Les origines et l'islamisation de la ville de Tâdmakka d'après les sources arabes

Abstract

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.