partners sought to break the Portuguese monopoly and to minimize the Spanish threats.

¹⁹ By 1578, England had achieved brilliant results in iron casting for cannon and guns. As the techniques improved, the armament industry expanded very rapidly. British cannon became popular in Europe and in the Mediterranean, and hence trade in arms very profitable. See Cipolla, Carlo M., Guns, Sails and Empires: Technological Innovation and the Early Phases of European Expansion 1400–1700 (New York 1965), 36–46.Google Scholar

²⁰ Braudel, , La Mediterranee, 367.Google Scholar

²¹ Curtin, Philip, Feierman, Steven, Thompson, Leonard, and Vansina, Jan, African History (Boston, 1978), 193.Google Scholar

²² Many authors have overlooked the resistance. For example, see Curtin, et al. , African History; Dubois, Félix, Tombouctou, la mystérieuse (Paris, 1897)Google Scholar; Monteil, Charles, Djenné: Une ville soudanaise (Paris, 1932).Google Scholar Maurice, Delafosse, in his Haut-Sénégal-Niger, ii (Paris 1972), 240–61Google Scholar, literally summarizes the two Ta'rīkh without much analysis. Urvoy's, Pierre Histoire des populations du Soudan central (Paris, 1936)Google Scholar, deals with resistance in the Zarma area rather than in Dendi. J. R. Willis in ‘The Western Sudan from the Moroccan Invasion’, Hunwick, J. O., in ‘Songhay, Bornu and Hausaland’, and Cissoko, Sékéné-Mody in his Tombouctou et l'empire songhay: épanouissement du Soudan nigérien aux XV^e–XVI^e siècles (Dakar, 1975)Google Scholar, devote only a few lines to the resistance. Bovill, E. W. dealt with some aspects of the invasion of the Sudan and the Songhay resistance in The Golden Trade of the Moors, 164–83.Google Scholar See also N. Levtzion, ‘North-West Africa’.

²³ ‘Relacion de la Jornada que el Rey de Marruecos… ’, in de Castrie's ‘Lettre d'El-Mansour’, 445.

²⁴ Quoted in Bovill, E. W., The Golden Trade of the Moors, 166.Google Scholar

²⁵ However, according to the TaF, there were 9,700 infantry soldiers and 18,000 cavalry. Whatever the case might have been, it was a large army. The lack of consensus among the Songhay officers and their inaction reinforce the assumption of treason. According to es-Sa'di, ‘upon being informed of Judar's expedition, the Askiya Isḥaq convened his highest officials, and consulted with them about the measures to take… But whenever a judicious advice was given, it was rejected’ (TS, 218–19).

²⁶ TS, 222, 228; Kâti, 283–4.

²⁷ Quoted in Bovill, , The Golden Trade, 166.Google Scholar

²⁸ Laroui, A., The History of the Maghrib, 227.Google Scholar The term ‘Maghrib’ refers to the western part of North Africa from Tunisia to Morocco.

²⁹ Ibn Khaldūn gave an excellent insight into the nature pf Maghribine society in his Muqqadima, translatd by Frantz Rosenthal, ed. N. J. Dawood (Princeton, 1969).

³⁰ Tourneau, Roger Le, Fez in the Age of the Marinides, translated from the French by Clement, Basse A. (Norman, 1961), 83–113.Google Scholar

³¹ For the sugar production see Paul, Berthier, Les anciennes sucreries du Maroc et leurs reseaux hydrauliques (Robat, 1966)Google Scholar, and Berbrugger, A., ‘La canne a sucre et les chérifs du Maroc au 16^e siècle’, Revue Africaine vi, xxxii (Alger, mars 1862).Google Scholar

³² Terrasse, , Histoire du Maroc, 206—8.Google Scholar

³³ Songhay agriculture involved community ownership, large-scale plantations and sharecropping. In my view, Songhay was neither a slave nor a feudal society. See my paper on ‘Social Inequality in Africa with Special References to Songhay, 1464–1591’, presented to the Social Science Research Council Seminar on Inequality, New York, October 1976.

³⁴ See Sékéné-Mody Cissoko, Tombouctou, and ‘ L'intelligentsia de Tombouctou…’.

³⁵ ‘Relacion de la Jornada…’, in de Castries, ‘Lettre d'El-Mansour 449.

³⁶ Ibid., 473.

³⁷ According to Kâti, Alfa Lanbar dismounted his horse, held the bridle of the Askiya's horse and said to him: ‘Behold and fear God, His Majesty'.’ The Emperor replied: ‘It seems that you would rather order us to take to flight and rout! God forbid! I am not one of those who turn their backs! If there are any people who want to save their lives, let them flee!’ The King was joining his troops, his stirrup led by an officer, when Alfa Lanbar said to him ‘Fear God, do not confront death, do not condemn all your brothers and Songhay to death at once and on a single spot. God will call you to account for the lives of all who die here today; for you will be the cause of their death if you do not order them to flee. We do not ask you to take flight but rather to remove them away from the reach of this fire. Afterward we will reflect and decide what to do, and tomorrow we will return to the battle resolved and decided, if please God. But fear God.’ Kâti, TaF, 265.

³⁸ Ibid. Obviously the chronicler is charging Lanbar with the debacle. Alfa Bukar Lanbar might have betrayed Songhay. However, should an individual action suggest, as Rouch has claimed, that ‘Islam led Songhay to defeat and shame?’ (Contribution, 215). For Alfa Kâti and es-Sa'di, it was not the excess of Islamic fervour but, on the contrary, the decline of solidarity and religious values and the widespread practice of sodomy, incest, and wine drinking which accounted for the fall of Songhay; see Es-Sa'di, , TS, 224.Google Scholar Although Islamic principles condemned these attitudes, no reform movement aiming at orthodoxy and decency emerged. Only if Alfa Bukar were the leader of such a movement could the Muslim community be held responsible for the Tondibi collapse. His treason might not represent a betrayal by the whole Sudanese Islam.

³⁹ The Askiya made important concessions to the Sultan. He promised to swear allegiance to Morocco and to concede his right to salt mines and trade. He also proposed to offer 100,000 gold mitqāls, if the Moroccans were to withdraw soon.

⁴⁰ The Timbuktu qāḍī Umar sent the muezzin Yahama to greet the Pasha, but he offered no hospitality to the Moroccans. Es-Sa'di, TS, 221. Later, the Pasha Zargun punished the ‘ulamā’ for this lukewarm welcome.

⁴¹ This challenge epitomized the acute dynastic rivalries which shook Songhay after the Askiya Dāwūd's death in 1582. Upon his enthronement, Isḥāq II jailed or banished many of his brothers and cousins in order to secure his power. Not surprisingly, some of these princes were the first to rally to the Moroccans in 1591. As for Muḥammad-Gao, by claiming that Laha-Surkiya was recalled for further consultation, he only wanted to promote his own claim to the crown. Once deposed, his brother, the Askiya Isḥāq, left for Gurma, where former enemies killed him in a surprise attack. See es-Sa'di, TS, 230.Google Scholar

⁴² Kâti, , TaF, 280.Google Scholar

⁴³ Ibid., 301; and Es-Sa'di, , TS, 229.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ See note 35; and E. Lévi-Provençal, ‘Un document inédit.’

⁴⁵ Kâti, , TaF, 283–95Google Scholar; and Es-Sa'di, , TS, 232–4.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Kâti, , TaF, 289–92.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Es-Sa'di, , TS, 245–54.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Kati, , TaF, 294.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ See J. R. Willis, ‘The Western Sudan’, and N. Levtzion, ‘North-West Africa’, for further discussion of the Arma administration. But this system could not succeed well because of political and military difficulties.

⁵⁰ Kâti, , TaF, 206–7.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Ibid., 297–8.

⁵² After Tondibi, local rebellions among urban and rural communities against the Moroccans became a main feature of Songhay's history. The ‘ ulamā’ decried the violation of the mosques and houses; merchants resented arbitrary confiscations; commoners objected to raids and looting. Most of the people, including Fulani, Tuareg and Dogon vassals and even independent Mandinka to the west questioned the legitimacy of the Moroccan rule. Thus the resistance assumed a ‘national’ character in that it entailed broad trans-ethnic feelings hostile to alien rule and based on some type of common historical traditions. As a further testimony, notice that Sulaymān, the Moroccan-appointed Askiya, could attract only 147 soldiers from the former royal army, mostly of non-Songhay origin. See Kâti, , TaF, 229.Google Scholar

⁵³ Es-Sa'di, , TS, 239.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Rouch, J., Contribution, 218.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Es-Sa'di, , TS, 238.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ The Moroccans lost part of their elite troops at the battle of Birnay. Es-Sa'di, , TS, 239.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Ibid., 255–6.

⁵⁸ Provençal, E. Lévi, ‘Un document inédit sur l'expédition sadide au Soudan’, 95–6.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Es-Sa'di, , TS, 255.Google Scholar Pious inhabitants were indignant at the repression in general, and this execution in particular because it was a crime visited upon leaders considered as the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.

⁶⁰ See Kâti, , TaF, 306Google Scholar; Es-Sa'di, , TS, 259.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Kâti, , TaF, 307Google Scholar; Es-Sa'di, , TS, 264.Google Scholar The exiles were released from prison in 1596, but the Sultan did not allow them to return to Songhay. Only the writer Ahmad Baba came back alive in 1607. See Kâti, , TaF, 263.Google Scholar

⁶² Kati, , TaF, 308.Google Scholar

⁶³ Es-Sa'di, , TS, 268.Google Scholar Ironically, Zargun's death could be compared to that of the hi-koy Laha-Surkiya whom he had decapitated because he was a main leader of the opposition. He, too, was decapitated.

⁶⁴ Ibid., 271.

⁶⁵ Examples of physical elimination include the poisoning of Muḥammad Taba, whose tenure as pasha lasted only from December 1597 to May 1598; the strangulation of the long-time commander of Timbuktu, the qā'id al-Mustafa-et-Turki; and the murders of many other officers.

⁶⁶ The issue is whether Songhay could have experienced the same level of prosperity under the Moroccans as it did before 1591. Willis has argued that the ‘Middle Niger Valley should have continued to flourish under Moroccan auspices, [had not] the recall of Judar deprived the Moroccans of a gifted leader’. He also views al-Mansūr's death as another bad omen. Undoubtedly, al-Manṣūr and Judar were able leaders. Yet they could not bring peace to the Sudan because of bureaucratic and military constraints. To worsen the situation, the initial Moroccan policies alienated the population and made peace remote. Willis' assumptions are questionable on methodological grounds. To posit the outcome of such complex events on two individual destinies would seem to be an oversimplification. History involves the result of the interaction of all participants, leaders and common people alike. This interaction is the parameter of individual actions. Thus Judar and al-Manṣūr alone could not control all the forces unleashed by the invasion. Moreover, Willis overlooked two main points. First, Judar, despite his displacement from the office of pasha in August 1591, remained in the Sudan as a major leader until 1599. Secondly, the first twelve years of Moroccan rule coinciding with al-Manṣūr's reign saw no major improvement in Songhay's economy. See Willis, J. R., ‘The Western Sudan from the Moroccan Invasion’, 517.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ According to E. W. Bovill, Nūḥu was killed by the Pasha Abderrahmane. See ‘ The Golden Trade’, 188. However, es-Sa'di wrote that he was overthrown by his brother el-Mustafa in 1599; see TS, 470.

⁶⁸ Paradoxically, the qā'id ‘Ali, instead of counter-attacking the Songhay army, launched an offensive against various communities in Massina suspected of being allied with the resisters. This meant that he and the Pasha had lost their confidence in their troops.

⁶⁹ Es-Sa'di, , TS, 302.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Ibid., 307.

⁷¹ Dubois, , Tombouctou, 150.Google Scholar

⁷² The Moroccans soon became known as Arma. According to some historians, Arma is a Songhay mispronunciation of the Arabic word Ruma which means fusilier. By extension it was applied to the whole Moroccan community and subsequently their descendants in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, its usage may be premature in the context of 1591–1612. The Arma maintained some prominence in local politics until the eighteenth century before paying tribute to Tuareg, Bambara and Fulani rulers successively.

⁷³ The Tadhkirat al-Nisyān is a major source for the history of the socio-economic and political crisis in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. See also Mody-Cissoko, S., ‘Famines et épidémies à Tombouctou et dans la vallée du Niger du 16^e au 18^e siècle’, Bulletin de l'IFAN, B. 30 (1968), 805–21.Google Scholar For the implications of the crises in the Sudan see also Lansiné, Kaba, ‘Background to the Change in West African History: Songhay, 1492–1750’, Journal of African Studies iv, iii (1977), 344–56.Google Scholar P. Curtin's argument that the fall of Songhay need not be seen as a calamity for West Africa is pertinent. Indeed, the Hausa city states prospered in the seventeenth century. Yet the lack of a centralized kingdom able to integrate large and heterogeneous populations, to promote order and peace, and to attract a large group of foreign scholars and traders from various areas could not be minimized; it was a reversal of the early historical trend in the Western Sudan. See Curtin, P.et al., African History, 198.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ The period 1603–59 has been considered as one of disunion in Moroccan history. After al-Manṣūr's death the kingdom was divided into two, that is, the sultanate of Fez and that of Marrakesh. The latter, the more important, experienced regional rebellions, dynastic conflicts and political instability. The army consisting of mercenaries and former slaves became the dominant force. The dynasty fell in 1659 with the murder of Sultan Aḥmad al-Khaim, and gave way to the Alawite dynasty.

⁷⁵ Es-Sa'di, , TS, 291.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ ‘Relacion de la Jornada…’ in de Castries, ‘Lettre d'El-Mansour’, 477.

⁷⁷ The debate about the effects of European navigation upon North Africa's economy has opposed F. Braudel and Marian Malowist. For Braudel, the navigation resulted in the collapse of Arab monopoly. But Malowist thinks that North Africa suffered a substantial decline rather than a collapse. A careful reading of the documents would indicate that the trans-Saharan trade did continue throughout the sixteenth century. The failure of the Moroccan invasion in the seventeenth century and the subsequent instability, combined with long-lasting drought and famine in the second half of the seventeenth century and the eighteenth century, had most effect upon the trade between the Sudan and Morocco. For more information see F. Braudel, ‘Monnaies et civilisations’ and Malowist, M., ‘Le commerce d'or et d'esclaves au Soudan occidental’, Africana Bulletin iv (1966), 49–73Google Scholar; Idem, ‘Quelques observations sur le commerce de l'or au Soudan au Moyen Âge’, Annates: E.S.C., xxv, vi (novembre 1970)Google Scholar; Kaba, L., ‘The Background to the Change in West African Economic History’Google Scholar.

⁷⁸ See Braudel, F., ‘Qu'est-ce que le 16^e siècle?, Annates: E.S.C., viii, i (janvier-mars 1953). 62–73.Google Scholar Braudel has divided the ‘sixteenth century’ into two broad periods: the first from about 1450 to 1550, and the second from 1550 to 1620/1640. This means that the concept of century may be based on common processes rather than solely chronological criteria.

⁷⁹ It is worth noticing that historically Islam had interfered little with economic relations across vast regions and had avoided isolationist trends because of its underlying universalism. Within this context, al-Manṣūr's allusion to the unity of Islam becomes even more relevant. The pursuit of material gains and the search for religious unity are not mutually exclusive. In fact, Islam does not oppose secular matters to the spiritual ones. That is why a purely religious interpretation of the invasion is open to criticism.