Africa from the 7th-11th Century
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700-800
Islam sweeps across North Africa; Islamic faith eventually extends into many areas of sub-Saharan African (to ca. 1500)
711
Tariq crosses to Spain.
713
Abd al-Azziz reaches Tagus.
732
Charles Martel turns back Arabs at battle of Poitiers.
740
Islamicized Africans (Moors) invade Spain, and rule it unti1 1492. The Moors brought agriculture, engineering, mining, industry, manufacturing, architecture, and scholarship, developing Spain into the center for culture and learning throughout Europe for almost 800 years until the fall of Granada in 1492.
756
Caliphate of Cordoba.
800 (to 1100)
Growth of trans-Sahara gold trade across the sahel ("sahel" is Arabic for "shore" or "coast") at southern boundary of the Sahara Desert, which was likened to a sea. The desert was not an impossible barrier; many trade routes cross it from early times. The sahel was the intensive point of contact and trade between sub-Saharan Africa (Africa south of the Sahara Desert), and North Africa and the world beyond, along with contact and trade along Atlantic and Indian Ocean seacoasts.
ca. 800
In western Africa a number of black kingdoms emerge whose economic base lay in their control of trans-Saharan trade routes. Gold, kola nuts, and slaves were sent north in exchange for cloth, utensils, and salt. This trade enabled the rise of the great empires—Ghana, Mali, and Songhai--of the savanna ("savanna" refers to a treeless or sparsely forested plain.)
ca. 800
Some early trading towns, such as Kumbi, Audaghost and Gao, probably in existence.
ca. 800
Bantu-speaking chiefdoms in the Katanga are producing and trading in copper. Spread of Bantu speaking peoples southward of the Limpopo: origins in South Africa of seSotho and seZulu speaking polities.
ca. 800
Swahili coastal culture in formative period.
ca. 800
Rise of early state of Kanem-Bornu.
ca. 800
Origins of Yoruba and Hausa states in western and northern Nigeria.
ca. 800
First Muslim settlements on East Coast, probably beginning with Lamu archipelago off north Kenya seaboard.
ca. 800
Egypt under Abbasids.
ca. 800
Nubia divided into three Christian kngdoms, soon reduced to two (after conversion in sxth century)..
ca. 800
Axum in decline, facing Muslim and Persian competition in Red Sea and western Indian Ocean.
ca. 900
Further development of early Iron Age cultures in central grassland regions, from Katanga southwards.
ca. 917
Al-Masudi visity parts of East Coast and (943) describes having heard of a strong African kingdom somewhere there. Gold and ivory trade already well established with Indian Ocean partners of coastal inland peoples.
ca. 969
Fatimid rule established in Egypt. Major westward shift of maritime trade routes from Persian Gulf.
Intermediate Period (between Early and Mature Iron Age) ca. 1000 - 1300
ca. 1000
Ghana Empire of Soninke peoples (in what is now SE Mauritania) at height of power. The earliest of the 3 great West African states Ghana equipped its armies with iron weapons and became master of the trade in salt and gold, controlling routes extending from present-day Morocco in the north, Lake Chad and Nubia/Egypt in the eat, and the coastal forests of western Africa in the south. By the early 11th century, Muslim advisers were at the court of Ghana. Al-Bakri (1067) describes wealth and organisation of kingship from good second-hand sources.
ca. 1000
Gao under Dia Dynasty (Songhay). They accept Islam as a state religion (ca. 1020).
ca. 1000
Saifuwa Dynasty in Kanem expand their power and accept Islam as state religion.
ca. 1000
Origins of Zimbabwe culture in central grasslands. Beginnings of building in stone.
ca. 1000
Symbiotic Arab/Swahili culture continues to develop along Somali, Kenyan and Tanzanian seaboards.
ca. 1000
Bantu-speaking cultures well-established south of Limpopo.
1031
End of Caliphate in Maghreb, followed by many succesor kingships.
1061
Almoravid Dybasty in Maghreb, unity largely restored.
1076
Berber army from Morocco led by militant religious reformers called Almoravids attacked Ghana, and led it into a period of internal conflicts and disorganization. By 1087 the Almoravids lost control of the empire to the Soninkes, but the empire disintegrated into several smaller states, including Kangaba out of which the empire of Mali arose.