a brief note on the intellectual contributions of African scholars in the diaspora

the biography of a West African mathematician in Cairo.

Around the year 1198, the West African scholar Ibrahim al-Kanimi from the town of Bilma (in Niger) traveled to the Almohad capital Marakesh (in Morocco), and gained the audience of its sultan, before moving to Seville (in Spain) where he settled and became a celebrated grammarian and poet that appeared in many Andalusian biographies of the time.¹

Al-Kanimi’s career exemplifies the patterns of the global intellectual exchanges in which several African scholars in the diaspora played an important role.

Historical inquiries into the African diaspora across the old world often pay less attention to the intellectual contributions of those Africans to the societies that hosted them, thus leaving us with an incomplete picture of the role of Africans in global history.

Yet many diasporic Africans whose biographies are known were important scholars who left a significant intellectual legacy across the world.

In the 16th century, the dozens of Ethiopian scholars who came to reside in Rome turned their monastery of Santo Stefano degli Abissini (near the Vatican Basilica) into a center of Africanist knowledge, where theological, geographic, and political information regarding Ethiopia and the Eastern Christian world could be obtained from scholars like Täsfa Seyon —who had an influence on Pope Marcellus II and Jesuit founder Ignatius of Loyola.²

Painting depicting Pope Paul III, the Jesuit founder Ignatius of Loyola (kneeling), and the Ethiopian scholar and cleric Tasfā Ṣeyon (standing behind the Pope with another priest), 27th September 1540, anonymous painter, Chiesa del Gesu, Rome.

Similarly, in Portugal's capital Lisbon, the Ethiopian envoy Sägga Zäᵓab wrote a critique of the dogmatic Catholic counter-reformation in his 'faith of the Ethiopians' in 1534, writing that "It would be much wiser to welcome in charity and Christian love all Christians, be they Greeks, Armenians, Ethiopians…because we are all sons of baptism and share the true faith." The book was well received by European scholars in the regions opposed to the counter-reformation, most notably the Dutch theologian Desiderius Erasmus, and his student; the Portuguese philosopher Damião de Góis, who eventually published 'The Faith' in 1540.³

In the 18th century, some of the West African scholars who had been visiting the pilgrimage cities of Mecca and Medina eventually settled in the region and became influential teachers in the scholarly community (ulama) of Medina. The most prolific West African scholar in Medina was Salih al-Fullani (d. 1803) from Futa Jallon in Guinea, an influential hadith teacher whose students include many prominent figures of the era, such as; the qadi of Mecca, Abd al-Ḥāfiẓ al-ʿUjaymī (d. 1820); the Moroccan Tijānī scholar Ḥamdūn al-Ḥājj (d. 1857); and the Indian scholar Muḥammad al-ʿAbīd al-Sindī (d. 1841) who became the qadi and shaykh of the ulama of medina.⁴

Among the most prominent diasporic communities of African scholars was the 'Jabarti' diaspora from the region around Zeila in northern Somalia, whose presence extended from Yemen to Medina to Cairo, and who included prominent figures such as the historian Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti (d. 1825) who was one of the most prominent scholars in Ottoman Egypt. Al-jabarti was also acquainted with many of his peers, including the Timbuktu scholar Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd al-Tunbuktī, whom he refers to as an eminent teacher in Medina.⁵

Al-Jabarti's father, Hasan al-Jabarti penned a glowing tribute to the Kastina mathematician Muhammad al-Kashnāwī, who was also his teacher, describing him as "the cynosure, the theologian, the ocean of learning, the sea of knowledge, the unparalleled, the garden of science and disciplines, the treasury of secret and witticisms”⁶

The biography and works of Muhammad al-Kashnāwī are the subject of my latest Patreon article, focusing on the West African scholar's contributions to the scientific writings of Egypt.

please subscribe to read about it here:

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Chessbook of Alfonso X the Wise, fol. 22r. Spain (1283). "The paintings in a manuscript dating from 1283 show us how realistically the people of this mixed world of Spain were depicted after the conquest. Certain Muslim noblemen are sometimes depicted dark-skinned … among the servants is one playing a harp, another is engaged in a game of chess". Image of the black in Western Art, Volume 2, issue 1, pg 78.

[see my previous article on the African diaspora in Spain for the biography of Al-Kanimi, the so-called Moors, and the Kongolese diaspora in Iberia]

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1. Ibrahim al-Kanimi figure illustre dans les relations culturelles entre le Maroc et Bilad as-Sudan by Mohammed Ben Cherifa pp. 131-132, Arabic Literature of Africa: The writings of central Sudanic Africa Vol.2) by John Hunwick pg 17-18.

2. An Ethiopian Scholar in Tridentine Rome by Matteo Salvadore pg 29-30, A Companion to religious minorities in Early Modern Rome by Matthew Coneys Wainwright pg 154-155

3. Damião de Gois by Elisabeth Feist Hirsch, pg 58, 74, 121, 148-151, 153

4. Islamic Scholarship in Africa: New Directions and Global Contexts edited by Ousmane Kane pg 33

5. A Guide to ʻAbd Al-Raḥmān Al-Jabartī's History of Egypt: ʻAjāʼib Al-āthār Fī ʼl-tarājim Waʼl-akhbār, by Abd al-Raḥmān Jabartī, Thomas Philipp, Guido Schwald pg 342-343

6. The Arabic Literature of Nigeria to 1804 by ADH Bivar pg 136