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34-511: Sunni Ali was born the son of Sonni Muhammad Da'o, who appears in the kinglists of the Tarikh al-Sudan and Tarikh al-Fattash as the 10th Sonni ruler. His mother was from Fara, an area that was still heavily pagan, and Ali was raised in this milieu. As a Sonni, he also received an Islamic education, but practiced a syncretic, unorthodox faith. Upon Sunni Ali's accession, the Songhay already controlled

68-671: A Prussian astronomer, to the expedition of James Richardson , an explorer of the Sahara . Richardson had been selected by the British government to open up commercial relations with the states of the central and western Sudan . The party left Marseilles in late 1849, and departed from Tripoli early in 1850. They crossed the Sahara Desert with great difficulty. He arrived in the city of Agadez in October 1850 where he stayed for several days. Today

102-475: A memorial tablet honours him as the first European to have ever entered the city. The deaths of Richardson (March 1851) and Overweg (September 1852), who died of unknown diseases, left Barth to carry on the scientific mission alone. Barth was the first European to visit Adamawa in 1851. When he returned to Tripoli in September 1855, his journey had extended over 24° of latitude and 20° of longitude, from Tripoli in

136-574: A number of African scholars and rulers, from Umar I ibn Muhammad al-Amin in Bornu , through the Katsina and Sokoto regions to Timbuktu. There his friendship with Ahmad al-Bakkai al-Kunti led to his staying in his house; he also received protection from al-Kunti against an attempt to seize him. After his return to London Barth wrote and published accounts of his travels simultaneously in English and German, under

170-618: A relatively poor background but had built up a successful trading business. Both parents were orthodox Lutherans and they expected their children to conform to their strict ideas on morality and self-discipline. From the age of eleven Barth attended the prestigious high school, the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums , in Hamburg. He was very studious but not popular with his classmates. He excelled at languages and taught himself some Arabic. Barth left school aged 18 in 1839 and immediately enrolled at

204-548: A time he was engaged there as Privatdozent . He described some of his travels in the first volume of his book, Wanderungen durch die Küstenländer des Mittelmeeres , ( Walks through the coastal states of the Mediterranean ) which was published in 1849. The intended second volume never appeared. Christian Bunsen , the Prussian ambassador to Westminster, encouraged the appointment of scholars, including Barth and Adolf Overweg ,

238-528: A time when the traditional co-existence of different beliefs was being challenged. His adherence to African animism while also professing Islam leads some writers to describe him as outwardly or nominally Muslim. Funeal stelae from Kukiya, however, cast some doubt on the chroniclers criticism of Sunni Ali, as they were writing on behalf of the Askias who had overthrown the Sunni dynasty. His death, on November 6, 1492,

272-610: Is a matter of conjecture. According to the Tarikh al-Sudan , Ali drowned while crossing the Niger River.Oral tradition believes he was killed by his sister's son, Askia Muhammad Ture . Sonni Ali's son, Sunni Baru , was immediately proclaimed king of Songhay by the army commanders, but he was challenged by Askia because Baru was not seen as a faithful Muslim. Askia eventually defeated Sunni Baru and took power. Tarikh al-Sudan The Tarikh al-Sudan ( Arabic : تاريخ السودان Tārīkh as-Sūdān ; also Tarikh es-Sudan , "History of

306-648: The Niger river basin from Dendi to Mema . His first major conquest was the ancient city of Timbuktu . Controlled by the Tuaregs since the Malian retreat a few decades earlier, in 1469 the Timbuktu-koi 'Umar asked for Songhai protection. He conducted a repressive policy against the scholars of Timbuktu who he saw as associated with the Tuareg . Sunni Ali organized a powerful fleet on

340-530: The Niger river , and in 1473 used it to lay siege to Djenne , which surrendered only after being reduced to starvation. In order to bring his fleet to bear in an attempt to conquer Walata , he tried to dig a canal hundreds of kilometers to the town from Ras el Ma . In 1483 he had to abandon this project, however, to defeat an invasion by the Mossi people .He also conquered the lands of the Sanhaja called Nunu. He conquered

374-597: The Nile to Wadi Halfa and crossing the desert to the port of Berenice on the Red Sea . While in Egypt, he was attacked and wounded by robbers. Crossing the Sinai peninsula , he traversed Palestine , Syria , Asia Minor , Turkey and Greece , everywhere examining the remains of antiquity. He returned to his parents' home in Hamburg on 27 December 1847 after a trip of almost three years. For

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408-486: The Tuareg , and to biographies of the scholars and holymen of both Timbuktu and Djenné. The main part of the chronicle covers the history of the Songhay from the middle of the 15th century till the Moroccan invasion in 1591, and then the history of Timbuktu under Moroccan rule up to 1655. Al-Sadi rarely acknowledges his sources. For the earlier period much of his information is presumably based on oral tradition. From around 1610

442-453: The University of Berlin where he attended courses offered by the geographer Karl Ritter , the classical scholar August Böckh and the historian Jakob Grimm . After his first year, he interrupted his studies and went on a tour of Italy visiting Venice , Florence , Rome , Naples and Sicily , returning to Germany in the middle of May 1841. In the vacation of the following year, he visited

476-615: The Rhineland and Switzerland. He defended his doctoral thesis on the trade relations of ancient Corinth in July 1844. Barth formed a plan to undertake a grand tour of north Africa and the Middle East which his father agreed to fund. He left his parents' home at the end of January 1845 and first visited London where he spent two months learning Arabic , visiting the British Museum and securing

510-727: The Sudan ") is a West African chronicle written in Arabic in around 1655 by the chronicler of Timbuktu, al-Sa'di. It provides the single most important primary source for the history of the Songhay Empire . It and the Tarikh al-fattash , another 17th century chronicle giving a history of Songhay, are together known as the Timbuktu Chronicles . The author, Abderrahmane al-Sa'di, was born on 28 May 1594, and died at an unknown date sometime after 1655-56,

544-675: The age. It also provided the first evidence by a European that the Sahara had once been a savanna . Barth returned from Great Britain to Germany, where he prepared a collection of Central African vocabularies (Gotha, 1862–1866). In 1858 he undertook another journey in Asia Minor, and in 1862 visited the Turkish provinces in Europe. He wrote an account of these travels that was published in Berlin in 1864. In

578-522: The copy had been made. Houdas published the Arabic text in 1898 and a translation into French in 1900. A century later John Hunwick published a partial translation into English. Manuscripts A, B and C were used by Houdas. A further four were listed by Hunwick. The text of the manuscripts are all very similar. The differences are mainly in the spelling of places and personal names. The Berber author of Ta'rikh al-Sudan , Abd al-Rahman al-Sa'di, recorded

612-587: The date – year, month and day – of Ahmed Baba's death is mentioned by the author ...". Dubois realized that the manuscript was by Abd al-Sadi. After the French occupation of Mali in the 1890s, two copies of the manuscript were acquired by the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. These were studied by the Arabic scholar Octave Houdas. The undated Manuscript A had been sent by Louis Archinard , Manuscript B

646-482: The deaths of two European companions, he completed his travels with the aid of Africans. Afterwards, he wrote and published a five-volume account of his travels in both English and German. It has been invaluable for scholars of his time and since. Heinrich Barth was born in Hamburg on 16 February 1821. He was the third child of Johann Christoph Heinrich Barth and his wife Charlotte Karoline née Zadow. Johann had come from

680-653: The following year he was granted a professorship of geography (without chair or regular pay) at Berlin University and appointed president of the Geographical Society . His admission to the Prussian Academy of Sciences was denied, as it was claimed that he had achieved nothing for historiography and linguistics. They did not fully understand his achievements, which have been ratified by scholars over time. Barth died in Berlin on 25 November 1865 aged 44. His grave

714-476: The highest interest in an historical and geographical point of view. These annals, according to the universal statement of the learned people of Negroland, were written by a distinguished person of the name of A'hmed Baba, although in the work itself that individual is only spoken of in the third person; and it would seem that additions had been made to the book by another hand; but on this point I can not speak with certainty, as I had not sufficient time to read over

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748-609: The information would have been gained first hand. In 1853 the German scholar and explorer Heinrich Barth visited Timbuktu on behalf of the British government. During his stay in Gwandu (now in northwest Nigeria) he consulted a copy of the Tarikh al-Sudan in his investigation of the history of the Songhay empire. However he was under the misapprehension that the author was the Timbuktu scholar Ahmed Baba . In his book Barth wrote: But I myself

782-486: The lands of Kunta and was determined to seize the lands of Borgu but was unable to. In addition to external enemies, Sunni Ali fought campaigns against the Fulani of Massina and other nomadic peoples raiding within his borders. His main capital was Gao, but he was also based at Kukiya, Kabara, and Tindirma at different times depending on where he was campaigning. Sunni Ali ruled over both urban Muslims and rural non-Muslims at

816-635: The last date to be mentioned in his chronicle. He spent most of his life working for the Moroccan Arma bureaucracy, initially in the administration of Djenné and the massina region of the Inland Niger Delta . In 1646 he became chief secretary to the Arma administration of Timbuktu . The early sections of the chronicle are devoted to brief histories of earlier Songhay dynasties, of the Mali Empire and of

850-537: The latter portion of the work with the necessary attention and care. Forty years later the French journalist Félix Dubois in his Timbuctoo the Mysterious pointed out that the Tarikh could not have been written by Ahmed Baba as it mentions Ahmed Baba's death. "How could a man so well informed in Arabian subjects be so completely deceived? ... If he had read the entire book with more attention, he would have seen that

884-426: The north to Adamawa and Cameroon in the south, and from Lake Chad and Bagirmi in the east to Timbuktu (September 1853) in the west – upward of 12,000 miles (19,000 km). He studied minutely the topography, history, civilizations, languages, and resources of the countries he visited. His success as an explorer and historian of Africa was based both on his patient character and his scholarly education. Barth

918-677: The oral tradition surrounding the origin of the Mali . He states, "Mali is the name of an extensive territory lying in the far west (of the Sudan) to the direction of the Ocean. It was Kaya-Magha who founded the first kingdom in that region. Their subjects, however, were Wa'kore ( Soninke ). When their kingdom came to an end, the people of Mali succeeded to hegemony." Heinrich Barth Johann Heinrich Barth ( / b ɑːr θ , b ɑːr t / ; German: [baʁt] ; 16 February 1821 – 25 November 1865)

952-510: The protection of the British consuls for his trip. While in London, he met the Prussian ambassador to Britain, Christian von Bunsen , who would later play an important role in his trip to central Africa. He left London and travelled across France and Spain. On 7 August he caught a ferry from Gibraltar to Tangiers for his first visit to Africa. From Tangier, he made his way overland across North Africa . He also travelled through Egypt, ascending

986-608: The title Reisen und Entdeckungen in Nord- und Centralafrika (Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa; 1857–1858, 5 volumes., approx. 3,500 pages). The volumes included coloured plates of pictures produced by Martin Bernatz based on Barth's original sketches. The work was considered one of the finest of its kind, being cited by Darwin . It is still used by historians of Africa, and remains an important scientific work on African cultures of

1020-566: Was a German explorer of Africa and scholar. Barth is thought to be one of the greatest of the European explorers of Africa, as his scholarly preparation, ability to speak and write Arabic, learning African languages, and character meant that he carefully documented the details of the cultures he visited. He was among the first to comprehend the uses of oral history of peoples, and collected many. He established friendships with African rulers and scholars during his five years of travel (1850–1855). After

1054-505: Was a copy made for Félix Dubois while in Djenné in 1895 and was very similar to Manuscript A. A third copy of the Tarikh al-Sudan , Manuscript C, was sent to Houdas by the linguist René Basset who was head of the École Supérieure des Lettres in Algiers . Manuscript C was generally superior to the other two and included vowels for many of the proper names and the date of 1792 for when

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1088-495: Was interested in the history and culture of the African peoples, rather than the possibilities of commercial exploitation. Due to his level of documentation, his journal has become an invaluable source for the study of 19th-century Sudanic Africa. Although Barth was not the first European visitor who paid attention to the local oral traditions, he was the first who seriously considered its methodology and use for historical research. Barth

1122-549: Was so successful as to have an opportunity of perusing a complete history of the kingdom of Songhay, from the very dawn of historical records down to the year 1640 of our era; although, unfortunately, circumstances prevented my bringing back a complete copy of this manuscript, which forms a respectable quarto volume, and I was only able, during the few days that I had this manuscript in my hands during my stay in Gandó, to make short extracts of those passages from its contents which I thought of

1156-453: Was the first true European scholar to travel and study in West Africa. Earlier explorers such as René Caillié , Dixon Denham and Hugh Clapperton had no academic knowledge. Barth was fluent in Arabic and several African languages ( Fulani , Hausa and Kanuri ) and was able to investigate the history of some regions, particularly the Songhay Empire . He established close relations with

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