Sultan, Caliph, and the Renewer of the Faith
Aḥmad Lobbo, the Tārīkh al-fattāsh and the Making of an Islamic State in West Africa

A significant re-examination of the Tārīkh al-fattāsh, revealing it to be a crucial nineteenth-century source for history in West Africa.

Mauro Nobili (Author)

9781108479509, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 March 2020

288 pages, 10 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.7 x 2 cm, 0.53 kg

'A major contribution to the study of West African history.' Ousmane Kane, Cahiers d'études africaines

The Tārīkh al-fattāsh is one of the most important and celebrated sources for the history of pre-colonial West Africa, yet it has confounded scholars for decades with its inconsistences and questions surrounding its authorship. In this study, Mauro Nobili examines and challenges existing theories on the chronicle, arguing that much of what we have presumed about the work is deeply flawed. Making extensive use of previously unpublished Arabic sources, Nobili demonstrates that the Tārīkh al-fattāsh was in fact written in the nineteenth century by a Fulani scholar, Nūḥ b. al-Ṭāhir, who modified pre-existing historiographical material as a political project in legitimation of the West African Islamic state known as the Caliphate of Ḥamdallāhi and its founding leader Aḥmad Lobbo. Contextualizing its production within the broader development of the religious and political landscape of West Africa, this study represents a significant moment in the study of West African history and of the evolution of Arabic historical literature in Timbuktu and its surrounding regions.

Introduction
Part I. A Nineteenth Century Chronicle in Support of the Caliphate of Hamdallāhi: Nūḥ B. Al-Ṭāhir's Tārīkh al-fattāsh: 1. A century of scholarship
2. The Tārīkh al-fattāsh: a nineteenth-century chronicle
Part II. A Contested Space of Compating Claims: the Middle Niger, 1810s–1840s
3. The emergence of clerical rule in the Middle Niger
4. Aḥmad Lobbo, Timbuktu, and the Kunta
5. Fluctuating diplomacy: Ḥamdallāhi and Sokoto
Part III. The Circulation and Reception of the Tārīkh al-fattāsh, 1840s–2010s: 6. The Tārīkh al-fattāsh at work
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: African history [HBJH]