¹ Modern scholarship on the Ibāḍiyya has for the most part remained marginal. Their heyday in North Africa is generally equated with the rise and fall of the Rusṭamid Imamate of Tāhart (763–909), after which their sect all but fades from view. Although the community has persisted to the present day, its low political profile accounts for its obscurity in non-Ibāḍī writings. What scholarship there is tends to draw heavily and often uncritically from Ibādī sources, which represent as much a sectarian tradition as a historical account.

² Wilkinson, J. C., ‘The early development of the Ibāḍī movement in Basra’, in Juynboll, G. H. A. (ed.), Studies in the First Centuries of Islamic Society (Carbondale, 1982), 135.Google Scholar

³ For other factors contributing to the appeal and rapid spread of Ibadism among Berber Christians and tribes see Savage, E., ‘Early medieval Ifrīqiya, a reassessment of the Ibāḍiyya’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1990), 182–262.Google Scholar

⁴ For the eighth century it is difficult to differentiate the indigenous Berbers except into very broad categories such as the Luwāta, Nafūsa, Hawāra and Mazāta, as well as some less-known groups. I refer to them as categories because affiliation would appear to have been not always genealogical but geographical or even political. For more on this, see Savage, , ‘Early medieval Ifrīqiya’, 219–62.Google Scholar

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⁶ This attitude of the majority of Muslims is succinctly expressed in the saying attributed by Shaybānī and others to Muḥammad: ‘Poverty is almost like apostasy’. See Torrey, C. C., ‘The commercial-theological terms in the Koran’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Strasburg, 1892), 1–5Google Scholar; de Somogyi, J., ‘Trade in the Qur'an and ḥadith’, The Muslim World, lii (1962), 110–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷ Pellat, Ch., citing Mukhtār b. al-Ḥasan Ibn Butlān's Risālah jāmi'ah li-funūn nāfi'ah fī shira'l-raqīq wa-taglīb al-'abīd (Cairo, 1954)Google Scholar, in ‘Ḳayna’, Encyclopedia of Islam [hereafter EI] (6 vols., new ed.) (Leiden, 1978), iv, 823.Google Scholar

⁸ Well-known artists gave lessons at the houses of great slave dealers. Iṣfahānī, Abū’l-Faradj, Kitāb al-Aghānī (20 vols.) (Bulaq, 1285/1868–1869), xxii, 43.Google Scholar

⁹ Early centres of such training were found in Mecca and Madina and subsequently were equalled by Baṣra. Ch. Pellat, ‘Ḳayna’. Cf. Zaydān, , Tarīkh al-Tammaddūn al-Islāmī (4 vols.) (Cairo, 1902–1905), iv, 44.Google Scholar The Baṣran poet, al-Jāḥịz (d. 869), described an accomplished singing girl as having a repertoire of some 4,000 songs amounting to 10,000 verses. Such training represented a considerable investment, the return from which came later. As sources of income, these slaves, for a price, entertained in a society where women were otherwise strictly secluded. The owners of these singers, to paraphrase al-Jāḩi, sold the gusty wind for solid ore and pieces of silver and gold. Beeston, A., The Epistle on Singing-girls of Jāḥiẓ (Warminster, 1980), 36.Google Scholar See also Iṣfahānī, , Kitāb, xxii, 43.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Mez, A., The Renaissance of Islam, trans. Bakhsh, S. K. (Patna, 1937), 32.Google Scholar

¹¹ Ibid. 161.

¹² Baihaqī, Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad, al-Mahāsin wa'l-Masāwi', ed. Schwally, F. (Leipzig, 1902), 613Google Scholar; Zaydān, , Tarīkh, ii, 104.Google Scholar

¹³ For the treatment of the peasants as slaves, see Forrand, P., ‘The status of the land and inhabitants of the Sawād during the first two centuries of Islam’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, xiv (1971), 33–5.Google Scholar

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¹⁶ Qudāma b. Ja‘far stated that a freedman of the caliph Mu’āwiya gained an annual income of five million dirhams. The work of drainage continued into the ‘Abbāsid period, Qudāma b. Ja'far, , Kitāb al-Kharāj wa Ṣan'at al-Kitābah, in Bibliotheca geographorum arabicarum [hereafter BGA] (8 vols.) (Leiden, 1889), vi, 181–2Google Scholar, as cited by al-Sāmarrā’ī, H. Q., ‘Agriculture in Iraq during 3rd/9th century’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1971), 57.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Baṣra is described by early geographers as a veritable Venice, with mile after mile of canals criss-crossing the gardens and orchards. al-Duri, A., Ta'rīkh al-'Iraq al-Iqtiṣadī (Baghdad, 1948), 26, 28.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Baṣra had a famous slave market, Sūq al-Rāqiq or Sūq al-Nakhkhāsīn (vendors of slaves), which was located in the Sūq Bab Jāmi' on the western side of the city and was adjacent to the money changers, book sellers and retailers of textiles. Naji, A. J. and ʻAli, Y. N., ‘The suqs of Basra: commercial organization and activity in a medieval Islamic city’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, xxiv (1981), 307.Google Scholar

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²³ Ibid. 32, 52.

²⁴ The Zaghāwa, it should be noted, were one of those southern Saharan peoples whom the Berbers transported as slaves. Aḥmad ibn Abī Ya'qūb ibn Wādiḥ al-Ya'qūbī, ‘Kitāb al-Buldān’, trans. Wiet, G., in Collection de textes d'auteurs orientaux (Cairo, 1937), 205.Google Scholar

²⁵ Cf. Lewis, , Race and Slavery, 55.Google Scholar

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²⁷ Mez, , Renaissance of Islam, 160.Google Scholar

²⁸ Baīhaqī, , al-Mahasīn, 616.Google Scholar For Kūfa's market, see al-Muqaddasī, Shams al-Dīn, Aḥsan al-Taqāsīm fī Ma'rifat al-Aqālim (Leiden, 1906), iii, 117.Google Scholar

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³⁰ Miskawayh, Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Ibn, Kitāb Tajārib al-Uman, trans. Amedroz, H. F. and Margoliouth, D. S. (7 vols.) (Oxford, 1920), vi, 391.Google Scholar

³¹ Merchants went as far as Sofala (Mozambique) in search of slaves and gold. ‘Alī b. Ḥusayn al-Mas‘ūdī, Murūj al-Dhahab, eds. de Meynard, B. and de Courteille, P. (9 vols.) (Paris, 1861–1877), iii, 6Google Scholar; Anon., Hudūd al-‘Ālam, ed. and trans. Minorsky, V. (Oxford, 1937), 165.Google Scholar See also Wilkinson, J. C., ‘Oman and East Africa’, Int. J. Afr. Hist. Studies, xiv (1981), 278–9, 281.Google Scholar

³² During the Umayyad period, slaves were imported from the Sind valley and were known as ziṭṭ. al-Balādhurī, Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā, Ansīb al-ashrāf, ed. al-Dūrī, Abd al-Azīz, Band 28 of Bibliotheca Islamica (32 vols.) (Wiesbaden, 1979), ii, 109–10.Google Scholar

³³ al-Tanūkhī, Al-Muḥassin ibn ‘Alī, Nishwār al-Muhādara wa akhbār al-mudhākirah, ed. Shalchy, A. (8 vols.) (Cairo, 1970), ii, 205.Google Scholar This traffic was so heavy that in 918 a ferry on the Euphrates brought the governor a revenue of 80,250 dinars. Duri, A., ‘Studies on the economic life of Mesopotamia in the tenth century’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1942), 168.Google Scholar

³⁴ A. Duri citing al-Birūnī, al-Jamāhir fī Ma'rifat al-Jawāhir, ed. Krenkow, F. (Hyderabad, 1955), 237–8Google Scholar; and Ḥawqal, Ibn, Kitāb Surāt al-Arḍ, trans. Kramers, J. H. and Wiet, G. (Beirut, 1964), 61.Google Scholar

³⁵ Lewis, , Race and Slavery, 14.Google Scholar

³⁶ Zaydān, , Ta'rīkh, iv, 42.Google Scholar

³⁷ That is, slaves were sent as part of a governor's revenue, a practice not restricted to North Africa. For example, ‘Abdullah b. Tahir, governor of Khurasān (828–44), was said to have sent the Caliph 2,000 slaves annually. Ibn Khurradādhbih, Kitāb al-Masālik wa'l-Mamālik, ed. de Goeje, in BJA, vi, 39. See also Zaydān, Ta'rīkh, v, 39; Ḥawqal, Ibn, al-Masālik wa'l-Mamālik, ed. Kremers, J. (Leiden, 1938), 482, 494.Google Scholar

³⁸ Several discouraging Ḥadith, no doubt apocryphal, are attributed to the Prophet MuḤammad regarding North Africa, the conquest of which began fifteen years after his death. The most grim refers to Ifrīqiya as a gate to hell. These sayings were frequently cited by MuḤammad al-Marrākushi Ibn ‘Idhārī, Bayān al-Maghrib, trans. Fagnan, E. (2 vols.) (Algiers, 1901–1914), i, iGoogle Scholar; cf. Al-Bakrī, , Description de l'Afrique septentrionale, ed. and trans. de Slane, M. (Algiers, 1913), 51Google Scholar; cf. al-Ḥakam, Ibn ʻAbd, Futūh Ifrīqiya wa'l-Andalus. Conquête de l'Afrique du Nord et de l'Espagne, trans. Gateau, A. (Algiers, 1947), 41.Google Scholar

The Ibāḍī-s, naturally, took a more positive view and cited various ḥadith in favour of Berbers. Abū Zakariyā’, Yaḥyā b. Abū Bakr al-Warjāanī, Kitāb al-Sira wa Akhbar al-A'imma, ed. and trans. Masqueray, E. (Algiers, 1878), 6, 12, 18Google Scholar; Ageil, M. A., ‘Naval policy and the rise of the fleet of Ifriqiyyah’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Michigan, 1985), 58.Google Scholar

³⁹ Pipes, D., ‘Mawlas: freed slaves and converts in early Islam’, in Willis, J. (ed.), Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa (2 vols.) (London, 1985), i, 168.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Ibn ʻAbd al-Ḥakam, Futūḥ Ifrīqiya, 36; al-Bakrī, Description de l'Afrique, 14. Ibn al-Athīr, Ta'rīkh, 7. Subsequent examples are found in Al-Nuwayri's account (drawn from al-Zuhrī) of ‘Abd Allah ibn Sā‘d's 647 campaign against the Byzantine governor, George, when his victorious troops seized captives from Qafṣa; Shihāb al-Dīn al-Nuwayri, Nihāyat al-'Arab, trans. M. de Slane, as a second appendix to his translation of Histoire des Berbères of Ibn Khaldūn (4 vols.) (Paris, 1978), i, 322.Google Scholar Again, in the 660s, during Mu‘āwiya b. Khadij's raid on Jalūla, the children were seized and distributed along with the rest of the booty, of which a fifth was sent to the caliph. ʻIdhārī, Ibn, Bayān al-Maghrib, i, 10Google Scholar; al-Nuwayrī, , Nihāyat, ii, 325–6Google Scholar; Khaldūn, Ibn, Histoire des Berbères, i, 325Google Scholar; al-Bakrī, , Description de l'Afrique, 79.Google Scholar

⁴¹ It was called al-khādra, the verdant. Carrette, E., Recherches sur l'origine et les migrations des principales tribus de l'Afrique septentrionale (Paris, 1853), 318Google Scholar; Ibn ‘Idhārī, Bayān al-Maghrib, i, 27.

⁴² The source for this wealth is clearly stated by Ibn ‘Idhārī in his Bayān al-Maghrib, i, 7, when Ibn Abū SarḤ asked the Africans the source of their gold and silver. The Africans’ reply was to hold up an olive pit and explain that sailors and landsmen both bought their oil there. See, too, D. J. Mattingly's study, which demonstrates that Tripolitania's wealth in Roman times was due largely to its production of olive oil: ‘The olive boom: oil surpluses, wealth and power in Roman Tripolitania’, Libyan Studies, xix (1988), 21ff.Google Scholar

⁴³ Al-Nuwayri, , Nihāyat, i, 314, 322, 331Google Scholar; Ibn ‘Idhārī, Bayān al-Maghrib, i, 10–11; Ibn Hawqal, ‘Kitāb masālik wa'l-mamālik: les routes et les provinces’, trans. de Slane, M., Journal Asiatique, xiii (1842), 252.Google Scholar The earliest detailed description is al-Bakrī’s from the second half of the eleventh century. Among his sources, it is interesting to note, were two Ibāḍdī-s: Abū Rusṭam from the Jabal Nafūsa and Abū Muḥammad ‘Abd al-Malik b. al-Nakhkhās al-Garfa; Al-Bakrī, Description de l'Afrique, 301, 337, 339. Lewicki, T., ‘L'Afrique noire’, Africana Bulletin, ii (1965), 12–13.Google ScholarNakhkhās, incidentally, is a slave merchant. Hunwick, J. O., ‘Black Africans in the Islamic world’, Tarikh, v (1978), 27.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ M. Talbi, in a careful analysis of the traditions preserved in Ibn ‘Abd al-Ḥakam, al-Bakrī and Ibn al-Athīr, concluded that they dated to the period of Berber resistance in the eighth century and were created ex nihilo for the Arab cause; L'émirate Aghlabide (Paris, 1966), 26–31.Google Scholar This discussion is further developed by R. Brunschvig and M. Brett; see below n. 52. See also Brett's, M. ‘Islam in North Africa’, in Sutherland, S. (ed.), The World's Religions (London, 1988), 329–67.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Consequently, I disagree with the Polish orientalist T. Lewicki's conclusion that ‘Uqba's b. Nāfī‘'s campaign was ‘probably in order to open up the way for political and commercial expansion of the caliphate in the direction of the Lake Chad area’; Lewicki, T., Arabic External Sources for the History of Africa to the South of the Sahara (Warsaw, 1969), 19–20.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ This was created by the Aghlabid amir, Ibrahīm II, as a counterweight to the often wayward Arab military elite. Brett, M., ‘The Arab conquest and the rise of Islam in North Africa’, in Fage, J. D. (ed.), Cambridge History of Africa (from 500 BC to AD 1050) (Cambridge, 1978), ii, 529Google Scholar; Hunwick, J. O., ‘Black Africans’, 30.Google Scholar According to al-Maqrīzī, his contemporary, Aḥmad Ibn Ṭūlūn, had 40,000 blacks in his army; Ashtor, E., ‘Un mouvement migratoire au haut Moyen Âge’, Annales: économies, sociétés, civilisations, xxvii (1972), 208.Google Scholar

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⁴⁹ Ibn ‘Idhārī supplies us with examples such as the Aghlabid general, Khafadja b. Sufyān, who in 848 finally overcame a two-year revolt by Tunis, sacked the city and enslaved a great number of women; Ibn ‘Idhārī, Bayān al-Maghrib, i, 141–2. Suffering the same fate, in 923, the Ibāḍī stronghold of Nafūsa was destroyed by the Fatimids, its men were killed, and the children and, presumably, the women were enslaved; Ibid. 268.

⁵⁰ al-Ḥakam, Ibn ʻAbd, Futūḥ Ifrīqiya, 310–11.Google Scholar

⁵¹ A parallel argument has been lucidly developed by J. C. Wilkinson for the East African context; ‘Oman and East Africa’, 279–80.

⁵² Brett, M., ‘The Arab conquest’, 506Google Scholar; Brunschvig, R., ‘Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam et la conquête de l'Afrique du Nord par les Arabes’, Annales de l'Institut d'Études Orientates, vi (1942–1947), 137Google Scholar. See also Talbi, , L'émirat Aghlabide, 23, 302.Google Scholar

⁵³ Savage, E., “Ilm as the link to the past and future’ (unpublished paper, Middle East Studies Association, San Antonio, 1990).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Jizya was the tax or tribute levied by Muslim governments on their non-Muslim populations in exchange for the security of their property and the freedom to worship.

⁵⁵ ‘Slave trade went hand in hand with the military expansion of early Islam. In fact, it was a big business of Arabian traders in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean area in the Pre-Islamic period’; Labib, S., ‘Islamic expansion and slave trade in Medieval Africa’, in Mouvements de populations dans l'Océan Indien (Saint-Denis de la Réunion, 4–9 August, 1972), 33Google Scholar; Lewis, B., ‘The African diaspora and the civilization of Islam’, in Kilson, M. and Rotberg, R. (eds.), The African Diaspora: Interpretive Essays (Cambridge, 1976), 40–1.Google Scholar Cf. Pipes, D., ‘Mawlas: freed slaves and converts’, 144ff.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Talbi, M., L'émirat Aghlabide, 32–3.Google Scholar What caught the chronicler's eye was the demand for young women, jawārī. The propriety of owning slave women in addition to one's wives is touched upon by S. D. Goitein, who cites Shaybānī who pointed to the precedents set by Muḥhammad and ‘Alī. Goitein observes that ‘This practice met with less objection than any other form of luxury’, which was certainly one of the reasons for the enormous expansion of the slave trade in the early centuries of Islam. Goitein, S. D., A Mediterranean Society (Los Angeles, 1967), 590.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Such as the early intrigues of ‘Uqba ibn Nāfī‘ cited by Ibn ‘Abd al-Ḥakam, Futūh Ifrīqiya, 66–7; and al-Athīr, Al-kāmil fī al-tarīkh, as Annales du Maghreb et de l'Espagne, trans. Fagnan, E. (Algiers, 1901), 20Google Scholar; cf. al-Qayrawānī, , Histoire de l'Afrique, trans. Pellissier, E. (Paris, 1845), 43–4.Google Scholar Another instance of such intrigues was the Umayyad, ‘Abd al-Azīz b. Marwān, who manoeuvred on behalf of his favourite, Mūsā b. Nuṣsayr. Ibn ‘Abd al-Ḥakam, Futūh Ifrīqīya, 85; Ibn ‘Idhārī, Bayān al-Maghrib, 31ff.

⁵⁸ Talbi, M., ‘Rapports de l'Ifriqiya et de l'orient au VIII^e siècle’, Cahiers de Tunisie, iii (1959), 302.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ ʻIdhārī, Ibn, Bayān al-Maghrib, 51Google Scholar; l'Arab, Abū, Classe des savants (Paris, 1915), 75.Google Scholar One governor, Mūsā Ibn Nuṣayr, and his sons stand out for the sheer numbers they reportedly captured. The more discriminate Mūsā selected the most beautiful Berber girls as prisoners – one of whom alone would fetch 1,000 gold mithqāls in the eastern markets. Khaldūn, Ibn, Description de l'Afrique, i, 206, 333, 342Google Scholar; ʻIdhārī, Ibn, Bayān al-Maghrib, 32Google Scholar; al-Qayrawānī, , Histoire de l'Afrique, 57–61Google Scholar; Talbi, M., ‘Rapports de l'Ifriqiya’, 302.Google Scholar On mithqāl (approximately 4 72 grams of gold) see Perinbam, B. M., ‘Trans-Saharan and western Sudanese trade’, Comp. Studies Soc. Hist., xv (1973), 416–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁰ ‘Umar ordered all Arabs who had luwāta (that is, Berber girls) either to take them in marriage after obtaining the consent of their fathers or to give them back to their families; al-Balādhuri, , Futūḥ-al-Buldān, ed. al-Tabbā₾, ʻAbd Allāh A. (Beirut, 1957), 316.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Abū al-'Arab, Classe des savants, 75. See also Ibn ‘Idhārī, Bayān al-Maghrib, i, 38; and al-Nājī, Muḥammad Ibn, Ma'lim al-Imām fī Ma'rifat Ahl al-Qairawān (2 vols.) (Tunis, 1320–5), i, 147.Google Scholar

⁶² al-Balādhuri, , Futūḥ al-Buldān, as The Origins of the Islamic State, trans. Hitti, P. K. (New York, London, 1916–1924), 231Google Scholar; Khaldūn, Ibn, Histoire des Berbères, i, 219.Google Scholar

⁶³ See below, nn. 65–6.

⁶⁴ This governor was Yazīd b. Abi Muslim. al-Ḥakam, Ibn ʻAbd, Futūḥ Ifrīqiya, 113.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ This was ‘Umar b. ‘Abd Allāh Murādi; Ibn ʻIdhārī, Bayān al-Maghrib, i, 50–2; Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil fī al-Ta'rīkh, 63; Ibn Khaldūn, Histoire des Berbères, 359; Talbi, L'émirat Aghlabide, 31–2.

⁶⁶ Brockelmann, C., History of the Islamic Peoples, trans. Carmichael, J. and Perlmann, M. (New York, 1960), 98.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Led by the Ṣufrite, al-Maysara; al-Ḥakam, Ibn ʻAbd, Futūḥ Ifrīqiya, 123.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Ibn ʻIdhārī supplies us with examples such as the Aghlabid general, Khafadja b. ṢSufyān, who in 848 finally overcame a two-year revolt by the city of Tunis, sacked the city and enslaved a great number of women. Ibn ʻIdhārī, Bayān al-Maghrib, i, 141–2. Suffering the same fate, in 923, the Ibāḍī stronghold of Nafūsa was destroyed by the Fatimids, its men and children were killed and its women presumably enslaved; Ibid. 268.

⁶⁹ Mūsā ibn Nuṣayr's almost desperate determination is quoted by Ibn Qutayba: ‘…By God, I will never leave these fortresses and these impregnable mountains until God depresses their lofty summits and overcomes their strongest to be taken by the Muslims’; Qutayba, ʻAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad ibn, Al-Imāmah wa al-Siyāsah (2 vols.) (Cairo, 1967), ii, 51.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Lewicki, T., ‘Les origines d'Islam chez les tribus berbères du Sahara occidental’, Studia Islamica, xxxii (1970), 213.Google Scholar The Arab geographer al-Bakrī refers to the remnants of a camp occupied by ‘Abd al-Raḥmān b. Ḥabīb, or perhaps his army, in the Sūsī plain. But what is more indicative of a continuing interest was his having three wells dug en route between Tāmadūlt and Awdaghast (Taghaoust); Al-Bakrī, , Description de l'Afrique, 296–9, 306.Google Scholar

⁷¹ ʻIdhārī, Ibn, Bayān al-Maghrib, i, 64.Google Scholar

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⁷³ Most notably, Abū al-Khaṭṭāb, about whom see Abū Zakariyā’, Kitāb al-Sira, 21ff.

⁷⁴ See Ennami's, A. chapter on Wilāya in his Studies in Ibadism (Benghazi, 1972), 193–225.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Ibid.; Ibn ʻIdhārī, Bayān al-Maghrib, i, 64. These campaigns took place in the 740s.

⁷⁶ Ibid. 70; Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil fī Ta'rīkh, 77.

⁷⁷ Ibn ʻIdhārī, Bayān al-Maghrib, 73; al-Nuwayri, Nihāyat, i, 367; al-Athīr, Kāmil fī al-Ta'rīkh, 74–78; Talbi, L'émirat Aghlabide, 36; Cambusat, L'évolution des cités, 101.

⁷⁸ The account of this exchange by Ibn ʻIdhārī, al-Nuwayri and al-Raqīq was compiled by Idris, H. R. in his ‘L'Occident musulman’, Revue d'Études Islamiques, xxxix (1971), 256–7.Google Scholar

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⁸² ʻIdhārī, Ibn, Bayān al-Maghrib, 104Google Scholar; Khaldūn, Ibn, Histoire des Berbères, 223Google Scholar. For a modern Ibāḍī view see, Khleifat, A. W., ‘Ibadi political and administrative organizations in the stage of secrecy with special reference to North Africa’, Maghreb Review, xi (1986), 82.Google Scholar

⁸³ Tāhart, the Ibāḍī capital, had been established (in modern Algeria) on the defeat of the Ibāḍī revolt at the hands of Muḥammad Ibn al-Ash'ath in 762. For more on the formation of the imamate, see Savage, ‘Early medieval Ifriqiya’, 101–46.

⁸⁴ Lewicki, T., Études ibadites nord-africaines. Partie I: Tasmiya uyukh Jabal Nafusa wa-qurahum (Warsaw, 1955).Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Marçais, G., in his La Berbèrie musulmane (Paris, 1946)Google Scholar, coined the phrase by which he was referring to the economic, religious, artistic and military successes of the Aghlabids during the ninth century; ch. 2 ‘La renaissance du IXe siècle’, 55ff.; Cambusat, L'évolution des cités, 125.

⁸⁶ A ‘definitive version of Malikite teaching upon which all subsequent elaboration was based. Jurists (like Saḥnūn) were indisputably supreme in matters of faith’; Brett, M., ‘Islam in North Africa’, 329–67.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ This passage is not to be confused with the earlier passage by Ibn ‘Abd al-Ḥakam, who was also writing in the ninth century and was associated with the Māliki school of law.

⁸⁸ This passage is cited fully in Brunschvig's, R. ‘Un texte arabe du IXe siècle intéressant le Fezzan’, Revue Africaine, lxxxix (1945), 21.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ Zakariyyā, Abū, Kitāb al-sira, 34–7.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ By the time of the second Rusṭamid imām, ‘Abd al-Wahhāb ibn ‘Abd al-Raḥmān (784–823), Ibāḍī sources refer to Fazzānī Ibāḍī-s among their notables as well as among their schismatics; Lewicki, T., ‘Le Sahara oriental et septentrional’, ii, 62.Google Scholar For the ninth century, Ibāḍī sources are rich in references to Ibāḍī-s involved with the Bilād al-Sūdān; e.g. Lewicki, T., ‘Ibadica, tasmīya shuyūkh nafūsa’, Rocznik Orientalistyezny, xxv (1961), 99, 101.Google Scholar

⁹¹ There are references in the sources to slaves within the Ibāḍī community from the time of the first Imām. Ṣaghīr, Ibn ‘Chronique d'Ibn Saghir sur les Imams rustumides de Tahert’, ed. and trans. Motylinski, A. de C., in Actes du XlVe Congrès International des Orientalistes (Algier, 1905), 65, 84–6.Google Scholar Upon arrival at Tāhart, during the Imamate of ‘Abd al-Wahhāb (784–823), newcomers were struck by its great prosperity and great number of slaves and servants (‘abīd wa khadām); ibid. 69/14; Abū Zakariyā’s;, Kitāb al-Sira, 94–6.

⁹² Lewicki, , ‘Ibadica, tasmīya shuyūkh Nafūsa’, 99, 101Google Scholar; Lewicki, , ‘Le Sahara oriental’, 342Google Scholar; Lewicki, ‘Encore sur les voyages Arabes aux Canaries au moyen âge’, in Lewicki, , Études maghrebines et Soudanaises (2 vols.) (Warsaw, 1983), ii, 92–3.Google Scholar

⁹³ Dangel, G., ‘L'imamate ibadite de Tahert, 761–909: contribution à l'histoire de l'Afrique du Nord durant le haut moyen âge’ (thèse du 3e cycle, Strasbourg II, 1977), 284Google Scholar; Lewicki, T., ‘L'État nord-africain de Tahert et ses rélations avec le Soudan occidental à la fin du VIIIe et au IXe siècle’, Cahiers d'Études Arabes, II (1962), 527.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Excerpt of al-Ya‘qūbī from Hopkins and Levtzion (eds.), Corpus of Early Arabic Sources, 22.

⁹⁵ I am grateful to M. Brett for identifying this point.

⁹⁶ E. Evans-Pritchard, writing on the expansion of the Sanusiya among the tribes of Libya and the relations between the oases-dwellers and the tribes of the interior, wrote that the nomads of Libya ‘controlled the routes and to a large extent supplied the transport for the caravans. These connections allowed an easy ingress to the Sanusiya’. The Sanusi of Cyrenaica (Oxford, 1963), 16.Google Scholar

⁹⁷ Of the Tuareg scholars of Aïr, Barth wrote in the mid-nineteenth century: ‘… under the authority of these learned and devout men, commerce is carried on with a security which is surprising. Indeed, in Walata, the seasonal caravan which was mounted across the Sahara to Tuat was led by a full-fledged scholar who was dreaded by robbers and feared by tyrants’; Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa, as cited by Saad, E. N., ‘Social history of Timbuktu, 1400–1900: the role of Muslim scholars and notables’ (Ph.D. thesis, Northwestern University, 1979), 219.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ As depôts, the zāwāya (sing, zāwiya) were used ‘for the storage of goods and their subsequent distribution north and south depending upon the conditions of supply and demand. Huge fluctuations in prices were a yearly, and sometimes a monthly… feature which required constant knowledge of the markets elsewhere’; Saad, E. N., ‘Social history of Timbuktu’, 223.Google Scholar As for Kawār, K. Vikør described its duality as part of a local as well as international trade, as a point of production and consumption as well as a place of transit or even just resting, essential for the trade in an inhospitable region; ‘Early history of the Kawār Oasis’, 2.

⁹⁹ The zāwāya, besides catering for religious needs, were ‘schools, caravanserai, commercial centres, social centres, forts, courts of law, banks, store houses, poor houses, sanctuary and burial grounds, besides being channels through which ran a generous stream of God's blessing’; Evans-Pritchard, Sanusi, 79.

¹⁰⁰ Ibn Ṣaghīr, ‘Chronique’, 65–71, 85.

¹⁰¹ Hopkins and Levtzion (eds.), Corpus of Early Arabic Sources, 381, nn. 5, 45.

¹⁰² Though falling somewhat after our period, another passage gives us some idea of the extent of this wealth. This sixteenth century Ibāḍī writer, al-Shammākhī, described a merchant who lived during the second quarter of the ninth century and who possessed 30,000 camels, 300,000 sheep and 12,000 donkeys; Lewicki, , ‘Le Sahara oriental’, 76–81.Google Scholar

¹⁰³ Hopkins and Levtzion (eds.), Corpus of Early Arabic Sources, 64.

¹⁰⁴ Trade along more westerly routes was a later development of the late ninth and tenth centuries, when Ibāḍī communities in the Mzab, Wārjlā, Sadrāta, Oued Righ and Tadmakka were active.

¹⁰⁵ A brief word of sincere thanks to Dr Joe Miller of the University of Virginia who kindly encouraged this study.