African History in Credo: Early History

From Encyclopedia of African History
By the end of the colonial period, half of Africans remained practitioners of their indigenous religions.

Islam, one of the world’s great monotheistic religions, was founded (or restored) by the Prophet Muhammad (570-632 CE), who lived in Mecca and Medina on the Arabian Peninsula. Followers of Islam are known as Muslims, or Moslems, and their religion embraces every aspect of life. The Arabic word islam means ‘surrender’-specifically, surrender to the will of the one God (Allah).

Religion founded in Palestine by the followers of Jesus; one of the world's major religions. Christianity predominates in Europe and the Americas, where it has been a powerful historical force and cultural influence, but it also claims adherents in virtually every country of the world. Together with Judaism and Islam, Christianity belongs to the scriptural religions (Monotheism), whose common origin is in the Near East.

From Encyclopedia of African History
Christianity flourished in Africa before it made its way to western and northern Europe.

Native W African religious beliefs and practices that also has adherents in the New World.

From Encyclopedia of World Trade From Ancient Times to the Present
Trade both within and across the Sahara has existed since prehistoric times, when the Sahara was considerably less dry, to the present.

In Encyclopedia of African History
Gold was an important staple in the trans-Saharan trade. The lure of gold spurred the Portuguese exploration down the African coast.

In An African Biographical Dictionary
Mansa Sundiata Keita, son of a family that had ruled Kangaba for about two centuries, became king when that small state was tributary to Susu, the regional power. His name means “the lion king.”

From An African Biographical Dictionary
King of the Mali empire during a united and prosperous period, is known primarily (and perhaps unfairly) for his lavish and ostentatious pilgrimage to Mecca.

From An African Biographical Dictionary
Osei Tutu, asantehene (king) of Asante from 1680, established the traditions of the Asante nation and founded the Asante Union.

From Encyclopedia of African History
Uthman dan Fodio (also known as Shehu Usman/Usumanu Dan Fodiyo, Shehu Usman, or Shehu) was a preacher, scholar, and statesman of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, known among the Fulbe as Usman bii Foduye. He established the Sokoto empire and become the first sarkin musulmi (amiral-mu'minin, “commander of the faithful”) in Hausaland.

From Encyclopedia of African History
One of the outstanding figures of medieval Muslim culture, ‘Abd al-Rahman Ibn Muhammad Ibn Khaldun was an incisive witness to the political fragmentation and warfare that followed the late-thirteenth-century collapse of the Almohad Empire in North Africa.

From An African Biographical Dictionary
Chief Shaka forged a new nation out of an assortment of Nguni clans and made this Zulu people one of the greatest powers of Africa in his time.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
1769?–1849, pasha of Egypt after 1805. Credited for his many domestic reforms, which hastened the foundations for an independent Egypt.

In Encyclopedia of African History
King Lalibela (ruled c. 1200-1250) was the most famous king of the short-lived Zagwe dynasty (dynasty of the Agaw) that came after the demise of the Aksum kingdom.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather guide
Legendary Christian prince. From the 14th to the 16th century, he was generally believed to be the king of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) in northeast Africa.

In Encyclopedia of Empire
While Western scholars have often dismissed African political history as inconsequential, the range of scale and complexity of African state formations is actually quite varied.

From Encyclopedia of African History
Osei Tutu, ruler of Asante from 1701 to 1717, stands out as one of the most important figures in Asante history. He finalized the long task of nation building initiated by Twum and Antwi, the first two Asante rulers.

From Encyclopedia of African History
The kingdom was an absolute monarchy, quite unlike the surrounding traditional kingdoms.

From Encyclopedia of African History
The ancient kingdom of Ghana was founded in the western part of the savanna region of West Africa.

From Encyclopedia of African History
One of the great empires of the Middle Ages.

From Encyclopedia of African History
The largest of the three great West African empires of the later Iron Age, [the Songhay Empire] flourished between the mid-fifteenth and late sixteenth centuries, but the foundations were laid some hundreds of years earlier. Today, the Songhay are the dominant ethnic group in the vicinity of Gao and their fortunes are intimately associated with the River Niger, especially in the area known as the Niger Bend, encompassing eastern Mali and northwestern Niger.

From Encyclopedia of African History
The Fulbe are one of the most widespread ethnic groups in West Africa and have played a prominent role in West African history.

In Encyclopedia of African History
Great Zimbabwe is the name given to the largest site of ruins in Africa, covering a span of approximately 1800 acres.

From Encyclopedia of Empire
The Mossi became a West African power that sought to control the economically rich Niger bend when seven states emerged as Malian power declined in the 15th century.

From Encyclopedia of African History
By 1400, Oyo, which was farther to the north at the margins of the forest and savanna, became the dominant commercial and political city of the Yoruba.

The origins of Timbuktu are obscure. According to local tradition and an indigenous chronicle written in the seventeenth century, the Tarikh es Soudan, the city was founded in approximately 1100 as a seasonal nomad camp.

From Encyclopedia of African History
The Tukulor empire of Al Hajj Umar (c. 1796-1864) was formed in western Africa in the middle of the nineteenth century, against the background of major jihads (holy wars) and the beginning of colonial penetration.