Ghana (Wagadu) and the Trans-Saharan Trade
The Soninke kingdom of Wagadu, called Ghana after its ruler's title, the gold and salt trade across the Sahara, camels and caravans, al-Bakri's 1068 description of the twin-town capital, Islam among merchants and courts, the contested Almoravid "conquest" of 1076, decline, and the legend of Wagadu.
Gold, salt and a twin city
The Andalusian geographer al-Bakri, writing in 1068 from merchants' reports, described Ghana's capital as two towns: a Muslim merchants' town with twelve mosques and a royal town several kilometres away where the king held court amid sacred groves. Excavations at Koumbi Saleh in Mauritania found a large stone town that most historians identify with the merchants' town.
A contested event: Arabic sources were long read as saying the Almoravids conquered Ghana in 1076. Historians including David Conrad and Humphrey Fisher (1982) argued that no conquest happened and that Ghana's conversion and decline were gradual; the question remains debated. [oral tradition] The Soninke legend of Wagadu tells of a sacred snake, Bida, whose killing brought drought and the kingdom's end.
al-Bakri, Kitab al-Masalik wa'l-Mamalik (1068), in N. Levtzion and J.F.P. Hopkins (eds.), Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (1981); Nehemia Levtzion, Ancient Ghana and Mali (1973); David Conrad and Humphrey Fisher, "The Conquest That Never Was" (1982-83).