Overview

Al-Bakri was a Muslim geographer who was born in 1040. He wrote several books from which these excerpts are drawn. Although Al-Bakri never traveled to Ghana, he conducted research by interviewing merchants who had been there as well as consulting the works of other Muslim geographers.

In about 1067, the kingdom of Ghana was conquered by a Muslim group known as the Almoravids. After the leader of the Almoravids died in 1087, the Soninke attempted to restore Ghana's glory. But other groups had broken Ghana's monopoly in the gold trade by establishing new trade routes across the Sahara. Ghana still existed in a weakened condition until around 1200, when the great empire of Mali supplanted it.

But Ghana's greatness was never forgotten. When the British colony Gold Coast gained its independence in 1957, the new nation's leaders named it Ghana as a link to a glorious African past. The modern country of Ghana lies hundreds of miles from its ancient namesake, however.