Abstract

This study “ The Public And their Economic Activity In The Western Sudan Up To The End Of The Tenth Century of Hegira” includes a comprehensive study of the successive empires and states that had much influence over West of Africa in general and in Western Sudan in particular. These countries had much influence over the life of these lands including Ghana, Mali and Sungway. Mali could be considered as the first series of the nationalist history of West Africa.

This could be attributed to the fact that Mali stately regime was established in the Western Sudan that had high civilizational level more than any other parts of the African vicinity, and this level remained until the Seventh Century of Hegira/ the Thirteenth Century A.D. Mali so extended that it contained the territories from the Niger River to the coast of the Atlantic Ocean in the north and west of it at the edge of the Western Sahara.

After the disintegration of the state in 460. H./ 1076 A.D. there was a political vacuum resulted in the separation of some subject countries from Ghana which became independent entities later on. In addition, the Mango tribe that were inhabiting in Ckanjab territory could build a state at Mali covering huge provinces that extended to the boundaries of Maghreb in the north, the Atlantic Ocean in the west and the Barno Land in the east under the leadership of Sindyata Kita. By the time, Mali, like any other state, declined rapidly in view of many overwhelming factors. Consequently, another power, Sungway could rule Western Sudan through the Ninth and the Tenth Centuries of Hegira/ the Fifteenth and the Sixteenth Centuries A. D instead. It was more strong than the previous two states. So, new social classes dominated the society therein. Each scale individuals had some customs and rituals, and all of them constituted a great social hierarchy.

The top of its components were the ruling dynasty and the feudalist princes. Then the clergy and the working class in respective. The last lower estate of Sungway was the slaves who were the most subjected and overwhelmed community in the country. But, the working class represented the bourgeois of the time which contained the merchants, smiths, builders, brokers, tailors, weavers, pharmacist, cultivators, porters and other craftsmen who all played a major role in the economy of West Sudan in spite the fact that they had little shares in the land property. This ownership was had by only the governors and the senates. Furthermore, most of the men who were working in the farming were so suffering from drought that they were obliged to find out other sources of living as trade or other jobs that require high level of bodily effort. Besides, they were the main part of the society who were responsible for the defense acts at the war times.