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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Baghayogho: A Soninke Muslim Diaspora in the Mande World |
Author: | Massing, Andreas W. |
Year: | 2004 |
Periodical: | Cahiers d'études africaines |
Volume: | 44 |
Issue: | 176 |
Pages: | 887-922 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | West Africa |
Subjects: | Islamic history Islamization Soninke Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) History and Exploration Religion and Witchcraft |
External link: | https://doi.org/10.4000/etudesafricaines.4808 |
Abstract: | This article traces the role of a single family of Wangara descent in Mali - the Baghayogho family - in the expansion of Islam in West Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries. It demonstrates that the strategy of King Mohamed Askia to convert the animists in the south was based on the century-old commercial connections of the Wangara with the gold and kola-bearing regions in the south. The myth of a common pilgrimage of scholars of several clans ('dyamou') which all happen to be of Soninke origin seems to indicate that individual 'mission areas' were assigned to particular clans, and that those for the Baghayogho were along the river axes of the Bani (which joins the Niger near Djenne) and the Volta (which originates on the Dogon plateau). The article deals with the Soninke diasporas and the spread of Islam in Guinea-Bissau, Mossi, Mamprusi, Dagomba, Sansanne-Mango and Gonja. It argues that the concrete genealogical links of the founders of the branches in the diaspora with the main branch in Timbuktu remain to be established. Ann., bibliogr., ref., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract] |