Nikolay Dobronravin Research Laboratory for Analysis and Modeling of Social Processes.

Political Islam / Islamism: Theory and Practice in Comparative and Historical Perspective, St Petersburg State University

Islamic African Cartography: From Pre-Colonial Itineraries to Early Colonial Mapmaking

In this paper the interaction between Islamic African and European cartography is discussed. Pre-colonial and colonial examples of Hausa mapmaking are studied in detail. In Western and Central Sudanic Africa, itineraries were compiled by local long-distance traders and Islamic scholars. These itineraries, produced in Arabic or in African languages such as Hausa, often gave a rather accurate picture of the towns and countries to follow during the pilgrimage or a merchant trip. However, it is not clear whether the authors of such texts saw the need for making maps of the itineraries they wrote about. There are few known examples of African mapmaking before the colonization, most of them created upon request from the Europeans who were drawing new maps of the continent. One of the most cited cases is the map of Sultan Muhammadu Bello drawn for Hugh Clapperton in Sokoto in 1824. A few more maps were also produced for Clapperton, but they were left unpublished until 2005. These newly-discovered documents include three itinerary maps and a map described by Clapperton as the Plan of the Territory of Houssa by Malam Mousa a Faghee of the Felatah Nation, probably a version of Sultan Bellos map. All these maps show a similar cartographic representation of towns and routes. A few rarer designs of signs need more explanation; at least some influence of European cartography cannot be excluded. One more map similar to those produced for Clapperton was drawn in colonial Northern Nigeria in 1913. This district map kept at the Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House, University of Oxford, has never been published. Comparing it with the early 19th-century maps it is possible to see growing European influence. The author marked the boundaries between the districts of the new British protectorate in a way that was consistent with the European view of administrative land division. At the same time he oscillated between writing the geographical names of adjacent districts and naming them after the respective titleholders. The European method of drawing continuous border lines that separate sovereign states as well as sub-national administrative units is now dominating in Africa, even in the regions where such borders are largely imaginary. On the contrary, the idea of marking territories after their rulers has become obsolete.