The Negroland of the Arabs Examined and Explained

What it is

This is a book written by William Desborough Cooley and published in London in 1841. It brings together and examines early Arab writings on the history and geography of Central Africa, drawing especially on the medieval writers Ibn Khaldún and Ibn Baṭúṭah.

Why it matters

Cooley's book shows how European scholars in the 1800s tried to piece together the history of West Africa using old Arabic sources. It includes accounts of Mansa Musa's famous pilgrimage to Mecca, which was one of the main ways Europeans later learned about him and the wealth of the Mali Empire. The book is a secondary source: it was written centuries after Musa's lifetime, based on earlier primary accounts.

Look closer

• Why did Cooley rely on Arab writers rather than African ones to tell this history?
• What does it tell us that a 19th-century British scholar was interested in medieval Mali?
• How might using only translated, secondhand sources change the story that gets told?