Al-Sahili : the historian's myth of architectural technology transfer from North Africa - article ; n°1 ; vol.59, pg 99-131

Suzan B.Aradeon

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Journal des africanistes - Année 1989 - Volume 59 - Numéro 1 - Pages 99-131
Al-Sahili: the historians' myth of architectural technology transfer. Scholars, architects and historians have used references to al-Sahili, an Andalusian brought back from Mecca by Mansa Musa in the early 14th century, to flesh out the history of medieval West African architecture. Historical evidence, however, undermines the myth of al-Sahili's influence. Not only were North African traders and clerics already settled in the region before his arrival, but also the introduction of Muslim settlements and mosques, as well as the pilgrimages by West African rulers, belie assertions that he initiated Sudaneses architecture. Features of West African mosque styles derive more from Saharan mosques and traditional African architecture and religions than from the monumental mosques of Spain or North Africa.
Savants, architectes et historiens ont utilisé le personnage d'al-Sahili (un Andalou que Mansa Musa ramena de La Mecque au début du XIVe siècle) pour rendre compte de l'histoire de l'architecture médiévale en Afrique occidentale. Cependant, les indices historiques infirment ce mythe de l'influence d'al- Sahili. D'une part, des clercs et des commerçants d'Afrique du Nord étaient déjà installés dans la région avant l'arrivée d'al-Sahili ; d'autre part, les établissements musulmans, les mosquées, ainsi que les pèlerinages des rois d'Afrique occidentale constituent autant de preuves qu'al-Sahili ne fut pas à l'origine de l'architecture soudanaise. En effet, des éléments stylistiques des mosquées de cette région semblent plutôt provenir des mosquées sahariennes ou de l'architecture et de la religion africaines traditionnelles que des mosquées monumentales d'Espagne ou du Maghreb.
33 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

• Publié par: JOURNAL_DES_AFRICANISTES
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1989
• Nombre de lectures: 121
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Suzan B. Aradeon
Al-Sahili : the historian's myth of architectural technology
transfer from North Africa
In: Journal des africanistes. 1989, tome 59 fascicule 1-2. pp. 99-131.
Résumé
Savants, architectes et historiens ont utilisé le personnage d'al-Sahili (un Andalou que Mansa Musa ramena de La Mecque au
début du XIVe siècle) pour rendre compte de l'histoire de l'architecture médiévale en Afrique occidentale. Cependant, les indices
historiques infirment ce mythe de l'influence d'al- Sahili. D'une part, des clercs et des commerçants d'Afrique du Nord étaient déjà
installés dans la région avant l'arrivée d'al-Sahili ; d'autre part, les établissements musulmans, les mosquées, ainsi que les
pèlerinages des rois d'Afrique occidentale constituent autant de preuves qu'al-Sahili ne fut pas à l'origine de l'architecture
soudanaise. En effet, des éléments stylistiques des mosquées de cette région semblent plutôt provenir des mosquées
sahariennes ou de l'architecture et de la religion africaines traditionnelles que des mosquées monumentales d'Espagne ou du
Maghreb.
Abstract
Al-Sahili: the historians' myth of architectural technology transfer. Scholars, architects and historians have used references to al-
Sahili, an Andalusian brought back from Mecca by Mansa Musa in the early 14th century, to flesh out the history of medieval
West African architecture. Historical evidence, however, undermines the myth of al-Sahili's influence. Not only were North African
traders and clerics already settled in the region before his arrival, but also the introduction of Muslim settlements and mosques,
as well as the pilgrimages by West African rulers, belie assertions that he initiated Sudaneses architecture. Features of West
African mosque styles derive more from Saharan mosques and traditional African architecture and religions than from the
monumental mosques of Spain or North Africa.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Aradeon Suzan B. Al-Sahili : the historian's myth of architectural technology transfer from North Africa. In: Journal des
africanistes. 1989, tome 59 fascicule 1-2. pp. 99-131.
doi : 10.3406/jafr.1989.2279
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/jafr_0399-0346_1989_num_59_1_2279SUZAN В. ARADEON
Al-Sahili
transfer The historians' from North myth of Africa architectural technology
The al-Sahili myth1 was created by the early historical sources in Arab
ic, travellers and scholars alike, and perpetuated by their later European
counterparts. The myth was founded on ignorance of the qualities of Afri
can traditional architecture combined with ethnocentric values and a belief
that some aspects of North African architecture must have been imported
into the Western Sudan. Some twentieth century authors have limited al-
Sahili's architectural accomplishments to the construction of an elaborat
ely decorated dome in the ancient capital of Mali while others have asser
ted that al-Sahili introduced « architecture » to West Africa implying that
the West Africans had previously been incapable of constructing anything
except small, rough « huts ».
Had al-Sahili been directly relevant to economic and political history,
the myth of his accomplishments would have been disposed of during the
reexamination of African history which began after indépendance. Cultur
al history is too important to be relegated to scholars trained in other aspects
of history. In the final analysis, culture is the raison d'être for politics and
economics. Abu Ishaq Ibrahim al-Sahili was cited by so many historians
precisely because scholars desired to present a fuller description of the his
torical cultural milieu. The faulty interpretations of the meagre data avai
lable on al-Sahili highlight the need for research focussed on cultural his
tory to ensure that a meaningful history is presented to future generations.
THE AL-SAHILI MYTH AS HISTORY
Heinrich Barth appears to have amalgamated the full legend of al-Sahili
in 1857 (Leary 1966 : 31) when he combined both explicit and conjectural
literary references to al-Sahili (without citing them) in his appendix to his
eye-witness account of West Africa.
1 . My gratitude is extended to David Aradeon and to the Ford and Farfield foundations for grants
to Aradeon to carry out field research on West African settlements. As Aradeon's research assis
tant from August 1969-December 1971, I was able to visit most of the architecture relevant to
the article. The original version of this article was presented at the Fifth International Congress
of Africanists, University of Ibadan, December 1985.
Journal des africanistes, 59 (1-2), 1989 : 99-131 100 SUZAN В. ARADEON
Musa built a mosque and mihrab outside of the (Mohammedan quarter) town of Gogo
(and) (in Timbuctoo) a palace, m'a-dugu, and the great mosque Jengere-ber or
Jama el kebira, with the assistance of the same I's-hak, native of Granada (the « Gra-
nata vir artificissimus » of Leo, although, commonly called e'Saheli, as if he were a
native of Morocco), who built his palace in Melli (Barth 1965 : 662, app. 9).
In 1924, the French scholar Maurice Delafosse spread the myth in an
erudite journal article which cited Arabic sources (Delafosse 1924 : 159-60)
and drew on his own familiarity with traditional African and Moroccan
architecture. According to Delafosse2, al-Sahili introduced « Sudanese »
architecture to the Blacks who had hitherto been constructing mud huts with
conical thatch roofs and at Mansa Musa's request, al-Sahili designed the
Gao Mosque3 with a rectilinear form and a pyramidal minaret using sun-
dried bricks, thereby creating the first architectural monument in the « Suda
nese » style. Without undertaking stylistic analysis of either the Arab/Berb
er architecture found in southern Morocco and the oases or of the Afri
can style he had termed « Sudanese », Delafosse assumed there was suffi
cient stylistic affinity between these two vaguely conceived « styles » to assert
that al-Sahili had drawn on his Moroccan experience for inspiration. Dela
fosse also attributed the Timbuctoo mosque (Djinguerey Ber) and palace
to al-Sahili ; however, he made no mention of the palace in the Malian capit
al. Instead, he affirmed that for the rest of Mansa Musa's life, Mansa Musa
was commissioning mosques in the Sudanese style built sometimes in mud
bricks and sometimes in fired bricks.
Barth seems to have added the Old Gao Mosque to al-Sahili's archi
tectural accomplishments without any explicit literary authority. The rele
vant source, al-Sa'di, a seventeenth century West African chronicler, merely
mentioned that Mansa Musa.
had built, outside of the town of Gao, a mosque with a mihrab where he performed
the Friday prayer. This mosque still exists today. In all the places where he spent a
Friday, he had the custom of commissioning a mosque. (al-Sa'di 1911 : 144).
In 1952, Raymond Mauny, the well-known archeologist-historian con
versant with the remains and all the sources, pointed out that al-Sa'di was
probably referring to the Old Gao Mosque because the distinctive omega-
shaped plan and fired brick technology used for its mihrab would have attrac
ted the notice of contemporaries (Mauny 1951 : 842). The fired bricks must
have been imported to embellish the mihrab otherwise they would have been
used for the rest of the mosque. Mauny further suggested that the conver
gence of mention in the literature of a distinctive mihrab and the approp
riate associated date (derived from a tombstone dated 766H/1364AD which
See below « Stylistic Features of Sudanese Architecture » for a description of the style. « Sudanese »
as used here is a translation of the French term referring to black Africans living in the sahel and
savanna of West Africa.
Delafosse's description of the Gao mosque indicates that he was referring to the Askia Mohammed
Mosque whereas Raymond Mauny (1951 : 842) has demonstrated that the Old Gao Mosque is almost
certainly the mosque which Barth attributed to Mansa Musa.
See my translation from the French version. AL-SAHILI 101
was found adjacent to the mosque) provided strong indication that the Old
Gao Mosque was commissioned by Mansa Musa (op. cit. : 844). Signifi
cantly, Mauny drew on his erudition to confirm the possibility that the Old
Gao Mosque was constructed « perhaps [by] the Spanish poet al-Sahili »
(op. cit. : 839). To this end, Mauny juxtaposed two disparate sources, one
referring to an oral tradition about a time three centuries previously (al-
Sa'di) and the other referring to a place many hundreds of miles away from
Gao (Ibn Khaldun). Only the Ibn Khaldun source refers to al-Sa'di in con
nection with construction. Mauny links the al-Sa'di source to the Ibn Khal
dun source across time and space merely because it refers to mosques com
missioned by Mansa Musa at the time al-Sahili was known to be in his pi
lgrimage entourage.
In 1952, Raymond Mauny also gave his erudite support to the Tim-
buctoo aspects of the