Recommended listening: Imzad du Tassili N'Ajjer
Story
"From Ghana to Tadmekka is a distance of 50 days' journey on the high road. From Bughrat you go to Tiraqqa and from there across the desert plain to Tadmekka, which of all the towns in the world is the one that resembles Mecca the most ... It is a large town amidst mountains and ravines and is better built than Ghana or Kawkaw. The inhabitants ... wear clothes of cotton, nuli, and other robes dyed red ... Their women are of perfect beauty, unequalled among people of any other country, but adultery is allowed among them. They fall upon any merchant disputing as to which of them shall take him to her house."
The 11th century Andalusian writer al-Bakrī wrote this passage about the city of Tadmekka in Mali. He himself had never been to Africa - he had never even left Spain. He was a geographer who wrote by compiling the works of earlier authors, many of which only survive in his quotations. He also spoke with travellers to inform his accounts, including informants who came from North Africa. This is why, in spite of the fact that he had never seen the places he wrote about, his Book of Highways and Kingdoms is considered the most important written authority we have on early medieval West Africa. His passage on Tadmekka is thought to rely mostly on the account of the 10th century scholar Muhammad ibn Yūsuf al-Warrāq, an Andalusian geographer who spent time living in Tunisia. Al-Warrāq had roots in the Berber peoples of North Africa, giving him more insights than the average Muslim scholar on the history of that area, but even he had never visited many of the cities he wrote about, including Tadmekka.
What then are we to make of al-Bakrī's claims about the women of the city? Beautiful women who are eager to sleep with foreign merchants is an attractive fantasy to a man from the northern edges of the Muslim world. Many of al-Bakrī's references to women in the Book of Highways and Kingdoms are eroticized and exoticized. Male travel narratives have long sexualized women deemed "other" to their authors and intended readers. On the other hand, al-Bakrī's account did not exist in a vacuum. Tadmekka was part of an area in West Africa that had become Islamicized relatively recently. The local nomadic Tuareg people had converted to the Ibadi sect of Islam. This sect, while popular in West Africa, was a minority in most parts of the Islamic world. During the course of the 11th century, West African Muslims became the targets of the Almoravid fundamentalist movement. The Almoravids saw the Ibadi as lax Muslims whose erroneous practices needed to be violently corrected. West African city-states where Islamic and Indigenous practices had been coexisting in relative harmony drew the ire of the Almoravids. Tadmekka was one of these places. Al-Bakrī wrote his text shortly before the Almoravid conquest of Tadmekka, leading scholars to speculate that the city had a wider reputation amongst the Almoravids as a place where women had more sexual liberties than fundamentalists could tolerate.
We are left with the impression that Tadmekka was known as a city where married women had more sexual freedom than their female counterparts did across the Dar al-Islam. Yet these are the beliefs of outsiders, eager to project their own fantasies and ideologies about women's sexual behaviour onto women they'd never met. No texts survive representing the perspectives of the women of Tadmekka themselves. What else might we do to recover the truths that lie beneath these medieval stereotypes?
Archaeology is one tool at our disposal. Tadmekka, also known as Essouk, was the subject of major excavations in the early 21st century. It was the first time that this abandoned desert metropolis had ever been studied in depth. Historical sources tell us that the city was a major stop on the caravan route between Kawkaw (capital of Gao) and Ouargla in Algeria. Bordered on either side by mountains, access to the city was provided by a few winding mountain passageways that led into the valley. At the eastern pass through the mountains, stone inscriptions carved high into the rock notified travellers that they were entering sacred Muslim space. They read:
"There is no God but God. 40 times
Muhammad is His Messenger. 20 times
And this was written by Ahmad son of Sa'īd.
And there will remain to this place
A market in conformity to Mecca
And the Book will remain."
This early 11th century carving invited travellers to pause before they entered the city and recite sacred mantras. An entire caravan might have read them aloud together, perhaps even provoking ecstatic experiences of closeness to God. Many other inscriptions decorated the rocks around Tadmekka, but most of those were in Tifinagh, the Tuareg's native script which was especially associated with women. Carved images of men, women, camels and donkeys also gave the landscape its unique human character. The inscriptions in Arabic sought to remake this land as a city in Mecca's image, in direct competition with the nomadic heritage represented by the Tifinagh inscriptions. The name Tadmekka itself means "like Mecca." The city's other name, Essouk, comes from the Arabic al-souq or "market." Together, these two names of the town tell us much about the townsfolks' own identities. These were Ibadi Muslims who saw themselves as devout paragons of their religion, enough to name their home after Islam's holiest city. Even today, the Kel Essouk clan of the Tuareg are known for being Islamic specialists. The medieval people who carved the inscriptions were also very much aware of the crucial role they played in trans-Saharan trade, serving as a meeting point where North and West Africans came together for worship and trade.
The Tuareg people who inhabited Tadmekka were traditionally nomadic. Archaeological evidence shows that the houses in Tadmekka were built around courtyards where family tents could be set up, bringing the urban and nomadic worlds together. Women are the owners of Tuareg tents, building them before marriage and keeping them upon divorce. The Tuareg are traditionally matrilineal and matrilocal, practices at odds with the patrilineal system of Islamic inheritance. Ethnographers have noted that women hold respected positions in traditional Tuareg society. Unique among Islamic peoples, Tuareg men veil their faces while women do not. This seems to have been true in al-Bakrī's time as well, since he describes them as "Muslim Berbers who veil themselves as the Berbers of the desert do." Most Tuareg clans trace their lineage to legendary ancestresses, one of whom - a 7th century queen called Koceila - is even said to be buried in Tadmekka itself. The monumental tomb of the 4th century Tuareg queen Tin Hinan was full of golden and silver jewellery, weapons, coins, and pearls.
Among contemporary Tuareg people, women's extramarital affairs are tacitly tolerated as long as they do not result in an illegitimate pregnancy. Tuareg men traditionally leave the home for months at a time on long-distance caravan trips. Recent years have seen warfare and poverty driving men away for even longer periods. In their highly stratified society, marriages of the nobility were arranged between first cousins whenever possible to maintain strict caste endogamy. Women of the artisan smith class would therefore arrange love affairs on behalf of their noble patrons. Divorce could be initiated by either men or women, though men stood to lose more since women kept the children, the livestock, and the tent. The camels men took on their caravan trips were often owned by their female relatives. To this day, men's long sojourns spent away from the marital tent are a source of tension in Tuareg marriages, and men have been known to divorce their wives when they return on the charge of adultery.
The archaeological traces of medieval Tuareg women in Tadmekka include glass beads, spindle whorls, textile fragments, precious stones, and imported goods for use in the kitchen such as glass vessels or glazed pottery. Their images are carved into the mountains where they pastured their herds of camels. Some of the messages left in Tifinagh script may have been made by their hands, and their names in Arabic dot the 11th century cemeteries that close upon the city from all sides. In a city as diverse as Tadmekka, there must have been a huge variety of attitudes towards adultery among the women there. It does seem believable that extramarital affairs, normally strictly anathema in Islam, were more tolerated in their society. Noblewomen held great economic power and were not especially disadvantaged by divorce. Long-distance traders in the medieval world were known for sometimes leaving their wives behind for years at a time, taking up with local women instead. Some of the women of Tadmekka may have been the abandoned wives, others the local replacements - sometimes even both. In a society with impoverished and enslaved castes, not all women had the same economic opportunities as the noblewomen and may have taken advantage of the opportunity for improved quality of life that amorous merchants offered.
The women in this illustration are noblewomen. Plump and dressed in voluminous robes, they embody the ideals of Tuareg beauty standards. They are decorated in the beautiful jewellery that flaunts their city's status as a trade emporium, featuring imported glass and agate. Their golden accoutrements show off Tadmekka's role as a major goldsmithing centre of West Africa. Like the women in the rock carvings, they sport a variety of hairstyles. As they admire the wares for sale in the market that has set up just outside the city, they are hailed by a handsome merchant selling glass bottles full of fine oils and perfumes. Two appear interested in responding to the man, perhaps planning to trade witticisms in the customary style of Tuareg flirting. Their companion, on the other hand, is disgruntled by the sight of her two married friends giggling at the entreaties of a suitor. But even the two women who are flattered at the man's attention may not act on their desires. The outcome of this interaction is unknown, lost in the swirl of old stereotypes and lost centuries that separate us from those women today.
The 11th century Andalusian writer al-Bakrī wrote this passage about the city of Tadmekka in Mali. He himself had never been to Africa - he had never even left Spain. He was a geographer who wrote by compiling the works of earlier authors, many of which only survive in his quotations. He also spoke with travellers to inform his accounts, including informants who came from North Africa. This is why, in spite of the fact that he had never seen the places he wrote about, his Book of Highways and Kingdoms is considered the most important written authority we have on early medieval West Africa. His passage on Tadmekka is thought to rely mostly on the account of the 10th century scholar Muhammad ibn Yūsuf al-Warrāq, an Andalusian geographer who spent time living in Tunisia. Al-Warrāq had roots in the Berber peoples of North Africa, giving him more insights than the average Muslim scholar on the history of that area, but even he had never visited many of the cities he wrote about, including Tadmekka.
What then are we to make of al-Bakrī's claims about the women of the city? Beautiful women who are eager to sleep with foreign merchants is an attractive fantasy to a man from the northern edges of the Muslim world. Many of al-Bakrī's references to women in the Book of Highways and Kingdoms are eroticized and exoticized. Male travel narratives have long sexualized women deemed "other" to their authors and intended readers. On the other hand, al-Bakrī's account did not exist in a vacuum. Tadmekka was part of an area in West Africa that had become Islamicized relatively recently. The local nomadic Tuareg people had converted to the Ibadi sect of Islam. This sect, while popular in West Africa, was a minority in most parts of the Islamic world. During the course of the 11th century, West African Muslims became the targets of the Almoravid fundamentalist movement. The Almoravids saw the Ibadi as lax Muslims whose erroneous practices needed to be violently corrected. West African city-states where Islamic and Indigenous practices had been coexisting in relative harmony drew the ire of the Almoravids. Tadmekka was one of these places. Al-Bakrī wrote his text shortly before the Almoravid conquest of Tadmekka, leading scholars to speculate that the city had a wider reputation amongst the Almoravids as a place where women had more sexual liberties than fundamentalists could tolerate.
We are left with the impression that Tadmekka was known as a city where married women had more sexual freedom than their female counterparts did across the Dar al-Islam. Yet these are the beliefs of outsiders, eager to project their own fantasies and ideologies about women's sexual behaviour onto women they'd never met. No texts survive representing the perspectives of the women of Tadmekka themselves. What else might we do to recover the truths that lie beneath these medieval stereotypes?
Archaeology is one tool at our disposal. Tadmekka, also known as Essouk, was the subject of major excavations in the early 21st century. It was the first time that this abandoned desert metropolis had ever been studied in depth. Historical sources tell us that the city was a major stop on the caravan route between Kawkaw (capital of Gao) and Ouargla in Algeria. Bordered on either side by mountains, access to the city was provided by a few winding mountain passageways that led into the valley. At the eastern pass through the mountains, stone inscriptions carved high into the rock notified travellers that they were entering sacred Muslim space. They read:
"There is no God but God. 40 times
Muhammad is His Messenger. 20 times
And this was written by Ahmad son of Sa'īd.
And there will remain to this place
A market in conformity to Mecca
And the Book will remain."
This early 11th century carving invited travellers to pause before they entered the city and recite sacred mantras. An entire caravan might have read them aloud together, perhaps even provoking ecstatic experiences of closeness to God. Many other inscriptions decorated the rocks around Tadmekka, but most of those were in Tifinagh, the Tuareg's native script which was especially associated with women. Carved images of men, women, camels and donkeys also gave the landscape its unique human character. The inscriptions in Arabic sought to remake this land as a city in Mecca's image, in direct competition with the nomadic heritage represented by the Tifinagh inscriptions. The name Tadmekka itself means "like Mecca." The city's other name, Essouk, comes from the Arabic al-souq or "market." Together, these two names of the town tell us much about the townsfolks' own identities. These were Ibadi Muslims who saw themselves as devout paragons of their religion, enough to name their home after Islam's holiest city. Even today, the Kel Essouk clan of the Tuareg are known for being Islamic specialists. The medieval people who carved the inscriptions were also very much aware of the crucial role they played in trans-Saharan trade, serving as a meeting point where North and West Africans came together for worship and trade.
The Tuareg people who inhabited Tadmekka were traditionally nomadic. Archaeological evidence shows that the houses in Tadmekka were built around courtyards where family tents could be set up, bringing the urban and nomadic worlds together. Women are the owners of Tuareg tents, building them before marriage and keeping them upon divorce. The Tuareg are traditionally matrilineal and matrilocal, practices at odds with the patrilineal system of Islamic inheritance. Ethnographers have noted that women hold respected positions in traditional Tuareg society. Unique among Islamic peoples, Tuareg men veil their faces while women do not. This seems to have been true in al-Bakrī's time as well, since he describes them as "Muslim Berbers who veil themselves as the Berbers of the desert do." Most Tuareg clans trace their lineage to legendary ancestresses, one of whom - a 7th century queen called Koceila - is even said to be buried in Tadmekka itself. The monumental tomb of the 4th century Tuareg queen Tin Hinan was full of golden and silver jewellery, weapons, coins, and pearls.
Among contemporary Tuareg people, women's extramarital affairs are tacitly tolerated as long as they do not result in an illegitimate pregnancy. Tuareg men traditionally leave the home for months at a time on long-distance caravan trips. Recent years have seen warfare and poverty driving men away for even longer periods. In their highly stratified society, marriages of the nobility were arranged between first cousins whenever possible to maintain strict caste endogamy. Women of the artisan smith class would therefore arrange love affairs on behalf of their noble patrons. Divorce could be initiated by either men or women, though men stood to lose more since women kept the children, the livestock, and the tent. The camels men took on their caravan trips were often owned by their female relatives. To this day, men's long sojourns spent away from the marital tent are a source of tension in Tuareg marriages, and men have been known to divorce their wives when they return on the charge of adultery.
The archaeological traces of medieval Tuareg women in Tadmekka include glass beads, spindle whorls, textile fragments, precious stones, and imported goods for use in the kitchen such as glass vessels or glazed pottery. Their images are carved into the mountains where they pastured their herds of camels. Some of the messages left in Tifinagh script may have been made by their hands, and their names in Arabic dot the 11th century cemeteries that close upon the city from all sides. In a city as diverse as Tadmekka, there must have been a huge variety of attitudes towards adultery among the women there. It does seem believable that extramarital affairs, normally strictly anathema in Islam, were more tolerated in their society. Noblewomen held great economic power and were not especially disadvantaged by divorce. Long-distance traders in the medieval world were known for sometimes leaving their wives behind for years at a time, taking up with local women instead. Some of the women of Tadmekka may have been the abandoned wives, others the local replacements - sometimes even both. In a society with impoverished and enslaved castes, not all women had the same economic opportunities as the noblewomen and may have taken advantage of the opportunity for improved quality of life that amorous merchants offered.
The women in this illustration are noblewomen. Plump and dressed in voluminous robes, they embody the ideals of Tuareg beauty standards. They are decorated in the beautiful jewellery that flaunts their city's status as a trade emporium, featuring imported glass and agate. Their golden accoutrements show off Tadmekka's role as a major goldsmithing centre of West Africa. Like the women in the rock carvings, they sport a variety of hairstyles. As they admire the wares for sale in the market that has set up just outside the city, they are hailed by a handsome merchant selling glass bottles full of fine oils and perfumes. Two appear interested in responding to the man, perhaps planning to trade witticisms in the customary style of Tuareg flirting. Their companion, on the other hand, is disgruntled by the sight of her two married friends giggling at the entreaties of a suitor. But even the two women who are flattered at the man's attention may not act on their desires. The outcome of this interaction is unknown, lost in the swirl of old stereotypes and lost centuries that separate us from those women today.
Artist's Comments
I have been working on this one for a long time - it gave me a lot of trouble to draw! Thank you to everyone who helped give me advice on the art aspects, especially Ellie and Sacha. I really like learning about all these African cities that were hugely important to the medieval world but don't get enough attention. Once I read al-Bakrī's description of the women, I was definitely intrigued! I hope you enjoyed learning about medieval Tadmekka as much as I did. ~ January 18, 2024
Resources
Want to learn more about medieval Tadmekka and Tuareg women? Here are some recommended resources.
Essouk-Tadmekka: An Early Islamic Trans-Saharan Market Town ed. Sam Nixon
This book goes into detail about the first major excavations conducted at the site of Tadmekka. Most of what I learned about the city comes from here. The 10th and 11th centuries are very well-represented in the archaeological record. The appendix gives quotations from medieval sources about the city, including all those that mention the women. There are a lot of photographs and maps that are really helpful for visualizing medieval Tadmekka.
"Réflexion sur l'identité des guerriers représentés dans les gravures rupestres de l'Adrar des Iforas et de l'Aïr" by Christian Dupuy
This article shows images of the rock carvings depicting women in this general region of Mali. It was difficult to figure out the hairstyles, since they are pretty different from modern Tuareg women's hairstyles today. It really looks like they went mostly bareheaded except for pointed caps, whereas Tuareg women today usually wear a robe that can cover their hair. I did my best to combine the images in this article with more recent examples of Tuareg clothing and jewellery.
"Within the Tent and at the Crossroads: Travel and Gender Identity among the Tuareg of Niger" by Susan J. Rasmussen
Rasmussen has a whole career's worth of articles about Tuareg women and gender. This one looks at the songs of Tuareg people in the 1990s and how both men and women comment on each other's travel in their music. Other helpful articles by Rasmussen I read while researching this picture include ones on women's clothing, late-life romance, sexuality, and smith women.
"Identité et concitoyenneté: La réélaboration des relations entre hommes et femmes aux marges de la société Kel Adagh (Mali)" by Cristina Figueiredo
This article discusses traditional Tuareg gender roles and how they have been changing in recent decades. One interesting point raised was that the idea of physical virginity is such a recent import to Tuareg society that there is no term in the Tuareg language to describe it. Figueiredo focuses here on the ways that young urban men are divorced from traditional ideas of Tuareg women's roles in society.
"Jewelry, Fashion, and Identity: The Tuareg Example" by Kristyne Loughran
This article has loads of images of Tuareg jewellery in contemporary and traditional styles. I used some of the images here as reference material for the women's jewellery in my illustration. Even though large pieces like the ones in this article don't survive from Tadmekka, I wanted to represent familiar Tuareg styles in my drawing, so this was a useful resource. It's interesting how Loughran talks about gold being seen as a recent, urban-influenced fashion in Tuareg society, while silver is seen as traditional. The tomb of Tin Hinan and the ruins of Tadmekka yield a lot of evidence for gold jewellery among the Late Antique and early medieval Tuareg.
Essouk-Tadmekka: An Early Islamic Trans-Saharan Market Town ed. Sam Nixon
This book goes into detail about the first major excavations conducted at the site of Tadmekka. Most of what I learned about the city comes from here. The 10th and 11th centuries are very well-represented in the archaeological record. The appendix gives quotations from medieval sources about the city, including all those that mention the women. There are a lot of photographs and maps that are really helpful for visualizing medieval Tadmekka.
"Réflexion sur l'identité des guerriers représentés dans les gravures rupestres de l'Adrar des Iforas et de l'Aïr" by Christian Dupuy
This article shows images of the rock carvings depicting women in this general region of Mali. It was difficult to figure out the hairstyles, since they are pretty different from modern Tuareg women's hairstyles today. It really looks like they went mostly bareheaded except for pointed caps, whereas Tuareg women today usually wear a robe that can cover their hair. I did my best to combine the images in this article with more recent examples of Tuareg clothing and jewellery.
"Within the Tent and at the Crossroads: Travel and Gender Identity among the Tuareg of Niger" by Susan J. Rasmussen
Rasmussen has a whole career's worth of articles about Tuareg women and gender. This one looks at the songs of Tuareg people in the 1990s and how both men and women comment on each other's travel in their music. Other helpful articles by Rasmussen I read while researching this picture include ones on women's clothing, late-life romance, sexuality, and smith women.
"Identité et concitoyenneté: La réélaboration des relations entre hommes et femmes aux marges de la société Kel Adagh (Mali)" by Cristina Figueiredo
This article discusses traditional Tuareg gender roles and how they have been changing in recent decades. One interesting point raised was that the idea of physical virginity is such a recent import to Tuareg society that there is no term in the Tuareg language to describe it. Figueiredo focuses here on the ways that young urban men are divorced from traditional ideas of Tuareg women's roles in society.
"Jewelry, Fashion, and Identity: The Tuareg Example" by Kristyne Loughran
This article has loads of images of Tuareg jewellery in contemporary and traditional styles. I used some of the images here as reference material for the women's jewellery in my illustration. Even though large pieces like the ones in this article don't survive from Tadmekka, I wanted to represent familiar Tuareg styles in my drawing, so this was a useful resource. It's interesting how Loughran talks about gold being seen as a recent, urban-influenced fashion in Tuareg society, while silver is seen as traditional. The tomb of Tin Hinan and the ruins of Tadmekka yield a lot of evidence for gold jewellery among the Late Antique and early medieval Tuareg.