Isaac Samuel
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Isaac Samuel
@rhaplord.bsky.social
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A 17th-century West African scholar: the philosophical theology of Muḥammad al-Wālī (fl. 1688)
www.patreon.com/posts/17th-c...
Reposted by Isaac Samuel
The developments described by Khaled El-Rouayheb (tahqiq vs. taqlid), extended as far as modern Ghana.
“Knowledge (ʿilm) is essential to the doctrine of faith. It relates to the truth, by means of proof (dalīl).

The imitator is he who accepts the words of the ʿulamāʾ (scholars) without proof and then falls back to blind acceptance.”

al-Wālī, Chad, 1688.
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/texts-from...
Texts from the Periphery: Manuscript cultures in West Africa's frontier regions.
At the turn of the 20th century, one of the most remarkable contributions to African ethnography was produced by Umaru al-Kanawi, a Hausa scholar born in Kano (Nigeria), who, after a brief stay in Sal...
www.africanhistoryextra.com
December 7, 2025 at 7:12 PM
al-Wālī's works circulated widely and have been discovered in manuscript collections across Mali, Nigeria, Egypt, and Algeria.

17th-century manuscript by al-Wālī found at the University of al-Azhar, Egypt,
Currently at Leiden University, Netherlands.

www.patreon.com/posts/17th-c...
December 7, 2025 at 7:02 PM
The Fulbé constituted another significant scholarly diaspora in the region, especially the Toroɓɓe clerisy, which included some of the most prominent scholars in the kingdoms of Bornu and Bagirmi (modern Chad).
www.patreon.com/posts/17th-c...
December 7, 2025 at 6:49 PM
Return of the Sultan of Bagirmi from the Expedition, 4th July 1852.
Massenya, Chad.
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/texts-from...
December 7, 2025 at 6:44 PM
Bonduku, Côte D’ivoire. ca. 1889.
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/texts-from...
December 7, 2025 at 6:35 PM
A Hausa-style mosque at Salaga, Ghana. ca. 1886.
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/texts-from...
December 7, 2025 at 6:27 PM
19th-century copy of the prayerbook ‘Dalāʾil al-Khayrāt’, written in northern Ghana.

www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/texts-from...
December 7, 2025 at 6:25 PM
Long-distance networks of pre-colonial West Africa
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/texts-from...
December 7, 2025 at 6:17 PM
The West African scholar al-Wālī (fl. 1688) was a rationalist whose writings combined classical/Greek philosophy and local oral traditions to challenge the ‘blind acceptance’ of religious authority
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/texts-from...
Texts from the Periphery: Manuscript cultures in West Africa's frontier regions.
At the turn of the 20th century, one of the most remarkable contributions to African ethnography was produced by Umaru al-Kanawi, a Hausa scholar born in Kano (Nigeria), who, after a brief stay in Sal...
www.africanhistoryextra.com
December 7, 2025 at 6:00 PM
West Africa’s “internal diasporas” transcended political boundaries:
Commerce, religion, and scholarship became a means for many to overcome ethnic and social boundaries
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/texts-from...
Texts from the Periphery: Manuscript cultures in West Africa's frontier regions.
At the turn of the 20th century, one of the most remarkable contributions to African ethnography was produced by Umaru al-Kanawi, a Hausa scholar born in Kano (Nigeria), who, after a brief stay in Sal...
www.africanhistoryextra.com
December 7, 2025 at 5:28 PM
“The rulers acted so tyrannically in public that they made their village like a cadaver on which they sat like vultures.”

Umaru al-Kanawi, Salaga, 1892.

www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/texts-from...
Texts from the Periphery: Manuscript cultures in West Africa's frontier regions.
At the turn of the 20th century, one of the most remarkable contributions to African ethnography was produced by Umaru al-Kanawi, a Hausa scholar born in Kano (Nigeria), who, after a brief stay in Sal...
www.africanhistoryextra.com
December 7, 2025 at 5:22 PM
A 17th-century West African scholar: the philosophical theology of Muḥammad al-Wālī (fl. 1688)
www.patreon.com/posts/17th-c...
December 7, 2025 at 4:25 PM
Tomorrow's article is about West Africa's internal diasporas and the writings of a 17th-century scholar
December 6, 2025 at 5:10 PM
Reposted by Isaac Samuel
Beautiful!
Copy of Al-Jazuli's "Dala'il al-khayrat" (waymarks of benefits)

ca. 1899 CE,
Somalia.
-collection of Constant Hamès
#randomxt
December 5, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Shrine-shaped pectoral depicting Osiris seated between Isis and Horus

743–712 B.C. Reign of Piankhy (Piye)
Pyramid Ku 51 (tomb of a queen of Pianky), el-Kurru, Sudan.
-Boston Museum of Fine Arts
#randomxt
December 5, 2025 at 2:10 PM
Copy of Al-Jazuli's "Dala'il al-khayrat" (waymarks of benefits)

ca. 1899 CE,
Somalia.
-collection of Constant Hamès
#randomxt
December 5, 2025 at 1:59 PM
silver and ivory snuff horns

19th century
Mende, Sierra Leone.
-Brooklyn Museum
#randomxt
December 4, 2025 at 3:21 PM
the 'Three Wise Monkeys' and other scenes on carved wooden panels
ca. 1930
Benin City, Nigeria
-University of Birmingham
#randomxt
December 4, 2025 at 2:49 PM
a healthy dose of self-awareness
December 4, 2025 at 11:00 AM
The medieval cities and towns of Eritrea (ca. 1000-1900 CE)
www.patreon.com/posts/143143...
December 3, 2025 at 12:43 PM
Medieval cities in the northern Horn of Africa (1200-1600 CE)
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/medieval-c...
December 3, 2025 at 12:04 PM
Reposted by Isaac Samuel
Standing at this so-called door in mid-November 2019 where tour groups would regularly congregate for the lectures by their guides — except on Mondays when numerous places on Gorée are closed — it was the ideal day to contemplate how it would have been impossible for so many to pass through there.
December 1, 2025 at 11:42 AM
Reposted by Isaac Samuel
The idea has spread too. I visited a castle near Takoradi two years ago and was shown a 'door of no return', even though the castle was built on a hill so anyone leaving that 'door' would have immediately fallen 50m down the hillside.
December 1, 2025 at 8:35 AM
“However firmly the modern mind sees free labor as the antithesis to slavery, free labor arguably did not exist at all until the 19th century…
A definition of free labor in the modern sense would have covered few, if any, waged workers in 1750.”
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/slavery-in...
Slavery in African History: New Perspectives on Its Dynamics, Legacy, and Historical Memory.
Voices of slavery in Africa: the 19th-century autobiographies of Nicholas Said and Dorugu.
www.africanhistoryextra.com
December 1, 2025 at 7:51 AM