Mansa Musa

Another great king ruled Mali from 1312 to 1337 and his name was Mansa Musa. Crowned “Mansa”-meaning “king of Kings”- Mansa Musa was the grand-nephew of Sundiata. A Muslim himself, Mansa Musa embarked on the greatest Islamic pilgrimage by caravan ever recorded in history between the years 1324-1325 in a journey spanning thousands of miles through the stretch of the massive and expansive Sahara desert. Reputedly the most lavish pilgrimage in the world, Mansa Musa’s entourage carried 100 camel-loads of gold, each weighing 300 pounds; 500 slaves, each carrying a 4-lb. gold staff; thousands of his subjects; as well as his senior wife, with her 500 attendants.

According to the Arab historian Al-Umari, Mansa Musa and his retinue gave out so much gold such that the value of gold in Egypt drastically fell rendering the Egyptian economy in decline for many years. Al-Umari further states that Mansa Musa had to borrow from well-wishers at usurious interest rates for his return journey to Mali. In return, Mansa Musa brought back with him an Arabic library, religious scholars, and most importantly the renowned Muslim architect al-Sahili who built him a majestic royal palace and two great mosques at Gao and Timbuktu.

In the aftermath of Mansa Musa’s travel to Mecca and Cairo, the Kingdom Mali became a center for commerce, education, and trade followed by diplomatic exchanges with Morocco and other Islamic nations. Mali enjoyed remarkable peace, stability, and profound prosperity for the forty-seven years between the time of his grandfather’s brother, Sundiata, and his accession to the throne. Mansa Musa ruled the Kingdom of Mali for twenty-five years finally leaving the political spectrum in 1337 when he died of natural causes. According to E.W. Bovill, author of The Golden Trade of Moors (1958), Mansa Musa’s kingdom was "remarkable both for its extent and for its wealth and a striking example of the capacity of the Negro for political organization".

The Lion Prince Sundiata

In the first half of the thirteenth century, a notable king by the name Sumaoro Kante of the Ghana Empire, ruled over the populous Mandinka tribe of Mali against their wishes. The Ghana Empire or the Wagadou Empire lasted from c. 790 until 1235 of the Common Era. The Mandinka remained in a state of bondage and helplessness until a powerful prince by the name Sundiata returned from exile thus becoming the undisputed celebrated hero of the Malinke people of West Africa. Known for his courage and unmatched vigor in battle, the Lion Prince as he was called, Sundiata, remained remarkable in his pursuit of leadership even while away from home in exile. By forging judicious alliances with local rulers, Sundiata assembled a large army comprising mostly cavalry and by 1235 his sphere of influence encompassed the modern states of Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, and Sierra Leone.

After overthrowing the Kingdom of Ghana, Sundiata governed from his capital city Niani that featured buildings of brick and stone. His Malian kingdom controlled and taxed the trade caravans passing through West Africa. Often, caravans as many as twenty-five thousand camels heavily-loaded with miscellaneous cargo traversed the trade routes. The cities of Gao, Timbuktu, Jenne, and Niani became important trading centers populated by indigenous people and merchants in pursuit of the gold trade. Under Sundiata, Mali immensely profited from the trans-Sahara trade such that it benefited far more than Ghana did in the past. Malian rulers practiced Islam and provided security, accommodation, and luxuries to Muslim travelers from further up north. Sundiata reigned from 1230 to 1255 of the Common Era. In terms of sphere of influence, the Mali kingdom was the second largest kingdom in size in Africa (1.1 million sq km), with the Kingdom of Songhai being the first and the most extensive in land mass totaling 1.4 million square kilometers.

The Travels of Ibn Battuta

The history of generosity to foreigners in Africa goes along way. In 1331, Ibn Battuta, a learned Moroccan traveler, Islamic jurist and scholar, during a visit to Mogadishu, was accorded the best form of hospitality by being fed, clothed, and entertained for free. Perhaps, had he paid visit to any European land, he would either have been held captive as a slave indefinitely or he would have been killed right away. In his famous Rihla or travels, Ibn Battuta reported, “we stayed there for three days, food being brought to us three times a day, following their custom. On the fourth day, which was a Friday, the qadi and students and one of the sheikh’s viziers came to me, bringing a set of robes, these [official] robes of theirs consist of a silk wrapper which one ties round his waist in place of drawers (for they have no acquaintance with these), a tunic of Egyptian linen with an embroidered border, a furred mantle of Jerusalem stuff, and an Egyptian turban with an embroidered edge. They also brought robes for my companions suitable to their position. We went to the congregational mosque and made our prayers behind the maqsura [private box for the sultan]. When the sheikh came out of the maqsura I saluted him along with the qadi; he said a word of greeting, spoke in their tongue with the qadi, and then said in Arabic “you are heartily welcome, and you have honored our land and given us pleasure.”

Ibn Battuta’s hosts never turned out to be the apes, beasts, and baboons recorded in many obnoxious European accounts of Africa. Instead, he found people who were resilient, affectionate, modern, and perceptive of travelers’ needs, punctilious, and above all religious and not blasphemous as the Europeans would have us believe. Ibn Battuta was a guest to a Somali sheikh (Islamic scholar) and a qadi (magistrate) both of who observed all the values, creeds, and customs of Islamic way of life especially in reference to etiquettes relating to hosting guests or visitors. Even before disembarking ship, Ibn Battuta and his companions or crew, were accorded a high degree of respect on board ship. Ibn Battuta was accorded the respect reserved for a doctor of the law. He became a guest of the sheikh and not the guest of an ordinary man or woman. Born in Tangiers, Morocco in the year 1304 C.E., Ibn Battuta descended from the Lawati Berber tribe in a family of lawyers and judges. The full name of this dedicated lone-traveler was Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Abdullah Al Lawati Al Tanji Ibn Battuta; he died about 1368 or 1369. In a period spanning 29 years, Ibn Battuta covered approximately 75,000 miles by ship and on dhows, on horseback, on foot, and riding donkeys and camels to mostly Muslim lands. He traveled three times the distance covered by the celebrated European discoverer and explorer Marco Polo!

In reference to past African political organizations, contemporary scholars and writers often use the terms stateless society and segmentary society. Far from the truth, Africans enjoyed elaborate hierarchy of officials and bureaucratic apparatus in the management of their daily affairs. Between the years 800-1500 C.E., great kingdoms, empires, and city-states flourished in sub-Saharan Africa with scrupulous trade routes traversing the massive Sahara desert culminating in the profusion of immense wealth to West Africa, North Africa, Middle East, and Europe in what came known as the trans-Sahara trade routes. Whether in the coastal plains or in the lush hinterlands, Africans executed complex and organized central governments ruled by powerful kings with administrative divisions overseen by prominent figures representing the head of state. Long before the birth of Islam, a mighty kingdom existed in Ghana (not related to the modern state of Ghana). Even before the Islamic Hijra in 622 C.E. (Common Era), as many as twenty-two kings ruled Ghana. As reported by Al-Bakri, a mid-eleventh century Spanish-Cordovan traveler, the seat of the Kingdom of Ghana was at Koumbi-Saleh-a flourishing city containing elaborate buildings and over a dozen mosques. During its height of power from the ninth to the twelfth century, as many as fifteen thousand to twenty thousand people populated the city of Koumbi-Saleh.

To maintain order in the kingdom and protect the city and the state from external aggression and to safeguard the trade routes from marauding hooligans and highway robbers, the Kingdom of Ghana had as many two-hundred thousand well-armed and well-trained armies of warriors. To support such a large army, the administration in Koumbi-Saleh levied taxes on trade caravans passing through the kingdom. During this period in time, the headwaters of the Niger, Gambia, and Senegal rivers contained the largest deposits of gold. The demand for economic development and dwindling resources in the eastern hemisphere lured merchants in the Mediterranean basin and the Islamic world to the vast resources that was available in the kingdom of Ghana. In exchange for gold and other precious minerals, trans-Saharan merchants from as far as Europe and Arabia brought in horses, cloth, manufactured wares, and salt-a crucial commodity that was in short supply in the tropics. Besides Koumbi-Saleh, other prominent trading towns were Timbuktu in present-day Mali, Gao, Jenne, and Niani. Never at time has the history of the African continent been contrasting as European explorers of the past envisaged. Instead, Africa enjoys a history full of intricate governance, distinct civilization, elaborate terra-cotta craftsmanship, magnificent trade routes and abundance of wealth, and endless stories.

Arabs and Persians in Africa

If there be any reliable truth-telling society that can shed light on historical African social life prior to European incursion of Africa, a glimpse at past Arab and Persian chroniclers would without an iota of doubt prove remarkably useful. The Arabs have in their libraries vast array of materials of historical significance that has either been out-rightly rejected by the Europeans because of the profound impact they incur on African historical perspectives or said other way, because these materials continue to rot in libraries devoid of translations.

Arab proximity to African coastlines enabled Arab philosophers, historians, adventurers, religious scholars, traders, and seafarers to crisscross the Indian Ocean on dhows aided by the Indian Ocean seasonal monsoon winds. Likewise, Persians were the very people who preserved and translated the vast knowledge of Greek philosophy we cherish today so much so that the philosophical foundations we inherited from Greek philosophers like Aristotle, Socrates, Aristophanes, Thucydides, Anaximander, Plato and others serve actors in the governing of world democracies; they also remain the nerves behind the continuation of the much-admired theatrical performances seen the world over, and subjects of profound solace in global academia. Despite coming to Africa way after the Arabs and Persians had bonded with the mighty continent through concrete reciprocal friendship, later European travelers to Africa drew gloomy pictures about the people they interacted with and the lands they traversed regardless of being accorded outstanding reception.

Long before the birth of Christianity and long before the rise of the succession of Roman empires that came to wreck havoc in Asia Minor, Arabia, and northern Africa, a dedicated Greek mariner produced the useful historical document we know today as the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. This internationally-acknowledged historical magnum opus details the existence of thriving cities and societies straddling the eastern and southern Africa coastlines with mention of commerce and trade and ocean mercantilism in the year 1 B.C. Similarly, in the 14th century, a Chinese navigator by the name Admiral Hwang Ho or Huang He, sailing on behalf of the king of imperial China, paid a courtesy call to Somalia’s coastline presumably landing either in Mogadishu, Berbera, or Zeila where he was given on his return voyage a giraffe as a gift by the sultan of Somalia at that time. The history of Arabs, Persians and other Asian societies most notably Polynesians plying the African coast long before Europeans mastered the art of sail-making, may not be taken lightly because the footprints these people left behind are quite visible to this day from further up north in Zeila in Somalia to further south in Sofala in Mozambique.

The Axumite Kingdom of Abyssinia
The current state of Ethiopia has seen dramatic historical experiences that stretch back to three-thousand years corresponding to the era of the Biblical Queen of Sheba who ruled ancient Yemen and King and Prophet Solomon whose reign encompassed a greater part of the Arabia landscape, the Levant, and parts of Asia Minor. Abyssinia (currently Ethiopia) enjoys historical significance such that its majesty in ancient architectural engineering is the envy of many past civilizations. With the ancient city of Axum or Aksum as the capital city of the Kingdom of Axum-a civilization that flourished in the current Tigrey region of Ethiopia from ca. 400 B.C. up until the 10th century-the eponymous kingdom of Axum had a strong naval and trading power that stretched to as far as modern-day Yemen in the Middle East right across the Gulf of Aden. Ancient Abyssinia was home to the renowned “Lucy”-a presumed hominid fossil who is a Gracile Australopithecines represented by bones from single skeleton-specimens discovered in Ethiopia’s Afar region. Ethiopia’s Afar region has long been an area famous for volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and blanketing lake sediments and slow accumulation of sediments.

The recent discovery of another skeleton thought to have died 4.4 million years ago-a fossil named Ardipithecus ramidus or in short “Ardi”-is estimated to be a million years older than the famous Lucy find of the 70s. Pioneered by the Middle Awash research project and co-directed by Tim White, a paleo-Anthropologist from the University of California at Berkeley and assisted by his Ethiopian colleagues Berhane Asfaw and Giday WoldeGabriel, the team believes that the Afar region of Ethiopia holds paleo-anthropological treasures.

With a long historical journey and many ruins comprising churches carved-out of mountains and steel structures dotting the countryside, undoubtedly, ancient Abyssinia was once a seat for mighty emperors who carried the ceremonial title “Ras” until the last ruling dynasty, Emperor Haile Selassie, was overthrown and murdered in cold blood in 1974 by a military committee known as the Derg that was led by Lieutenant Mengistu Haile Miriam. Colonel Mengistu, having himself been removed from power in 1991, is purportedly hiding in obscurity in Zimbabwe at the behest of authoritarian ruler Robert Mugabe. Among the most striking ancient structures remaining in modern-day Ethiopia include the monolithic obelisk that in the course of time collapsed and subsequently broke into three parts.

Ethiopia survived foreign manipulation for over 3,000 years especially the so-called Scramble for Africa until the Second World War when Italy’s fascist ruler Benito Mussolini occupied it for a few years despite bitter resistance that culminated in the defeat of the invading forces by Ethiopia’s combined local gallantry. Mussolini’s war with Ethiopia was to avenge the Battle of Adowa which took place in Abyssinia on March 1, 1896. It was Mussolini’s desire to revive an empire reminiscent of the Roman

Introduction to Upcoming Book on African History

For thousands of years when the people of the Europe lingered in an observable fact of savagery and barbarism, the African continent enjoyed remarkable peace, prosperity, and good governance until poor and famished Europe woke up to an era in the 15th century that came to be known as the Renaissance with France becoming the first in continental Europe to seize the opportunity to effect change to its people’s living conditions politically, socially, and economically. Despite being called names pejoratively by the people of Europe, the inhabitants of the mighty African continent have never at any given time in history sought the help of Europe in any way whatsoever in the past. Instead, after suffering unmitigated hunger and general deprivation for many years, it was the leaders of Europe who embarked on surreptitious projects that in the end reduced the African continent into a bleeding mess.

Until we realize what the major factors are that continue to hold back the poor African continent through the eyes and mind of the African intellectual, we may never understand the general dilemmas of the African and Africans. From the very moment when Europeans started to involve themselves in African affairs, the rate of human suffering has been quite alarming. While the rest of the world is accelerating in terms of development, to the contrary, the African continent has experienced tremendous deceleration-not because of scarcity of natural resources and human capital, but because of European mistreatment.

After unleashing slavery and slave trade as a precursor to its protracted ravenousness and profligacy, the leaders of Europe persistently plundered Africa through imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, commercial misgivings, trade imbalances, the World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and most recently through the World Trade Organization (WTO)-an organization whose mode of operations favor allies of the United States and the European Union while imposing hefty tariffs on African raw and manufactured products that are perceived as having inferior quality.

With the exception of oil and other industrial mineral exploits and rubber plantations that are either owned by or managed by western multinational corporations (MNC) and Coffee, Tea, and Cocoa that is farmed by underpaid Africans in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Mali, and Ivory Coast respectively and consumed heavily as beverage in the western hemisphere, Africa’s vast natural resources-exploited and unexploited-remain in commercial limbo for failing to secure internationally accepted legitimate market value.

Despite the abundance of diamonds in Sierra Leone and Namibia; gold in South Africa; rubber in Liberia; oil in Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Libya, and Tunisia, persisting colonial vestiges, embezzlement of state coffers and despicable corruption hinder prospects for progress and serendipity. It is quite common for the very African leader who is himself a product of colonialism to heap blame on his nation’s former colonial master be it be Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, or France respectively. Britain and France, the two major colonial powers that are central to the adulteration of African affairs continue to misguide their servants through the formation of proxy blocs known as Anglophone and Francophone where participating states are required to comply by laid down rules and regulations dictated from London and Paris. Ironically, majority of African leaders who subscribe to any of the two opposing rims, Anglophone or Francophone, came to the helm through vote rigging or through coup d’états. Thus, aspects of political and historical significance that failed to capture the imaginations of many writers in the past will be unveiled as you read the pages of an upcoming book on the history.

The subsequent rise of the Axumite Kingdom of Abyssinia before the advent of Christianity and Islam, the golden age of the Kingdom of Ghana, the wealth of the Kingdom of Mali under Mansa Musa, the Songhai Empire, the thriving civilizations on the Swahili coast of Eastern Africa, the great ruins of Zimbabwe and the forces that built it along the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers will be thoroughly scrutinized in the most scholarly manner.

Human Rights Abuses in Somalia

The issue of human rights abuses in Somalia goes back to the days of the military junta when select clans were targetted for voicing their concerns. The worst form of human atrocities, extrajudicial killings, trial without legal representation followed by prolonged jail terms, denial of freedom of speech, arbitrary arrests, and other forms of cruel and dehumanizing punishments including aerial bombing of densely populated places, forceful conscription into the armed forces, lack of reliable healthcare facilities, poor infrastructure, lack of clean tapped water, and the forceful adaption of communism and Scientific-socialism that were contrary to Islamic values remained prevalent up until the fall of Somalia's last central government.

The fall of the military government in 1991 exploded intertribal and interclan rivalry leading to the worst form of humanitarian crisis never before witnessed in modern human history. The rise of dreadful warlords culminated in the formation of fiefdoms and eventual cantonization of the once unified and homogenous state of Somalia. The rise of startling crimes of extortion and murder, rape of young girls and women, destruction of the nation's infrastructure, pollution of the environment, destruction of national forests through charcoal burning, dumping of toxic wastes, and the indiscriminate killing of defenseless civilians opened a path to the most grueling mass exodus of people and wild animals inside and outside of Somalia's borders such that Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya has become home to 300,000 refugees mainly of Somali origin. Dadaab refugee camp is reputedly the biggest refugee camp in the world according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR.

International, interregional, and intraregional migration became the only possible means of escape for those with the willpower and resolve, energy and drive. Hundreds of wild animals including elephants, giraffes, buffalos, rhinos, zebras, and other bigger animals who could cover longer distances sought refuge in countries neighboring Somalia. In the Diaspora, the number of Somali teenagers langushing in foreign jails for felonies and misdmeanors is hard to grasp. Somali youth in the Diaspora have become victims of crime because their illiterate or drugged parents have failed to guide them and act as role models.

Currently, Somalia remains the most dangerous place to live. It is a place where life has no meaning at all. Regardless of where one lives in Somalia, the truth of the matter is, peace, liberty, and happiness remain elusive. In the areas controlled by the Islamists, uneducated and brainwashed young men wielding considerable power have made life unbearable for the millions who look to them for protection. In their attempts to consolidate power, the Islamists have become adept at imposing unbearable rules and regulations that are an impediment to peace and progress.

Almost all Somali factions, religious or secular, continue to exploit and suppress even the most vulnerable of their subjects-children. Children as young as ten carry AK-47s in the streets imposing strict rules and lashing unobservant, defenseless civilians. What the west refers to as child labor has become a common practise for armed groups. The absence of human growth and develpment has depleted Somalia's human capital such that even those who have been hale and healthy at one time, have lost their mental and moral fiber.

Disruption of humanitarian supplies, exposure to hazardous waste, the defeaning noise of artillery and gunfire, and a host of undiagnosed and protracted maladies leave many reeling in pain on a daily basis. Theocracy, authoritarianism, and pseudo-democracy are the only forms of leadership styles currently existing in the Somali landscape.

Women and girls escaping the mayhem in Somalia, often find themselves abused, roughed-up, or raped by the security personnel of the host country. The political imbroglio in Villa Somalia and the Transitional Government's failure to capture lands in the hands of the opposition, will excercabate the current negative trends and alien traditions the nation is engulfed in.

Somali Child Soldiers

A recent report by a New York Times reporter that the current Transitional Federal Government of Somalia employs child soldiers to keep the peace in the areas it controls has become a subject of discussion in the global media. Images of dishevelled underage Somali children carrying AK-47 rifles raise questions about the ill-intentions of the besieged Somali government.

Taxpayers in the West perceive hippocracy and deception on the part of their governments for recklessly dishing out their hard-earned monies to a government that does not respect the rights of the child. According to some estimates, 20% of Somalia's children are engaged in conflict as child soldiers. These children are either orphaned, abandoned, homeless or have been forcefully conscripted against their wishes or have been attracted to the meager wages offered by heartless militia commanders including Somalia's national army that is short of willing recruits.

As a result of push-pull factors, these children are being lured either by the desire to win their daily bread or the urge to satisfy their drug addictions. Somalia is synonymous with the consumption of Qaad-a narcotic leaf grown in the highlands of Kenya and Ethiopia-a drug that contains fatal ingredients of cathinone (or cathonine)and known to induce euphoria, insomnia, and hypersensivity.

On the other hand, the absence of social activities, lack of schools, abject poverty, and massive unemployment opens a path for competition, survival, and bitter struggle among those who don't have relatives in the Diaspora. Often, children with no guardians or role models find themselves left with options other than fending for themselves. Strange as it may seem, the main perpetrators who exposed these children to such horrendous living conditions and untold suffering, have taken their children out of harms way and settled them in far away peaceful lands.

News that the president of Somalia has ordered a thorough investigation of New York Times' damaging revelations about Somali child-soldiers be carried could be welcoming if only we knew the effectiveness and impartiality of the final findings. Though it is easy to verify the number of child-soldiers serving in Somalia's army, what makes the veracity of the anticipated final report unconvincing even before it is made public, is the current government's past investigative failures. Perhaps, fearing public scrutiny, the current government is yet to deliver the results of investigations into past horrific incidents including the deadly suicide bombing of Hotel Shamo in December of last year where prominent public figures, university leactures, and graduating students met their untimely deaths.

Beledweyne for al-Shabab

The strategetic town of Beledweyne which previously served as the main hub for Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys' Hizb al-Islam militia has finally fallen into the hands of al-Shabab. With only Ceelasha Biyaha-a massive camp for the Internally Displaced located outside of Mogadishu remaining as the last bastion for Hizb al-Islam-undoubtedly, one could conclude that Sheikh Aweys' faction is headed for total dismemberment and absolute involuntary dissolution. To add insult to injury, the number of Hizb al-Islam forces defecting to the opposition is siad to be explosive finally leading to HI's top brass disbanding and bringing to an abrupt end the Sheikh's uncalled-for loquacity, rhetorics and innuendos of the past. With HI out of the political spectrum, what everyone has to keep an eye on is how the next battle will be fought between the Transional Federal Government and Ahlu-Sunna-Wal-Jama'a on one side and al-Shabab on the other.

Somalia Government Flexes Muscles

The current Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG) headed by Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed has long been accused by the international media and by a cross-section of impatient Somalis as being inept, incompetent, and corrupt. For some, the TFG has been a government only in name; its sphere of influence is restricted to the presidential palace-also known as Villa Somalia-which translates to a few blocks in a city of eighteen counties and a population exceeding over a million inhabitants.

Besieged by armed insurgents on all sides, the president and his retinue of dignitaries remain under the protection of AMISOM-an armed contingent provided by the African Union and funded by the international community. Perhaps a little less than a division and a legion, AMISOM is an amalgamation of select forces from the nations of Uganda and Burundi. The roughly 8,000 AMISOM force currently in Mogadishu remain guardians of the harbor, the airport, and the presidential palace. Lack of effective management and scarcity of funds has hindered the TFG's prospect of ushering in the much-needed peace and security.

Bickering and clan affiliations remain the major destructive tool for disgruntled parliamentarians with intent to further divide and plunge the nation in to a cycle of abyss. Rival militias integrated in to government forces switch sides by joining the Jihadists who continue to wage war on all fronts with the ultimate goal of toppling the infant and fragile TFG.

With patience and constancy the TFG is headed to reversing previous negative trends that posed a threat in the past by winning the hearts and minds of its war wary citizens. With thousands of newly-graduated troops and committed commanders on the ground, the TFG has now flexed muscles by covering and capturing new ground.

In the past few days, loyal government forces overwhelmingly captured the strategic city of Beletweyne from Hizbul Islam militia. Likewise, government forces and AMISOM troops have been pushing back the confrontational al-Shabab militant group from various segments of the city of Mogadishu thus allowing the safe return of displaced persons to their rightful homes.

Besides, the TFG has become a beneficiary of millions of dollars from the international community earmarked for the reconstruction and development of Somalia-the latest being money to the tune of $300m. The recently concluded conference in Ankara, Turkey, will be followed by a similar one to be held in Spain before year end. Which brings us to the conclusion that Somalia will in the long run reclaim its lost glory and once again become a major force to reckon with.