The veiled Sanhaja of the western Sahara

Who rules

Name

Not known for 1 January 1200

Title

No single ruler: the chiefs of the clans of each tribe

Confidence

low

No chief of the Saharan Sanhaja is named for about 1200 in the sources reached. Al-Bakri (1068), al-Zuhri (about 1150) and al-Idrisi (1154) describe the tribes and places before 1200; Ibn Battuta (1352) and Ibn Khaldun (1370s-1390s) after.

Overlord

None. The Almohads hold the oases of the northern edge (Sijilmasa, the Draa, the Sus, Nul) but not the desert.

What the realm holds

• The Adrar of Mauritania (Lamtuna: Azougui, Ouadane, the salt of Ijil)
• The Atlantic coast from the Rio de Oro towards the Senegal (Guddala)
• The open desert between the Draa and the Sahel, Taghaza and the wells of the caravan road (Massufa)
• The Saqiya al-Hamra and the Zemmour (Sanhaja nomads, tribe not pinned)
• The Wadi Nun and lower Draa (Lamta), with Nul under loose Almohad overlordship
• Across the border on the West Africa sheet: the Massufa of the Hodh and Walata, the Tagant (records gha-*)

The realm that morning

Free and divided. No war is recorded that winter. The Banu Ghaniya, Almoravid heirs of Massufa and Lamtuna blood, fight the Almohads far to the east and in the Balearics; there is no sign of a Saharan rising for them in 1199-1200.

Wealth

Camels, goats, dates of the Adrar, the salt of Taghaza and Ijil, guiding and protecting caravans, fish and ambergris on the coast.

Military

Camel-riding warriors with spears and hide shields; skilled raiders. No standing force.

Threats

• Drought and the failure of pastures
• Almohad expeditions from Sijilmasa or the Sus (none recorded about 1200)

How they decide

Each tribe is a set of clans led by chiefs (amghar) from leading lineages, who meet in council; there is no paramount chief in 1200 as far as is known. Scholars and judges of the oasis towns (Azougui, Ouadane) settle disputes by Islamic law; the caravans pay for guides and protection by agreement with the clans whose wells they use.

Tribute

They pay tribute to no one as a people. The Lamta of Nul likely pay through the Almohad governor of the Sus (not pinned). The Massufa take dues from the caravans.

Relations

With the Almohads: the Almohads hold Sijilmasa and the Sus, the northern ends of the desert roads, and the Sanhaja trade with them; the pretender claiming Fatimid descent, released in 601 (1204-1205), will raise followers among the Sanhaja against Sijilmasa (al-Marrakushi). With the south: the Massufa and Soninke share Walata and the Hodh; the towns of the Sahel (Walata, Awdaghust, Tichitt) and Ghana's successors are on the West Africa sheet.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. After 601 (1204-1205)The pretender claiming to be a son of the Fatimid al-Adid raises Sanhaja followers and beats the governor of Sijilmasa (al-Marrakushi).Depends on: His release from prison in 601. Stopped by: His staying in prison.

Places of note

• Azougui: Almoravid fortress of the Adrar
• Taghaza: Salt mine of the Massufa

Where the sources disagree

• The brief lists Tagant and the Hodh under the sanhaja realm; by the assignments they are written on the West Africa sheet (gha). Anchors only here.

Evidence: The tribes and places are known from geographers before and after 1200; nothing names a Sanhaja chief or dates an event in the desert to 1199-1200.

On the map: Drawn from its provinces (Lamtuna, -guddala, -massufa, -saqiya, -lamta).

Primary sources for this realm

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• History of the Sudan, Abd al-Rahman al-Sadi (about 1655, at Timbuktu). The Timbuktu tradition on the middle Niger four and a half centuries later, and the only narrative there is: the Za (Zuwa) kings of Gao and Kukiya, whose fifteenth king Za Kusoy is said to have accepted Islam in 1010 and whose successors ruled at Gao through the twelfth century; the foundation of Jenne and the conversion of its king Kunburu with his people towards the end of the sixth century of the Hijra, that is about 1200, with Jenne's early trade; and the position of Mali and Ghana as al-Sadi understood it. Read online
• The Book of Examples: the History of the Berbers and of the Muslim Dynasties of North Africa, Ibn Khaldun (1375 to 1379 at Qal'at Ibn Salama and Tunis, revised until 1406). Ibn Khaldun's tribal histories are the standard account of the powers that Almohad chronicles treat as background: the Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym in Ifriqiya and Tripolitania and their alliances with the Banu Ghaniya and Qaraqush; the Zenata of the central Maghreb (Banu Marin, Banu Abd al-Wad, Tujin, Maghrawa) before their rise; the Sanhaja and the veiled peoples of the Sahara; the Masmuda and the Almohad tribes. Read online
• Medieval Arabic inscriptions of the Niger bend and the Adrar (dated epitaphs from 1013 (Essuk) and 1100 (Gao-Saney) onward). The only writing from the Sudan belt itself before the Timbuktu chronicles.
• The Book of Examination of the Wonders of the Cities (1191). The nearest geographical survey to 1200: a description of the Almohad lands written nine years earlier, town by town, from Alexandria and Barqa through Tripoli, Gabès, Mahdia, Tunis, Bougie, Tlemcen, Fez, Marrakesh and Sijilmasa, with a section on the Sahara routes and the Sudan (Ghana, Zafun, Kawkaw). Read online
• The Book of Routes and Realms: the Description of North Africa, al-Bakri (Abu Ubayd Abd Allah ibn Abd al-Aziz al-Bakri) (1068, at Cordoba). Old by 1200 but still the standard description of the Sahara and the Sudan that the Almohad-period writers copied: Ghana under Tunka Manin with its twin towns and its Muslim quarter, Awdaghust, Tadmakka, Kawkaw, Takrur and Sila, the gold trade and the routes from Sijilmasa and the Dar'a; the Ibadi towns of the Jarid and the Fezzan; the Berber peoples of the Maghreb. Read online
• The Pleasure of One who Longs to Cross the Horizons (the Book of Roger), al-Idrisi (Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Sharif al-Idrisi) (completed in 1154 at Palermo, for Roger II of Sicily). The fullest geography of Africa a generation before 1200: the Maghreb and Ifriqiya town by town with distances and products; the Sahara routes through Sijilmasa, Awdaghust, Ghadames and Zawila; the Sudan with Ghana, Takrur, Sila, Barisa, Kawkaw (Gao) and Kugha, and Kanem with its towns Manan and Njimi; Nubia and Dongola, the Beja and the Red Sea ports; Zeila and Berbera; and the Zanj coast with Malindi, Mombasa, Qanbalu and Sofala with its gold, the earliest systematic notice of the Swahili towns. Read online
• The Book of Geography, Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr al-Zuhri (about 1140 to 1150, at Granada). A short Andalusi geography fifty years before 1200 with notices on the Sahara and the Sudan that are independent of al-Bakri: the Lamtuna and the veiled Sanhaja, Sijilmasa and the gold road, and Ghana, which al-Zuhri says accepted Islam at the time of the Almoravid movement (he gives the year 469 of the Hijra, 1076 to 1077), the only source for that statement.
• The Picture of the Earth, Ibn Hawqal (about 977, revised to about 988). Two centuries old by 1200 but the only early geographer who had crossed the Sahara himself: he was at Sijilmasa and Awdaghust in 951, saw the gold trade and the famous cheque for 42,000 dinars, and described the king of Ghana as the richest on earth, with notes on the veiled Sanhaja, the Ibadi towns, the Fezzan, Nubia and Alodia, and the Zanj. Read online
• The Travels of Ibn Battuta: Egypt, the Horn, the Swahili coast and Mali, Ibn Battuta (dictated to Ibn Juzayy) (1355, at Fez). A century and a half late, but the first eyewitness of places that in 1200 are known only from hearsay: Zeila and its stench, Mogadishu with its sultan, qadi and merchant hosts, Mombasa, and Kilwa under the Mahdali sultan Abu'l-Muzaffar al-Hasan, raiding the Zanj of the mainland; and the Sahara road from Sijilmasa through Taghaza and Walata to the court of Mali under Mansa Sulayman, then Timbuktu, Gao and Takedda among the veiled Berbers. Read online
• Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History, Various (edited by N. Levtzion and J. F. P. Hopkins) (ninth to sixteenth centuries; the collection published 1981). The standard English collection of every Arabic passage on the western and central Sudan.