A Regional Approach to the History of the Bilād Al-Sūdān

Boubakar Barry argues that the greater Senegambia region incorporates not only the basins of the Senegal and Gambia Rivers but also the highlands of Fuuta Jalon and by extension the areas immediately to the south and east of the highlands and hence the headwaters of the Niger River as well. While there are profound reasons for such a regional approach, it is argued here that the Bilād al-Sūdān should be conceptualized even more broadly and includes lands as far east as Lake Chad and also incorporate the southern Sahara. As the jihād movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries demonstrates, economic, political, and social interactions were expansive, encompassing most of West Africa and not just focused on the interior of the upper Guinea coast. The paper considers the major features of this larger regional focus of the Bilād al-Sūdān, including the impact of the desert-side economy, the nature of ecologically based trade and marketing, the role of Islam, particularly the jihād movement, the migration of merchants in diaspora, the transhumance of livestock herders, and the pilgrimage of Muslim intellectuals and students. A wider perspective on the Bilād al-Sūdān addresses issues of identity, ethnicity, and language usage, and correspondingly addresses questions relating to the definition of the Atlantic world.