It is important for historians studying West Africa before the sixteenth century, particularly social and economic historians, to know what the basic foods were before the arrival of crops from the Americas such as maize, cassava, ground nuts, red peppers and tomatoes. Medieval Arabic historians and geographers recorded a great deal of information about social and economic life in Africa during the period and this is a full-scale attempt to make use of the material related to foodstuffs and the preparation of the food. The references collected from the Arabic texts are interpreted in the light of the work of modern ethnographers and the descriptions given by travellers in more recent times.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Boston University African Studies Center and Board of Trustees, Boston University are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The International Journal of African Historical Studies.
The town of Tadmakka was an important Berber market lying on the southern edge of the Sahara in the area of the Adrar of Ifoghas. The vast ruins of this town called E1 Souq are still visible. Tadmakka maintained relations at a great distance. According to al-Bakri (1068), the caravan routes linked it with the towns of Qayrawân and Tripoli on the one hand and with the great political and trade centres of the Western Sudan, Kawkaw (Gao) and Ghana (Kumbi Saleh), on the other. Tadmakka was already flourishing in the 9th century. It was there that was born about 884, Abu Yazid Mahlad ibn Kaydad, the famous « man with an ass », who was the son of Berber merchant from Bilàd al-Djarid and belonging to a branch of the Zanàta. The Ibàdite sources note also the présence of other Berber-Ibàdite merchants from Zanàta, sometimes very rich. According to Ibn tlawqal (973-975) the inhabitants of the kingdom of Tàdmakka called Banù Tânmak ((*Tàdmàk) belonged to abranch of the Sanhadja and were of black origin crossed with whites. On the contrary, the inhabitants of the capital of the kingdom, whom Yàkùt calls Zakràm ((*Akrâm, for agram : castle) were of Zanàta origin. They were mostly Ibàdite merchants from Djerid and other Ibàdite districts of North Africa. As for the Sanhadjian inhabitants of the Tàdmakka kingdom, they long remained pagans and only became Moslem in the year 1109/1110, after the islamization of the town of Ghana.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.