¹ Other known forms are Takarln and Takarna (singular Takruni). There is no justification for D. Mather's distinction between ‘Takruni—applied to indigent Westerner pilgrims, and Takrori—more widely used but strictly applied to people from the area of the ancient kingdom of Tekrour, in the Senegal’ (cf. Mather, D., ‘Aspects of migration in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan’, Ph.D. thesis, London, 1954)Google Scholar. ‘Westerner’, a translation of the Arabic gharbaiui, was the official designation in the Sudan government's records for all immigrants from the west. Fellata, the Kanuri name for the Fulani, is more commonly heard in the Republic of the Sudan. Cf. Hassoun, I. A., ‘Aspects of migration and settlement in the Gezira’, Sudan Notes and Records, XXXIII (1952)Google Scholar, and Davis, H., ‘The West African in the economic history of the Sudan’, Geography, XLIX (1964).Google Scholar

² M. Delafosse, Haut-Sénégal-Niger, 11 (Paris, 1912), 353 and note, and article ‘Takrur’, Encyclopaedia of Islam (Houtsma). The site of Takrūr is taken to be near the present position of Podor.

³ Bilad al-Sudan is, literally, the ‘Land of the Blacks’, which, in classical Arabic terminology, denoted the belt south of the Sahara and between the Atlantic and the Nile, which is inhabited by black peoples. Strictly speaking Bilad al-Takrūr, except in very few instances, was not used as a synonym of Bilad al-Sudan. Al-Maqrizi's use of the term for a belt extending to Ethiopia (see below 372) is a rare example. The more common use of the name covers territories that lay within the limits of what was known as the Western Sudan (roughly west of the Niger bend) and the Central Sudan (roughly east of the Niger bend, and covering the area of Kanem-Bornu and the states of Bagirmi and Wadai). The Eastern Sudan states were Darfur, Kordufan and Sennar.

⁴ J. L. Burckhardt's suggestion that the root of the word was the Arabic Takarar (see below 370) could very well have been an influence of opinion in Nubia, where the Takarī are associated with piety and their intense love for the pilgrimage. A Nigerian informant advanced to me a similar explanation, saying that the root of the word was the Afrikaans/English ‘Trekker’, because these people used to travel on foot, or trek, to the pilgrimage.

⁵ Burton, R., Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to al-Medinah and Meccah, II (London, 1855–6)MGoogle Scholar, 177 note: ‘This word [Takarī] says Mansfield Parkyns (Life in Abyssinia) is applied to the wandering pilgrims from Darfur, Dar Borghu, Bayermah, Fellata and Western Africa. He mentions, however, a tribe called “Toukrouri” settled in Abyssinia near Nimr's country, but he does not appear to know that the ancient Arab settlement [sic] in West Africa, al-Takrur, (Sakatu [sic]), which handed down its name to a large posterity of small kingdoms, will be found in al-Idrisi (I. climate, I. section).’ In M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes's French translation of al-'Umari's Masalik al-Abṣār (1927), p. 54 note 1, reads, ‘le Tekrour est soit la region du haut-Nil, voisine de l'Abyssinie, soit une région du Soudan, soit le Soudan tout entier’.

⁶ Robinson, Arthur E., ‘The Takruri sheikhs of Qallabat’, J. Afr. Soc. xxvi (1926–7).Google Scholar The use of the title Takarir for this dynasty is curious. In the Republic of the Sudan, the Takarīr (Fellata) are generally supposed to come from lands west of Darfur. The author often refers to sheikhs originally from Jebel Mara, in central Darfur. For the role of the colony in the Mahdist-Ethiopian conflict see P. M. Holt, The Mahdist State in the Sudan (1958), 148, and A Modern History of the Sudan (1961), 14–15.

⁷ Its comparatively recent history seems to have been read into writings of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The relevant sentence in al-'Umari (op. cit. translation, p. 22 and note 2), to which M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes added the footnote quoted below, which sentence was almost a photo-copy reproduction in al-Maqrizi, Kitab al-ilmam bi akhbar man bi arḍ al-ḥabashati min muluk al-Islam, reads: ‘wa jihatu al-ḥabashati al-gharbiyya tantahi ila bilad al-Takrūr’. This was translated as ‘elle [Abyssinie] rejoint vers le sud le pays du Takrūr’ for Masalik and as ‘Du côté de l'ouest l'Abyssinie touche au Takrur’ (p. 34) for Ilmam. The footnote reads: 'Ce n'est pas, bien entendu, le Takrūr soudanais. M. Cohen [Documents] propose le Takrūr, region de Metamma etc.’ The Arabic phrase ‘tantahi ila’ does not imply any physical proximity; here it is a pointer of a general nature. It refers, more likely, to the enlarged meaning of ‘Bilad al-Takrūr’, and was introduced by the authors to complete the picture.

⁸ According to M. Delafosse (op. cit., vol. I, 216–26), the kingdom of Takrūr existed north of the Senegal from about the eighth century, when it was invaded by the ‘ Judaized Syrians’. Their hegemony was broken up by War Jabi in the eleventh century. The descendants of the immigrants are the Fulani, who are thus seen as the outcome of two or three centuries of cohabitation between the immigrants and the Takarīr.

⁹ Abu 'Abdallah ibn 'Abdel ‘Aziz al-Bakri, Kitab al-mughrib fi dhikri bilad Ifriqiata wa-l Maghrib [of] al-Masalik wa-l-Mamalik, edited by Baron De Slane, Arabic text (1911), 172–4, and translation (1913), 324–7.

¹⁰ On the much-debated question of the ribaṭ of the Almoravids, from which their name is derived.see P. Moraes Farias,’ The Almoravids: some questions concerning the character of the movement during its period of closest contact with the Western Sudan', Bulletin de l'I.F.A.N. xxix, sér. B, nos. 3–4 (1967), who concludes (p. 861) that 'The name Almoravids probably has nothing to do with the building of any ribaṭ (in the sense of a fortified religious centre) or rabiṭa (in the sense of a ‘monastery’ for pious retreat). It seems to be directly derived from the Quranic meaning of the root r-b-ṭ in the contexts refering to Holy War.'

¹¹ 'Ali ibn ‘Abdallah ibn abi Zar’ al-Fasi, Kitab al-anis al-muṭrib rauḍ al-gharṭas fi dhikri akhbar mulūk al-maghrib via tarikh madinat Fas (Arabic text, 1843, P- 76), who tells us that Turshini, predecessor of Yaḥia ibn Ibrahim to the chieftaincy of the Sanḥaja, had died in Jihad against the Sudanese people of the south.

¹² Ibid, 84.

¹³ al-Bakri, op. cit. (text), 167–8.

¹⁴ Aḥmed ibn Muḥammad ibn Khalikan, Wafayat al-'ayan wa anbà abnà al-zaman, n (1882), 484 (De Slane's translation, 1842, pp. 455–6). According to this, the black troops were crucial in the battle by resorting to the device of stabbing the horses to death from underneath.

¹⁵ V. Monteil's statement L'Islam Noire (Paris, 1964), 62) that the town of Takrūr was destroyed by the Almoravids in 1080 is based on Rauḍ al-Gharṭas (op. cit.). The full story in the latter source attributes the action to Yusuf ibn Tashfin. From 1062 Yusuf ibn Tashfin was, according to Rauḍ al-gharṭas, engaged in subduing the Moroccan countryside, rif. Campaigning in the Sudan had been entrusted to Abu Bakr ibn 'Umar. As the destruction of the town of Takrūr was said to have been a complete one, ‘after which the town never stood again’, and as Sudanese Takrūr had continued to thrive in subsequent centuries, it is possible to suggest that the town of Takrūr destroyed by Ibn Tashfin may have been a Takrūri settlement in Morocco.

¹⁶ Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Idrisi, Description de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne, texte Arabe publiée par R. Dozy et M. J. de Goeje (1866), 1–3.

¹⁷ 'Ali ibn Musa Sa'id al-Maghribi, Kitab basṭ al-arḍ fi-l-ṭūl wa-l-'arḍ, ed. Juan Vernet Gines (Tetuan, 1958), 23–6.

¹⁸ Yaqūt al-Ḥamawi, Mu 'jam al-bulādn, 11 (Cairo, 1906), 399. Zinji (plur. Zanj or zunuj) denoted East African Negro in Middle Eastern usage.

¹⁹ Ibn Khalikan, op. cit. vi, 14.

²⁰ Trimingham, J. Spencer, History of Islam in West Africa (1962), 41–2.Google Scholar See also in the same sense M. Delafosse, op. cit., 1, 199. Cooley, W., The Negroland of the Arabs (1841), 97–103Google Scholar, though for Cooley it was a different Takrūr, as will be discussed below.

²¹ M. Delafosse. op. cit., I, 234.

²² M. Delafosse and O. Houdas's translation of Tarikh al-fettash of Maḥmūd Ka'ti (1964), p. 11 and note.

²³ Arkell, A. J., ‘The history of Darfur, 1200–1700 A.D.’, Sudan Notes and Records, XXXII, pt. 1 (1957). 55Google Scholar

²⁴ J. L. Burckhardt, Travels in Nubia (1819), 404.

²⁵ Aḥmed ibn ‘Ali al-Maqrizi, Kitab al-mawa 'iz wa-l-i 'tibār bi dhikri al-khiṭaṭ wa-lathār, 11 (Bulaq, 1853), 326.

²⁶ 'Abdel Rahman ibn Khaldūn, Tarikh al-'allamah ibn Khaldūn, Kitab al-'Ibar wa diwan al-mubtada wa-l-khabar, etc., vi (Beirut, 1959), pp. 413–15.

²⁷ Levtzion, N., ‘The thirteenth and fourteenth century kings of Mali’, J. Afr. Hist. IV, no. 3, 1963)Google Scholar, suggests that Yunus was the ambassador of Mali in Egypt. But. although the practice of sending emissaries with presents and so on to foreign courts was known among Sudanese states, there seems no reference to an office of ambassador of a permanent nature, i.e. in the modern sense. In this particular case there is no reference in the known major sources of an ambassador of Mali in Egypt. However, an elderly member of the foreign community, Ḥājj Yunus for example, could, unofficially, become an acceptable spokesman for that community.

²⁸ S. al-Munajid, Mamlakat Mali 'ind al-jughrafiin al-Muslimin, 1, texts (Beirut, 1963), 44. C. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, op. cit. (translation of Masalik), 53–4.

²⁹ C. Snouck-Hurgronje, Mekka in the Latter Part of the Nineteenth Century, trans. I. H. Monhan (1931), 215.

³⁰ Also spelt Shinjiṭi (plural Shanajiṭ or Shanajiṭah).

³¹ Aḥmed ibn al-Amin al-Shinqiṭi, al-Wasiṭ fi tarajim udabā Shinqiṭ (Cairo, 1911), 413. Also see H. T. Norris, ‘The History of Shinjit according to the Idaw ‘Ali Tradition’, Bulletin de l'I.F.A.N., I, ser. B., nos. 3–4 (1962), and by the same author, Shinqiti Folk Literature and Song (1968), 3. Mr Norris gives alternative dates for the foundation of the town of Shinqit, the earliest of which and the most acceptable is ca 1300. On the Shinqiti pilgrimage caravan itself there is remarkably little information. It is possible to suggest, from references in al-Wasiṭ supported by oral information obtained from present-day Mauritanian scholars, that such organization may have developed in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and was necessitated by increasing insecurity of the west Saharan routes.

³² The earliest recorded pilgrimage is that of the Kanemi Mai Dunama ibn Umme, who between ca. 1098 and 1150 made the pilgrimage twice and died returning from a third, according to the Diwan of the Sultans of Bornu. (See Palmer, H. R., History of the First Twelve Years of the Reign of Mai Idris Alooma, 1571–1583 (1926), 85–6.)Google Scholar

³³ See V. Monteil, op. cit., 62.

³⁴ An important exception here is al-Maqrizi's chapter in his treatise on the pilgrimages of kings and sultans entitled al-Dhahab al-masbūk fi dhikri man ḥajja min al-khulafa'i wa-l-mulūk, ed. J. al-Shayal (Cairo, 195s). The chapter is entitled man ḥajja min muluk al-Takrūr and is an enumeration of the kings of Mali who made the pilgrimage. The chapter is in fact mostly on Mansa Musa. It is possible to see al-'Umari's famous correction of current opinion regarding the inaccuracy of calling Mali Takrūr to have been, for later generations of scholars, a source of confusion. That is to say, Mansa Musa became known as he who is not king of Takrūr.

³⁵ This includes al-'Umari himself, who in the annals of 724/1324 recorded the arrival of Mansa Musa malik al-Takrūr, and recorded the death of a merchant, Siraj al-Din b. al-Kuwaik (the main debtor of Mansa Musa), in ‘Bilad al-Takrūr’ in the year 734/1333–4 (Masalik MS no. 2328 in B. N. Paris). Also see al-'Umari's al-Ta 'rif bi-l-muṣṭalaḥ al-sharif, British Museum MS no. 7466, where Takrūr is used as an alternative for Mali.

³⁶ Aḥmed ibn ‘Abdallah al-Qalqashandi, Ṣubḥ al-a'sha, v (Cairo, 1913), 282–301.

³⁷ Maḥmūd Ka'ti, Tarikh al-fettash, Arabic text (Paris, 1964), 11.

³⁸ Palmer, H. R., ‘An early Fulani concept of Islam’, J. Afr. Soc. XIII (1913–1914).Google Scholar

³⁹ Muḥammad ibn 'Umar al-Tūnisi, Voyage au Darfur, ed. Perron (Paris, 1850), 64–5.

⁴⁰ W. Cooley, The Negroland of the Arabs (1841), 97–103.

⁴¹ Maḥmud Ka'ti, op. cit., p. n , the full title of which reads Tarikh al-fettash fi akhabr al-buldān wa-l-jiūsh wa akabir al-nās wa waqa'i 'al-Takrūr wa akabir al-umūr.

⁴² Muḥammad ib Abi Bakr al-Bartali, Fatḥ al-shakūr ma'rifat a'yan 'ulama al-Takrūr. Copy of Manuscript in Institut de France, Fonds de Gourincourt, no. 118.

⁴³ Muḥammad Bello ibn 'Uthman, Infaq, ed. Whitting, C. E. J. (1957), 2.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ al-Qalqashandi, op. cit. v, p. 282.