Perspectives andalouses sur le Sahara (iie/viiie-ve/xie siècle)

Abstract

In much of Western historiography, the Sahara was misconstrued as a foreign, distant and out of range world to the Andalusian who lived in the Umayyad era (2nd/8th- 5th/11th centuries). However, data collection from a variety of sources provides new insights into that history. As it turns out, on the eve of the fitna of the 5th/11th century, political actors, especially representatives of the Umayyad Caliphate, considered the Sahara as the backyard of an imperial space articulated around a number of Saharan trading centres, including Sijilmāsa. Research to date has tended to focus on trade in gold to the exclusion of diverse other commodities. From a more global perspective, Trans-Saharan traffic fulfilled a more central function, namely the connection of economic spaces on a larger scale, including al-Andalus, the Maghrib, the Sahel and tropical Africa.

Keywords

• Al-Andalus
• bilād al-Sūdān
• Umayyads of al-Andalus
• Trans-Saharan trade
• Sudanese gold