Two fatwā-s or legal opinions of the jurist al-Qābisī at Qayrawān about the year A.D. 1000 show the way in which the Law of Islam was used to protect the Muslim against the hazards of trans-Saharan trade with the Bilād al-Sūdan. Trade was to be conducted as far as possible in accordance with the Law, and approval was given to the establishment of Muslim communities in the Bilād al-Sūdān under the authority of a nāzir or ‘watchman’, with the consent of the pagan king of the country. The formation of Muslim communities on this legal basis, and their incorporation into the pattern of West African society, were important for the subsequent character of Islam in West Africa. Meanwhile, among the ‘stateless’ Berber peoples of the Western Sahara, the doctrines of the Malikite school were subject to a different interpretation by Ibn Yasln, which came into open conflict with the views of al-Qābisī when the Almoravids sacked the Muslim city of Awdaghast for submitting to the pagan king of Ghana. This conflict of attitudes to paganism remained a feature of West African Islam down to the twentieth century.

During the nineteenth century Muqdisho experienced a significant revival in its fortunes after several centuries of gradual decline from its medieval heyday. While it remained on the periphery of the Omani empire on the coast of East Africa, steady commercial penetration of Indian merchant capital based at Zanzibar inexorably drew the entire Benaadir coast into the Omani orbit. Massive infusions of slave labour transformed agricultural commodity production in the Benaadir hinterland and created a new basis for ruling-class collaboration between town and country. At Muqdisho these external factors intertwined with established internal rivalries which were based on moiety competition and the traditional search for supporting alliances in the hinterland. The end result of this complex process was increased competition and tension between the town moieties that affected both the spatial segregation of the two quarters and enabled first Omani Zanzibar and then Italy to insinuate themselves into a dominant mediating position within the urban community. At the end of the century the urban culture of Muqdisho had also been influenced by the incorporation of a large slave population. While all of these changes indicate that Muqdisho was integrally a part of the wider coastal region of East Africa, other cultural evidence establishes no less that it was still uniquely Soomaali within that context.

This paper attempts to gather together information on agricultural labour in the production of cash crops in Ghana. The transition from slave and other bonded labour in the nineteenth century to wage labour in the twentieth is explored. The nature of agricultural labour in palm oil is compared to that in the production of subsequent exports, such as rubber (produced primarily on plantations) and cocoa (produced on Ghanaian-owned smallholdings). The questions of conditions of service, recruitment and sources of labour are considered historically. The preference of workers for agricultural labour is discussed, and compared to recruitment for mining and other industry.

The Gold Coast (modern Ghana) was severely attacked by the influenza pandemic of 1918–19. The disease was introduced by shipping along the southern coast and overland across the northern frontier. As was true elsewhere on the continent, the spread of influenza was greatly facilitated by the new colonial transportation network. Quarantines and other preventive measures were futile and therapy, African or British, could do no more than alleviate symptoms. Influenza struck the majority of the population, but mortality rates varied regionally and, to some extent, by occupation. Deaths were especially numerous in the far north. The influenza epidemic killed 100,000 or more people in less than six months and was almost certainly the worst short-term demographic disaster in the history of Ghana.

In February 1918 the Gold Coast Government, on orders from the British Colonial Office, seized the holdings of the Basle Mission Trading Company, a Swiss-based firm suspected of promoting pro-German sentiment and actions within the Colony. As a result of the growing sentiment towards trusteeship and the continuing resistance to non-British activities in the Gold Coast, the properties of the company were entrusted to the Commonwealth Trust Ltd, a British firm created for this purpose. The firm was committed to providing a portion of its profits to promoting philanthropic activities among the indigenous populations. The resources of the Trading Company, valued at £558,017 in the Gold Coast and £254,383 in India, were transferred to the Commonwealth Trust at no expense whatever to the latter.

For a decade the Swiss Government protested against the confiscation of the Company as a violation of the rights of a neutral nation. In the same years the Commonwealth Trust encountered such financial difficulties that it was unable to supply any support at all for its philanthropic commitments.

By 1928 continuing international pressure, including a Swiss threat to submit their claim for arbitration before the League of Nations, led the British to restore the properties to the Trading Company owners, compensating them with £250,000 for losses suffered during the decade. The Commonwealth Trust was also reimbursed for the surrender of the properties, bringing the total cost of the restoration to £305,000.

The irony of the entire episode is that the total cost of the resolution was assigned to the Gold Coast colonial treasury, absorbing one-fourth of the total Gold Coast reserve fund. Gold Coast Council members protested that the original decision and its reversal were made by the British Government, and their consequences ought not to become burdens on the Gold Coast. Such protests were unavailing. Thus the project undertaken on the principle of trusteeship resulted in no benefit whatsoever to the indigenous population; rather the colony paid dearly for the privilege of being the object of trusteeship policy.

This article opens with a brief mention of the major criticisms which are currently made against the emirs' role in the development of Western education in northern Nigeria during the colonial era. It is suggested that these criticisms are ill founded and that they are more often than not based on a misconception of the emirs' power in the colonial situation. It is argued that the emirs were not de facto rulers of their respective emirates and had no powers to initiate educational development projects. The main discussion focuses on their attitude to Western education and how they took advantage of the educational opportunities offered by native administration schools to foster the political interests of their sons. It then examines their efforts to persuade the British administration to expand educational facilities in their emirates including those for female education and why these efforts were generally fruitless. Examination of the historical record reveals that the emirs played a more prominent role in the advancement of Western education than has hitherto been recognized.