Aḥmad Bābā | |
|---|---|
| Personal life | |
| Born | (1556-10-26)26 October 1556 Araouane, Mali |
| Died | 22 April 1627(1627-04-22) (aged 70) Timbuktu, Mali |
| Main interest(s) | Usul,Mantiq,Tafsir,Fiqh,Race,Slavery |
| Notable work(s) | Nayl al-ibtihāj bi-taṭrīz al-Dībāj (نيل الإبتهاج بتطريز الديباج) |
| Occupation | Teacher,Jurist,Scholar,ArabicGrammarian |
| Religious life | |
| Religion | Islam |
| Denomination | Sunni |
| Jurisprudence | Maliki[1] |
| Muslim leader | |
Influenced by | |
| Arabic name | |
| Personal (Ism) | Aḥmad Bābā أحمد بابا |
| Patronymic (Nasab) | ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Faqīh al-Ḥāj Aḥmad ibn ‘Umar ibn Muḥammad بن الفقيه الحاج أحمد بن عمر بن محمد |
| Teknonymic (Kunya) | Abu al-Abbas بن أحمد |
| Toponymic (Nisba) | al-Takrūrīal-Timbuktī التكروري التنبكتي |
Aḥmad Bābā al-Timbuktī (Arabic:أحمد بابا التمبكتي), full nameAbū al-Abbās Aḥmad ibn Aḥmad ibn Aḥmad ibn Umar ibn Muhammad Aqit al-Takrūrī Al-Massufi al-Timbuktī (1556 – 1627 CE, 963 – 1036 H), was aSanhajaBerber writer, scholar, and political provocateur in the area then known as theWestern Sudan.[2] He was a prolific author and wrote more than 40 books.[3]
Aḥmad Bābā was born on October 26, 1556, inAraouane to the Sanhaja Berber Aqit family.[4][5][6][7] He moved to Timbuktu at an early age where he studied with his father, Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥājj Aḥmad ibn ‘Umar ibn Muḥammad Aqīt,[8] and the scholarMohammed Bagayogo (var. Baghayu'u); there are no other records of his activity until 1594, when he was deported toMorocco over accusations of sedition, after theMoroccan invasion of Songhai where he remained inFez until the death ofAhmad al-Mansur. His successor,Zaydan An-Nasser, allowed all exiles to return to their country.[9] Aḥmad Bābā reached Timbuktu on April 22, 1608.[8]
A fair amount of the work he was noted for was written while he was in Morocco, including the biography ofMuhammad Abd al-Karim al-Maghili, a scholar and jurist responsible for much of the traditional religious law of the area. A biographical note was translated by M.A. Cherbonneau in 1855,[10] and became one of the principal texts for study of the legal history of the Western Sudan.[11] Ahmad Baba's surviving works remain the best sources for the study of al-Maghili and the generation that succeeded him.[12] Ahmad Baba was considered the Mujjadid (reviver of religion) of the century.
The only public library in Timbuktu, theAhmed Baba Institute (which stores over 18,000 manuscripts) is named in his honor.[13][14]
In 1615 Ahmad discussed along with other Muslim scholars on the question of slavery, in order to protect Muslims from being enslaved. He is known to have provided one of the first ideas ofethnicity[clarification needed] within West Africa.[citation needed]
Ahmad Baba made an effort to end racial slavery and criticised the association of Black Africans with slaves, particularly criticising some Muslims adopting the narrative of theCurse of Ham, found in the book of Genesis.[15]
However, Ahmad Baba was not an advocate for ending the slave trade generally. Rather, in writing the Mi'raj al Su'ud ila nayl hukm mujallab al-Sud, he sought only to reform the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade with the goal of preventing Muslims from enslaving other Muslims.
According to William Phillips, al-Timbukti essentially advocated religion-based slavery instead of racial-slavery, with Muslims of any ethnicity being immune from being enslaved.
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In regards to the enslavement of Africans in 1615, Ahmad Bābā discussed the legitimate reasons of how and why one could become a slave. The driving force, mainly being religious and ethnic, were that if one came from a country with a Muslim government, or identified with specific Muslim ethnic groups, then they could not be slaves. He claimed that if a person was an unbeliever or akafara, then that is the sole factor for their enslavement, along with that being “the will of God.”
In the pieceAhmad Bābā and the Ethics of Slavery, he claims that his beliefs fueled the thought that those who identified as Muslim no longer had to be enslaved, but anyone that was an outsider (or nonbeliever) would then be enslaved by Muslims. These were not simply beliefs these were the rules that are given by God Most High, who knows best. Even in the case that the people of the country were believers but their belief was shallow then those people could still be enslaved with no questions asked. According to Ahmad Bābā, it was known that the people ofKumbe were shallow in their beliefs. He goes on to use the analogy that when one country is conquered and contains nonbelievers, then those persons could be enslaved as part of his stance on any other outsider or religion besides Islam.
This is a different kind of thinking in comparison to the works ofWilliam D. Phillips Jr., who wroteThe Middle Ages Series: Slavery in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia. In his piece, the main factor that distinguished a slave from an ordinary person would be their religious differences. This ties into Ahmad Bābā's ideas about enslavement involving everyone except those who practiced Islam. More specifically to his ideas on slavery, Phillips discussed how Christians enslaved Muslims, and Muslims enslaved Christians. However, Ahmad Bābā's hope was to end the enslaving of Muslims entirely and instead have other religious groups be enslaved, as they were considered to be unbelievers of the Muslim faith.
Another contradicting idea, discussed in the articleSlavery in Africa bySuzanne Meirs andIgor Kopytoff, was that enslavement was based on people who are forced out of their homeland into a completely foreign area, tying into Ahmad's beliefs. Meirs and Kopytoff discuss the possibility of being accepted into a community through means of earning their freedom, beinggranted freedom by their owner, orbeing born into freedom. But in Ahmad Bābā's perspective, if one converted to Islam and were once an “unbeliever” before being enslaved, then that individual would still hold that title of being a slave. An unbeliever was classified as anyone who was Christian, Jewish, etc. however Ahmad Bābā states that there are no differences between unbelievers regardless of their different religious beliefs of Christianity, Persian, Jews, etc.
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