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A revised estimate of the value of trans-Saharan trade in the nineteenth century suggests that, so far from declining, the caravan traffic between North Africa and the Western Sudan increased before the period of colonial partition. Evidence for this revision comes from French diplomatic and geographical missions in the 1850's and 1860's and from the Tripoli and Moroccan consulate records. In round figures the import of European goods across the desert routes and the export of ivory, ostrich plumes, gold dust and lesser items was probably not less than Pound 1,500,000 in 1875-a peak year, after which there was a slow decline, as various factors, including recession in the European markets and the political conquest of Western Sudan, interrupted trade. The prices for European goods and Sudan produce in the early 1860's illustrate the differentials which enabled African traders to make their profit.

This study analyzes the actors, networks, and commercial routes that structured the trans-Saharan slave trade during the Soninke and Manding empires (8th–13th centuries) through a critical examination of Arabic-Islamic sources, including alYaʿqūbī, al-Idrīsī, Ibn al-Fakīh, and Ibn Ḥawqal, supplemented by modern historiography. While the trade predated Islam, it intensified significantly following Arab-Berber expansion into the Sahel, operating through collaboration between Sudanese rulers who organized slave raids and market provisioning, and Maghrebi and Eastern merchants (particularly Ibadite Berbers) who established purchasing posts, financed caravans, and secured desert passage. Three principal itineraries channeled enslaved populations northward: the western Tahert–Sijilmassa–Awdaghost–Ghana axis; the Tripoli–Zawila–Kanem corridor linking Fezzan to Lake Chad; and an Egypt–Ghana route traversing Gao, Kawar, and the Kharga/Dakhla oases. Religious-legal discourse, notably the equation of unbelief (kufr) with enslavability, as articulated in Aḥmad Bābā's legal opinions, and elite demand for luxury commodities sustained capture and exchange, with urban centers like Koumbi Saleh, Awdaghost, Gao, and Zawila serving as nodal points. By correlating political chronologies with documented caravan geography, the research illuminates how state authority, commercial mediation, and desert infrastructure converged to transform localized enslavement into systematic trans-Saharan labor traffic supplying North Africa and the Middle East.

During the reign of the Banu Midrar (140–366 AH / 757–976 CE), the city of Sijilmasa witnessed significant economic development in various aspects, particularly in trade. This study focuses on the role played by the Banu Midrar in revitalizing commercial caravan routes and organizing trade networks during their rule. It also highlights their efforts to establish extensive trade relations with the Eastern Islamic world, North Africa, al-Andalus, and Sub-Saharan Africa, with gold being one of the most prominent commodities exchanged. The researcher adopted an analytical inductive approach to examine historical events and facts and to understand the motivations behind the imposition of taxes and customs on land and maritime trade by the Banu Midrar, which contributed to elevating Sijilmasa’s global commercial status during the 2nd to 4th centuries AH (8th to 10th centuries CE). Additionally, the researcher employed the descriptive method to trace and analyze historical developments, while also incorporating other scientific methodologies where necessary. This approach led to findings that underscore the pivotal role of the Banu Midrar Emirate in the flourishing of trade in Sijilmasa.

انتشر الإسلام في ربوع بلاد السودان الغربي في وقت مبكر، ويعود الفضل في ذلك لمختلف التجار الدعاة الذين استطاعوا بمعاملاتهم التجارية وأخلاقهم الإسلامية السامية أن يؤثروا في عامة شعوب جنوب الصحراء وخاصتهم، وكان التجار الإباضيون من بين أولئك الذين أسلمت على أيديهم جحافل كبيرة من ساكنة المنطقة. فالتجارة الإباضية موغلة في القدم مع تلك الربوع، وقد تحدثت عنها كتب التاريخ فضلا عن كتب الرحلات والجغرافية، وانفردت بذكر أسمائهم المصادر التاريخية الإباضية التي تم تأليفها خلال الفترة الوسيطة مثل: سير الورجلاني وطبقات الدرجيني وسير الشماخي. بتتبّعنا وفق مسار كرونولوجي لقائمة أولئك التجار؛ وجدنا بأن التجارة والتجار الاباضيون كانوا في وتيرة متباينة عبر القرون، وأن التجارة الإباضية كانت ذات أبعاد دينية واجتماعية وسياسية فضلا عن البعد الاقتصادي الرئيس، وأن الأشخاص الذين تداولت أسماؤهم مختلف كتب السير والطبقات لم يكونوا ذوو مستوى عال من العلم، أو مناصب عليا في بلدانهم، لكن أمانتهم ونزاهتهم في معاملاتهم التجارية جعلت سكان مناطق بلاد السودان وممالكها تعتنق الإسلام أفواجا. Islam spread throughout Western Sudan at an early date, who, through their commercial dealings and their lofty Islamic morals, were able to influence the generality of the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa and their own. The Ibadi merchants were among those through whom large hordes of the region’s inhabitants converted to Islam. Ibadi trade with those regions is very ancient, and the Ibadi historical sources that were written during the intermediate period are the only ones mentioned by their names, such as: The Biography of Tabaqat Al-Darjini,. By following a chronological path to the list of these merchants; We found that Ibadi merchants were at a different pace over the centuries, and that had religious, social, and political dimensions in addition to the main economic dimension, However, their honesty and integrity in their commercial dealings made the inhabitants of Sudan’s regions and kingdoms embrace Islam in droves.

Land and Trade in Early Islam discusses the latest developments in the field of early Islamic economic and social history, and explores the notion of polycentrism and the dialectic between global and local between 700 and 1050 CE. The volume explores the political mechanisms and the role of Islamic states in regulating and developing demand in the economy. The chapters question the binary of core/periphery, and demonstrate how the growing scholarship on the liminal regions of the Caliphate has transformed our understanding of the early Islamic world by offering a more nuanced picture of its regional urban and socio-economic dynamics. Changes in the peripheries of the early medieval Caliphate have traditionally been conceived as resulting from initiatives by the core. An increased focus on the comparatively under-explored regions in central Asia, north Africa, south-east Asia and the Caucasus has thrown this into question. Land and Trade in Early Islam draws on this growing body of scholarship to question the notion of peripherality, explore lines of economic influence and interdependence, and to better understand the regional economic, social and political dynamics of this period.

L’historiographie a maintes fois souligné le rôle pionnier des populations berbères affiliées à la doctrine dissidente de l’ibadisme dans le développement du commerce transsaharien, en particulier la traite des esclaves. Cette branche de l’islam serait en effet une parfaite illustration de « l’ascétisme intramondain » mis en avant par Max Weber dans son analyse des relations entre religion et économie. Nous reviendrons ici sur la place de cette minorité dans l’évolution des économies sahélo-méditerranéennes, sur ses modes d’interaction sociale, sur ses pratiques et représentations économiques

تحاول هذه الدراسة تسليط الضوء على أحد أهم المكونات الاجتماعية لبلاد المغرب الأوسط خلال العصر الوسيط، وهي -الجماعة الإباضية- والتي لعبت دورا كبيرا في الحياة السياسية والعلمية والمذهبية، غير أن أكبر أدوارها تجلت في الحياة الاقتصادية، حيث تحول مجالها والحواضر التابعة لها إلى أسواق ومراكز استقطاب اقتصادي كبير، وأصبح تجارها يلعبون دور الوساطة في التجارة العالمية عموما والمغربية على وجه الخصوص، وهذا باحترافيتهم وتحكمهم في تجارة بلاد السودان، وهذا الدور لهذه الجماعة هو موضوع دراستنا. Abstract: This study focuses on one of the most important social components of the countries of the Maghreb during the medieval period, which is the Ibadi community, which played a major role in political, scientific and sectarian life, but the biggest roles manifested in in economic life, as its field and its metropolitan areas turned into markets and centers of major economic polarization, and its merchants have become playing the mediating role in global trade in general and middle Maghreb in particular, and this is with their professionalism and control over the trade of western Sudan, and this role for this group is the subject of our study