Page 85 - Empires of Medieval West Africa

E m p i r E s o f m E d i E v a l w E s t a f r i c a

Before Islam came to the Ghana Empire, the king practiced only
the traditional Soninke religion. He would have had a shrine (a holy
Lost in Translation place) for personal spiritual objects. After the kings became Muslims
It is important to (probably toward the end of the 11th century), there would be a small
remember that the Arab mosque for him and any other Muslims who lived in or visited the royal
informants and writ-
ers describing North compound. All of this would be inside the royal walls and would be
Africa were translating considered “the palace.”
everything they heard
into Arabic. Translation
requires making vocabu- The royal courT
lary choices, and some Objects found in cemetery excavations show that Ghana had a thriving,
of the words they chose
are probably inaccurate prosperous economy. The way al-Bakri described the splendid royal court
and misleading. Clearly, of Tunka Manin fits nicely with that evidence. However, his description of
there was some confu- the clothing is probably flawed. He said only the king and his designated
sion about the word successor were allowed to wear “sewn clothes,” and that seems unlikely.
“Ghana.” Also, “domed (Historians are not sure what he meant by “sewn clothes.”)
buildings” probably refer In any case, al-Bakri mentioned a variety of textiles available for
to the small, circular
mud-brick houses with clothing, including silk, brocade, and cotton, depending on what the
cone-shaped thatched wearer could afford. He said the men shaved their beards and the
roofs (roofs made from women shaved their heads. The king wore many necklaces and brace-
bundles of straw) that lets. This is similar to the way some West African kings still dress on
since ancient times have ceremonial occasions.
served as special huts Again and again Arab writers describe the custom of people
and individual residences
in the Western Sudan. sprinkling dust on their heads in the medieval West African empires.
It seems to have been an expression of humility and respect, and was
required of people when they were in the king’s presence. Muslims were
not required to do this, because they believed that in Islam people bow
only to God and never to another man.

a golden econoMy

According to al-Bakri, the king was assisted in administering his empire
by a council of ministers and officers of the court. One of the most impor-
tant government functions involved collecting a kind of customs tax
called tariffs on the goods that went in and out of the empire. This was
one of the main sources of revenue for the imperial treasury, and helped
account for Ghana’s prosperity and reputation as “the land of gold.”
During the time that al-Bakri’s sources were in Ghana, a tariff of one
golden dinar had to be paid for every donkey-load of salt that entered the
country, and two dinars were charged for the same load leaving the coun-
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