African Arts

Here are some useful resources on African Arts, Art History and Culture:

1. Africaresource.com is an excellent resource on African arts and culture, both contemporary and historical.  Also known as the Africa House it is located in Endicott, New York.  Founded and directed by Nkiru Nzegwu, an accomplished and well-known painter and artist, and Chair and Professor of Africana Studies at Binghamton University, State University of New York, the Africa House occupies a multi-storied, architecturally designed gallery and art and media studio gallery with residences for visiting artists.  Its managing director Azuka Nzegwu, Ph.D., has developed an interactive website that links one to many events, art journals and other media related to African culture and the arts.
2. Arts Council of the African Studies Association.  The leading scholarly association for North American scholars of African arts.  This provides excellent resources and support for scholars and undergraduate and graduate students to present papers and attend periodic conferences.
3. Art History Resources on the Web:  African Art.  The index page link is found here. 

Islamic Culture and the Arts in Africa 900-1500 C.E.

The diffusion of Islam into Africa occurred through several separate phases of development.  The initial spread of Islam into Egypt and across North Africa occurred between the late 7th century and early 8th century.  Egypt was conquered and converted to Islam between 639 and 642.  Fustat or Cairo fell to Muslim pressure by about 641.  Muslim armies and merchant based missionaries migrated swiftly across North Africa and captured or gained support for Islam across the entirety of North Africa between 685 to 715.

The spread of Islam across the Sahara to the Sahel, the West African states and to East Africa developed through merchant contacts and long-distance caravan routes of traders with the Arab Muslim cities of northern Africa.  By the 11th century the Senegalese coastal region had converted to Islam as had large areas of the Sahel across to the Sudan.  By the late 13th and 14th centuries large well established cities in the Sahel and Mali had large Muslim institutions.  The building of large prominent mosques at Timbuktu and other cities in Mali reflect this development.  These cities flourished as West African cities and kingdoms flourished from the prosperous trade in gold, salt, and various metal wares produced by the region.  It also marks the rise of an overland slave trade to northern markets.  

Among the most prominent of mosques was the Great Mosque of Timbuktu, also known as Djingarey Ber Mosque and originally built in 1327.  This mosque is an example of the Sudano-Sahelian style of building, that is credited to the influence of the Malian king Mansa Musa (r. 1312–37) who upon a return from a pilgrimage to Mecca retained and brought back the architect al-Sahili.


Recommended:  Ralph Austen, Trans-Saharan in World History (Cambridge, 2010)

For reports and documents on the history and preservation  of this mosque see,http://archnet.org/library/sites/one-site.jsp?site_id=4385


Internet Sources:  
On the Mali and Songay empires http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/resources/mali/index.htm


Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. "Trade and the Spread of Islam in Africa". InHeilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–.http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/tsis/hd_tsis.htm (October 2001) 


On the gold trade see Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. "The Trans-Saharan Gold Trade (7th–14th century)". InHeilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–.http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/gold/hd_gold.htm (October 2000)

Map 10.2 Africa in 1300 (from Tignor et al. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart