Secular power and religious authority in muslim society: The case of songhay

The Journal of African History

Volumn 37, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 175-194

  Hunwick, John ^a  

^a NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 85008522461     PISSN: 00218537     EISSN: 14695138     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700035180     Document Type: Article

References (40)

1. Paper presented to the Fifth International African Seminar, Ahmadu Bello University, Jan. 1964, and published in I. M. Lewis (ed.)(Islam in Tropical Africa (London, 1966), 296-317.
2. ‘Timbuktu under imperial Songhay: a reconsideration of autonomy’, J. Afr. Hist., (1990), 5-24.
3. In my Sharta in Songhay (London, 1985), I argued that although Timbuktu in the sixteenth century was an integral part of the Songhay empire, it managed to be ‘virtually self-governing’ (pp. 20-1); further that, although the askiyas sought the advice of the leading Timbuktu scholars, this was more in spiritual matters than state policy, in which ‘army commanders and other senior officials belonging to the court entourage’ were more influential (pp. 114-15).
4. See H. A. R. Gibb and J. H. Kramers (eds.), Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden, 1953). 599.
5. Qur'an, 4: 59.
6. I.e., dies as an unbeliever. See the Sahih of Muslim, Kitab al-imara, 58. See further Sharta in Songhay, 81.
7. See Sharta in Songhay, 131-2.
8. E.g. Diakhaba and Gunjuru in ancient Mali; see Lamin Sanneh, The Jahanke (n.p. [London], 1979), 27ff.
9. Levtzion states that the Moro-Naba of the Mossi maintains a show of fasting in Ramadan by ‘hiring’ a Muslim to fast on his behalf; see N. Levtzion, Muslims and Chiefs in West Africa (Oxford, 1968), 169.
10. The relations of the ruling estate with the non-Muslim religious authorities will not be considered here. Such relations were undoubtedly important, especially in the eastern half of Songhay, but our sources afford us only the faintest glimpse into them. On the continuing vigour of Songhay religious cults in the twentieth century, see Jean Rouch, La religion et la magie songhay (Paris, 1960), and Paul Stoller, Fusion of the Worlds: An Ethnography of Possession among the Songhay of Niger (Chicago, 1989).
11. See my chapter, ‘Songhay, Borno and the Hausa states, 1450-1600’, in J. F. A. Ajayi and M. Crowder (eds.), History of West Africa, 3rd ed. (2 vols.) (London, 1985), i, 348.
12. ‘Songhay, Borno and the Hausa states, 1450-1600’. 334-5. 341-2.
13. See TS, 83/138, 109/178; Mahmud Ka'ti/Ibn al-Mukhtar, Ta'rikh al-fattash (hereafter TF), ed. and trans. O. Houdas and M. Delafosse (Paris, 1913-14), 118/216-7.
14. See Levtzion, Muslims and Chiefs, 91, 167, for members of the Baghayogho clan who settled in Dagomba and Mossi.
15. Baraka is too complex a term to allow simple translation. As a general statement we may describe it as a beneficent force of divine origin that may bring both material and spiritual benefit to those to whom it is communicated or who acquire it from those who possess it. An exhaustive study of baraka and its manifestations in Morocco may be found in Edward Westermarck's Ritual and Belief in Morocco (London, 1926), i, chs. 1 and 2, and more briefly in his Pagan Survivals in Mohammedan Civilisation (London, 1933), chs. 4 and 5. See also the brief but valuable discussion in Bryan S. Turner, Weber and Islam (London, 1974), ch. 4, ‘Saint and Sheikh’.
16. See Jean-Leon l'Africain, Description de I'Afrique, trans. A. Epaulard (2 vols.) (Paris, 1956), ii, 468.
17. See translation in J. O. Hunwick,’ Askia al-Hajj Muhammad and his successors: the account of al-Imam al-Takrun’, Sudanic Africa, 1 (1990), 85-9. Since we do not know when this author wrote or what his sources of information may have been, it is possible that he was merely paraphrasing some other author. However, his nisba al-Takrun suggests that he was of West African origin, and thus the likelihood of his having been an actual witness is increased.
18. The title Askiya alfa meant ‘the askiya's scholar/holyman’, and he appears to have been the askiya's religious counselor.
19. On the forgery, committed at the behest of Shaykh Ahmad Lobbo (Seku Ahmadu) of Masina to further his claims over certain occupational groups, see N. Levtzion, ‘A seventeenth-century chronicle by Ibn al-Mukhtar: a critical study of the Ta'rikh alfattash’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, xxxiv (1971), 571-93-Also my ‘Notes on slavery in the Songhay empire’, in J. R. Willis (ed.), Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa, Vol. 2: The Servile Estate (London, 1985), 16-32.
20. On such practices in these states, see Jay Spaulding and Muhammad Ibrahim Abu SalTm, Public Documents from Sinnar (East Lansing, 1989), and R. S. O'Fahey and M. I. Abu SalTm, Land in Dar Fur (Cambridge, 1983). For a broad survey, see R. S. O'Fahey, ‘“They are the privileged of God and His Prophet”: mahram and zawiya in Sudanic Africa’, in John Hunvvick and Nancy Lawler (eds.), The Cloth of Many-Colored Silks (Evanston, forthcoming).
21. I have published the text and translation of this ‘document’ and discussed its problems in ‘Studies in the Ta'rikh al-fattash II: the hurma document issued by Askiya al-hajj Muhammad to the descendants of Mori Havvgaro’, Sudanic Africa, in (1992), 133-48.
22. Both TS and TF use the term hurma which means ’ a state of being forbidden, sacred or inviolable, entitled to respect, reverence, honour’ (E. W. Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon [10 vols.] [London, 1863-93], 555, col. 1). TS also uses the term Hsma which means ’ [divine] protection, preservation, especially from what could cause a man perdition’, see Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, 2066-7.
23. See TS, 18/31-2.
24. See Westermarck, Pagan Survivals, 84-6; also his Ritual and Belief in Morocco, i, 567-8.
25. On the connection between the Sorko boatmen/fishermen and ‘Kanta’, the title of the ruler of Kebbi and also (in the chronicles) his kingdom, see my article ’ A little-known diplomatic episode in the history of Kebbi (c. 1594)’, J. Hist. Soc. of Nigeria, v (1971), 575-81.
26. See H. R. Palmer, The Bornu Sahara and Sudan (London, 1936), 21, 50.
27. Hunvvick, ‘Studies in the Ta'rikh al-fattash I, 133-48.
28. On Sinnar, see Neil McHugh, Holymen of the Blue Nile: The Making of an Arab-Islamic Community in the Nilotic Sudan, 1500-1850 (Evanston, 1994), 85-95; on Dar-Fur, see R. S. O'Fahey, State and Society in Dar Fur (Cambridge, 1980), ch. 4; on Borno, see Hamidu Bobboyi, ‘The ‘Ulama’ of Borno: a study of the relations between scholars and state under the Sayfawa’ (Ph.D. thesis, Northwestern University, 1992), ch. 6.
29. On sanctuary (called hurm in Morocco), see Westermarck, Ritual and Belief, i, 559-64.
30. See TS, 83-4/139-40.
31. See TS, 99/163.
32. See TS, 130/207-8.
33. See TS, 131/209.
34. See TF, 134/244.
35. See TF, 51/98-9.
36. See TF, 83/155-6.
37. See TF, 73, 75/139-43.
38. See TS, 85/141-2.
39. See TF, 130/237-8.
40. See TS, 98-9/162-3.