Page 18 - Afrika Must Unite

THE AFRICAN BACKGROUND 3
whose colleges could exchange scholars with Spain and other
parts of the Muslim world. W hen M ali declined, it was replaced
by the just as splendid Songhay empire of Gao, while farther to
the east lay the great state of Kanem , with a monarchy, almost as
ancient as that of Ghana, which continued steadfastly into the
nineteenth century.
Books like the Tarikh es Sudan and the Tarikh el Fettach, written
by the African scholars of Tim buktu in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, give graphic descriptions of still existing
Sudanese states of power and prestige. One of the great writers
of Islam, Ibn Battuta, touring through M ali in the middle
of the fourteenth century, observed of its peoples that they
are seldom unjust, and have a greater abhorrence of injustice
than any other people. Their sultan shows no mercy to anyone
who is guilty of the least act of it. There is complete security in
their country. Neither traveller nor inhabitant in it has anything
to fear from robbers or men of violence. They do not confiscate
the property of any white man who dies in their country, even if
it be uncounted wealth. On the contrary, they give it into the
charge of some trustworthy person among the whites, until the
rightful heir takes possession of it.1
Could as much be said for our European contemporaries of
that time ? Europe was then passing into its Renaissance; it was
awakening from the social torpor of medievalism and divided
into petty and quarrelsome kingdoms. Capitalism was on
the uprise and seafaring adventurers were starting out on
their centuries-long search for gold and spices and silks, slaves
and ivory, that they might plunder them for money-hungry
monarchs and traders. These voyages brought them to the coast
of Africa. Originally, the African coastline was explored by
Phoenician and Greek sailors and there is growing knowledge of
Chinese contact with the east coast going back at least to the early
twelfth century. The modern period of exploration may be said
to have begun with the Portuguese voyages during the time of
Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460). Bartholomew Diaz
sailed round the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, and some ten years
1 Ibn Battuta: Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354, translated by H. A. R. Gibb
(Routledge 1929) pp. 329-30.