The Early Islamic Trans-Saharan market towns of West Africa

Abstract

• In the early Islamic period, trade across the Sahara escalated to new levels as West African resources, including most significantly gold, were imported on camel caravans to the markets of North Africa and the wider Islamic world trade system, these goods being exchanged for products from North Africa such as copper, textiles and glasswares. The immediate destinations for Trans-Saharan camel caravans coming from North Africa were the market towns which developed on the southern fringes of the Sahara, in the most arid zones of the Sahel (Sahel meaning ‘shore’ in Arabic). These centres became the principal locations for Trans-Saharan commercial exchange, meeting points between traders from North Africa and the Sahara and those from West Africa. Certain trading centres directly involved in the Trans-Saharan exchange also developed slightly further south in the Sahel, close to the centres of the West African states controlling trans-Saharan commerce. This chapter provides a summary account of the evidence relating to these various trading towns, including archaeological and other material evidence.