Hello and welcome to today's history lesson.

My name is Mr. Merritt and I'll be guiding you through today's lesson.

Let's get started.

So today's lesson is looking at Islam in Mediaeval West Africa, and by the end of today's lesson, we'll be able to describe the role played by Islam in the growth of the Mali Empire.

In order to do that, we need to use some keywords, and today's keywords are Islam, trade, and Muslim.

So Islam is the religion of Muslim people, trade means the exchange of goods, and a Muslim is a follower of the religion of Islam.

Today's lesson will comprise three separate learning cycles, and our first learning cycle is how did Islam spread to Africa? So let's get going.

So the Islamic religion was founded in 610 CE by the prophet Muhammad.

Peace be upon him.

So you might sometimes hear, whenever he says, Muhammad, you might say, "Peace be upon him" afterwards.

You might see when it's written down, as you can notice on the screen there, the the letters PBUH, which stands for peace be upon him.

And this is effectively a mark of respect that Muslims display towards Muhammad when they're speaking his name.

In any case, Muhammad founded the Islamic religion in the city of Mecca in 610, which is in modern day Saudi Arabia.

Islam expanded rapidly as you can see on the map on the screen there.

And by 750 CE, Islam was a dominant religion from Spain in the West to the borders of China in the east.

Islam began to spread in North Africa in 655 CE, and this is the point now which the Berber tribes converted to Islam.

The Berbers were the nomadic tribes who survived and thrived in the desert.

They were experienced traders who regularly crossed the Sahara Desert to trade with the people of the Sahel such as the Ghana Empire.

And the elites of the Ghana Empire were initially unsure of this new religion.

An example of that is that Muslim traders were not allowed to stay in the capital city of of Koumbi Saleh overnight.

And so a separate city, a whole separate city was built for them nearby.

And the Spanish Muslim writer, Al-Bakri, described this two city arrangement in a book he wrote in 1068 CE.

And cities, obviously they take time to build.

So Islam must have been a feature of life in the Ghana Empire for quite some time up to that point.

He also mentioned that the king of Ghana had a mosque built near the royal courts, which therefore strongly suggests that Islam had spread amongst at least some of the Ghanaian elite by this time.

Right.

Let's do a quick check for understanding now.

So what was the name of the Ghanaian capital city in which Muslim traders were initially not allowed to stay overnight in? Was it Koumbi Saleh, was it Timbuktu, or was it Walata? Make your choice now.

Okay.

If you chose A: Koumbi Saleh, then very well done.

That is indeed correct.

So in 1075 CE, the Almoravids who were a very strict Islamic sect.

They conquered the Ghana Empire, which ended its status as the main trading centre of West Africa.

The Almoravids were strict Muslims who made sure that the people of the area followed their form of Islam, and by the beginning of the 12th century, mediaeval West Africa had at least one nation that followed Islam, which was the Ghanaian Empire, and multiple trade routes maintained by Muslims. The reality is, though, is that Islam was spreading all across Africa as the map on the screen can show you right there.

So the map on the screen is the spread of Islam today, but it mirrors almost exactly the areas that mediaeval Muslim traders journeyed to in Africa.

And as well as obviously making trade connections, they frequently spread their religion as well.

And it's quite amazing that that is how Islam, it still looks today as well.

So we can really see how the past has influenced the present with this map here that we've got in front of you.

Alright, let's go for another check for understanding now.

So in which region of Africa did Islam begin to spread in the 7th century? Was it East Africa, North Africa, West Africa, or South Africa? Make your choice now.

Okay.

If you chose B: North Africa, then well done.

That is indeed correct.

And another check for understanding now.

By the beginning of the 12th century, which West African empire followed Islam? Was it Ghana, Mali, or the Songhai? Okay.

If you chose A: Ghana, then very well done.

That is correct.

Right.

Let's go for our first task for today.

What I'd like you to do is match the events on the screen in front of you, from the early years of Islam, to the correct dates.

So pause the video whilst you're doing this.

Just match the event to the correct dates and I'll see you once you're finished.

Okay.

Welcome back.

Hopefully you got on okay with that task.

Let's see what we've got then.

So, our first event is in 610 CE and that was when Islam was founded by the prophet Muhammad in Mecca.

The next event in 655 was that Islam spreads to North Africa.

In 750, Islam spread to parts of China.

In 1068, the Ghana Empire displayed evidence of strong Islamic connections, and in 1075 the Ghana Empire was conquered by an Islamic group called the Almoravids.

So hopefully you got all of those correct.

Let's move on now then to our second learning cycle for today, which is what are the values of Islam? So Islam has a number of characteristics that it values, such as good hygiene, giving to charity and self-control through fasting.

It also values knowledge and education highly as well.

And the prophet Mohammed once said, "It is necessary for every Muslim to seek knowledge and seek knowledge and teach it to other people." So that gives you an idea about just how highly knowledge is valued.

And there are other sayings as well with a very, very similar sort of vein as well.

As a result of these values, the rapid growth in territory that Islam experienced during its early years was also matched by a rapid growth in new technologies, new sciences, and new understandings as well.

Over a whole, really, really wide range of subjects as well, like mathematics, medicine, metalwork, and a whole host of others as well.

Many of the inventions that we take for granted today were discovered by Islamic scholars.

For instance, the principles of flight were discovered by an Islamic scholar.

The principles of cameras was also an Islamic scholar.

Many other things beside that too.

This desire to spread knowledge, not just gain knowledge, but also spread knowledge and share that knowledge as well, meant that many of these advancements made their way along the trade routes to the people of Sub-Saharan Africa.

So the peoples of the West Africa also gained from many of these scientific discoveries, and many of these new understandings as well.

On the screen in front of you, there are the Five Pillars of Islam.

So these are the five main principles that Muslims need to live their life by.

So they should declare their faith regularly, they should pray regularly, they should provide alms, which is charity, regularly.

They should fast for at least one month out of the year.

And they should also try and perform pilgrimage as well at least once in their lives.

There are other principles beside that.

As I said, the idea that knowledge is valuable and should be shared, but these are the five main ones that Muslims try to uphold.

Right.

Let's have a check for understanding.

I'd like you to choose two areas that Islam made great scientific and technological advances in.

Are they in mathematics, medicine, mining, or music? Okay.

If you chose mathematics and medicine, then very well done.

Right.

Let's go for our second task of the day then.

So starting with the earliest, I'd like you to sort the following sentences in order to explain the impact of Islamic values on West Africa.

So put a 1 in a box of the earliest one, a 2 in the second one, and then a 3 in the latest one.

So pause the video whilst you do that and I'll see you once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got along fine with that task.

So the first statements, the earliest statement is that the Prophet Mohammed encourages the seeking out and teaching of knowledge.

The second statement in chronological order is that Islam rapidly grew in territory, technology, science and understanding.

And the third and final statement should be that many Islamic advancements made their way along trade routes to the people of West Africa.

So hopefully you got those statements in the correct order.

Let's go for our third and final learning cycle for today, which is how did Islam impact the Mali Empire? So the adoption of Islam as the religion of Mali brought a great many benefits to the empire.

First and foremost, the benefit to trade had a positive impact on the amount of wealth the empire could generate.

Muslim traders shared their contacts with the Muslim traders, which expanded their trade networks.

So suddenly you've got access to trade routes way beyond your borders, and all because you've shared your contacts with fellow Muslim traders.

Muslim nations also tended to make better trade deals with other Muslims. So by joining the Muslim trade network, the Mali Empire was granted even more trade routes.

They now have more trade routes, and those trade routes are more lucrative.

They get more money from conducting those trade routes.

Mali also gained knowledge of a more accurate weights and measures system, which is extremely useful when measuring out both gold and salts.

If you're dealing with very, very small amounts of these things, then hyper accuracy is really, really important as well.

Let's go for a check for understanding.

So this statement, is it true or false? The spread of Islam also encouraged the spread of trade.

True or false? Okay, if you chose true, then very well done, it is indeed.

But let's justify this answer now.

Why is it true? Is it true because Muslim traders shared their trade goods with each other to share their profits? Or is it true because Muslim traders shared contact with each other to expand their trade networks? Alright, if you chose B, then congratulations.

That is indeed correct.

Okay, so one of the greatest impacts that Islam had on the Mali Empire was the spreading of Muslim values regarding knowledge and education.

The Mali Empire fully embraced Islamic teachings regarding the pursuit of knowledge.

Prior to the spread of Islam, knowledge in West Africa was usually transmitted orally, which means by word of mouth, through the songs of poet historians known as griots.

And whilst griots still maintained their important place in Mali society, the ability to read and write as a way to learn and record knowledge became an essential part of Mali society.

It is worth pointing out that griots still exist and they are still respected members of the Mandinka culture, the Mandinkas are the ethnic group that the Mali Empire derived from.

So griots are still around and they still play an important part within the culture of this particular part of the world.

That didn't stop when the Mali Empire became Muslims. It's just that the Malians now had different ways to record and transmit their knowledge as well.

Books and manuscripts became prized possessions, being collected and passed down within families for generations.

In cities such as Timbuktu, a flourishing book copying trade emerged.

And some historians estimate that Timbuktu has as many as one million books.

So this is the mediaeval period, and this one city we estimate has as many as one million books.

Just to kind of put that into a little bit of context, just a few hundred years earlier in England, Alfred the Great was considered a great scholar because he owned five books.

He could also read without actually having to read out loud.

And that was considered incredible for the time period.

Also, we're going back a couple of hundred years, but it's not that far into the future.

And this wealth of knowledge that Timbuktu and the Mali Empire held was incredible, absolutely incredible when placing into the context of the time period as well.

When you compare that to England at the time, they were just absolute light years ahead of us, in terms of their values for education, in terms of the knowledge that they had accumulated.

The largest collection of knowledge in Africa since the great library of Alexandria was destroyed in 48 BCE, could be found in Timbuktu.

So again, just to give you a little bit of context there.

This was an incredible accumulation of knowledge.

Many of these books were housed in mosques, which were holy sites, as well as centres of learning.

So again, it just gives you an idea about the values that Islam holds, is that as well as being a religious place, a mosque was also a place for learning as well.

So that idea of religion and education, it's almost going hand-in-hand at this point in time.

A unique style of architecture was created during Mansa Musa's rule to build these, which blended Islamic and local styles.

So you've now got these beautiful buildings, which house incredible amounts of knowledge.

So, quick check for understanding now.

What was a griot? Was a griot a merchant-adventurer, a poet-historian, or a warrior-monk? Make your choice now.

Okay.

If you chose B, a poet-historian, then very well done, that is indeed correct.

And another check for understanding now.

How did Islamic values change cultural life in the Mali Empire? Did A: Books become prized possessions, or B: Griots were completely replaced by books, or C: People only learned about religion? Okay, if you chose A, then well done.

That is correct.

Alright, so Timbuktu became a centre for Muslim culture and knowledge under the Mali Empire, and the city was home to as many as 25,000 students.

So that's not the local population, it's the local population and then 25,000 students on top of that.

So it was a massive city.

So again, just a little bit of context for you.

London, at this point in time, had a population of roughly 20,000.

So there were more students in Timbuktu than there were people in London.

Not to suggest that students aren't people, but there were the people who lived in Timbuktu ordinarily, and the students on top of that as well.

The Muslim explorer, Ibn Battuta who visited Mali in 1352, was both impressed and also slightly alarmed by the high standards that parents set for their children in order to learn the Muslim book, the Muslim Holy Book, the Qur'an.

And the reason he was slightly alarmed is that parents would chain their children up until they were able to recite it by heart, which I'm hoping that that was not the norm, but certainly that is recorded as happening.

We don't know how common that was, but it definitely did happen.

But it does give some indication of how important the Mali Empire viewed an Islamic education to be.

Another check for understanding now.

So education was important, but children learned at their own pace in the Mali Empire.

Is that statement true or false? Choose now.

Okay, if you chose false, then very well done.

That statement is indeed false.

But let's work out why it was false.

So is it false because children were chained up until they had memorised the Qur'an? Or is it false because children had to attend school for up to 10 hours per day? Make your choice now.

Okay, if you chose A, then well done.

That is indeed correct.

Right.

Let's go for Task C then.

So what I'd like to do is read the interpretations on the screen there from Jun and Izzy and what evidence can you use from this lesson to support each of those interpretations? So Jun says, "The biggest benefit that Islam brought to the Mali Empire was the increased trade network.

The Mali Empire needed to trade gold to maintain its strength and power." So what evidence from this lesson can you find to support that interpretation? Izzy, on the other hand, says that "The biggest benefit that Islam brought to the Mali was a written language and education.

The people of Mali learnt so much from reading about other people's discoveries." Now what evidence do you have to support Izzy's interpretation? Pause the video whilst you write down the evidence for those two interpretations and I'll see you once you've finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on fine with that task.

So let's see what you could have come up with then.

So evidence to support Jun's interpretation could be that Muslim traders shared contacts with each other to expand their trade networks.

Muslim nations made better trade deals with other Muslims. So by joining the Muslim trade network, the Mali Empire was granted even more trade routes, and Mali also gained knowledge of a more accurate weights and measures system, which was useful when measuring gold and salts.

If you've got any different information, any different evidence to support that interpretation, that's absolutely fine as well.

And evidence to support Izzy's interpretation could be that books and manuscripts became prized possessions and were collected and passed down within families for generations.

In Timbuktu, a flourishing book copying trade emerged and the city housed as many as one million books.

Mosques were designed as centres of learning and housed many books.

And the Mali Empire set high standards for their children to learn to read.

Children were chained up until they had memorised the Qur'an.

And again, if you've got any different evidence that supports that interpretation, that's absolutely fine as well.

Right.

Let's summarise today's lesson then.

So Islam had spread to North Africa in the 7th century.

By the 12th century, the Ghanaian Empire in West Africa followed Islam and multiple trade routes were maintained by Muslims. The values of Islam, which prized the spread of knowledge, led to technological and scientific advancements in West Africa.

Islam benefited West African trade.

For example, Muslim traders helped other Muslim traders.

The teachings of Islam influenced the culture of the Mali Empire and encouraged literacy and education.

And many books were copied or written in the Mali Empire and mosques were built to house some of these.

Thank you very much for joining me today.

Hopefully you've enjoyed yourself.

Hopefully you've learned something, and hopefully I'll see you again next time.

Bye-bye.