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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.

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

Studies of trans-Saharan trade have recently been revitalized, mainly through an exploration of local archives. These archives offer a further possibility: to investigate the link between local settlement and wider patterns of exchange. Material from southern Algeria and northern Mali suggests that oases were not viable without outside investment, that pastoral economies needed storage space and agricultural produce, and that intra-Saharan and trans-Saharan trade relied on each other. Hence, regional mobility and outside connections were not subsidiary but constitutive of the local, and local patterns of production and trans-Saharan commerce were aspects of the same system.

This paper puts under scrutiny the alleged link between the Trans-Saharian Arabo-Berber trade and the development of complex polities such as the Ghana empire in the West African Sahel. When did Ghana come into existence? As evidence is lacking, the city of Djenne (Jenne) could provide some clues. Meanwhile, the peculiar urbanism of Djenne-Djeno (old Jenne) can be understood as depicting alternative, auto-organizing social relations in the Inland Niger Delta. Furthermore, during the first millennium before and the first millennium after common era, the distinctive «urban cluster» pattern of Djenne-Djeno or Dia in the Macina can be found elsewhere along the Niger Bend and as far downstream as Bentia-Kukiya. Climatic changes affecting the Sahara presumably induced a common Soninke origin for Djenne-Djeno and for the Ghana polity, in both cases via the Neolithic culture of Tichitt. Based on this and on the Wagadu myth of the snake and the rain-maker, some features of Ghana can be underlined. Specifically, the level of economical interactions clearly shows that internal West African networks dealing with copper, salt, stones and staples predated the Trans-Saharian links with the Islamic world, leading to the conclusion that the so-called Arabic stimulus explanation can be dismissed. Finally, the articulation between the two towns of Djenne is addressed.

Trade of the Ibaḍīs of the Jabal Nafūsa with Kawar p. 34-36.