Ahmad Baba al-Timbukti and his Islamic critique of racial slavery in the Maghrib.
This essay examines the life of Ahmad Baba al-Timbukti (1556–1627) and his efforts to end racial slavery and to persuade Maghribi scholars to accept the Islamic status of self-professed Muslims in West Africa. Towards this end, Ahmad Baba wrote a legal treatise that criticised the association of ‘Bl...
| Publicado en: | Journal of North African Studies Vol. 20; no. 1; pp. 42 - 65 |
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| Formato: | Essay |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
Jan2015
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=100628458&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 100628458 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 13629387 RIG jtl: Journal of North African Studies issn: 13629387 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Jan2015 vid: 20 iid: 1 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 100628458 10.1080/13629387.2014.983825 ppf: 42 ppct: 23 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T db: hlh ui: 100628458 – @attributes: type: P db: hlh ui: 100628458 tig: atl: Ahmad Baba al-Timbukti and his Islamic critique of racial slavery in the Maghrib. aug: au: Cleaveland, Timothy affil: History Department, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA su: Al-Timbukti, Ahmad Baba History of enslaved persons History of slavery History Muslim scholars Berbers Seventeenth century sug: subj: History of enslaved persons History of slavery History Muslim scholars Berbers Seventeenth century Al-Timbukti, Ahmad Baba keyword: Islam Maghrib Marrakesh Morocco race slavery Songhay Timbuktu Islam Maghrib Marrakesh Morocco race slavery Songhay Timbuktu ab: This essay examines the life of Ahmad Baba al-Timbukti (1556–1627) and his efforts to end racial slavery and to persuade Maghribi scholars to accept the Islamic status of self-professed Muslims in West Africa. Towards this end, Ahmad Baba wrote a legal treatise that criticised the association of ‘Black’ Africans with slaves, especially through the racialised version of the curse of Ham. This treatise, entitledMi‘raj al-Su‘ud, drew upon a century of jurisprudence produced in Timbuktu and set Islamic standards for enslavement that defined as illicit a substantial portion of the trans-Saharan slave trade as it then existed. However, the treatise also defined much of West Africa as non-Muslim or lightly Islamised, and thereby sanctioned the targeting of these peoples for enslavement. In a similar effort, Ahmad Baba also publicised the scholarly achievements of West African Muslims by compiling a huge biographical dictionary of scholars from West and Northwest Africa. This book, entitledNayl al-Ibtihaj, could have substantiated the fact that many self-identified Black West Africans had been producing serious Muslim scholarship for at least a century, but it did not. On the contrary, Ahmad Baba included only one Black scholar in his biographical dictionary and instead featured nine scholars from his own ‘Berber’ patriline, including himself. The ironic characteristics of theMi‘raj al-Su‘udandNayl al-Ibtihajmay best be explained by Ahmad Baba's own ambiguous status in Timbuktu and the broader society of Islamic West Africa – as a ‘White’ Berber living in the ‘land of the Blacks'. The fact that his scholarship was ground-breaking, but not radical, facilitated its reception in the Maghrib while perhaps mitigating its practical effect on the slave trade and enslavement in that region as well as in West African trading towns such as Timbuktu. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Essay src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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