41 - Introduction:

Summary

Islam arrived in Africa soon after its establishment in seventh-century Arabia. For more than a thousand years, it has been slowly expanding, bringing with it Islamic law and Arabic literacy. Consequently, there is a rich variety of sources in Arabic or in African languages written in Arabic script. Some of these sources have long been used by historians of Africa, for example, the writings of Arabic travelers and geographers, and chronicles collected by explorers and colonial officials. Muslim scholars and state-builders also left large numbers of documents. There is a lot of Arabic documentation in colonial archives, such as legal judgments of Muslim judges and correspondence between European and Muslim authorities. According to the 1897 Zanzibar Abolition of Slavery decree, masters no longer had rights to the possessions of slaves, but some continued to claim such rights.