2 - The Tārīkh al-fattāsh: A Nineteenth-Century Chronicle

Summary

This chapter presents the reader with the Tārīkh al-fattāsh, an indispensable source for understanding the Middle Niger in the nineteenth century. It first introduces its author, Nūḥ b. al-Ṭāhir, and his writings. Then, it exposes Nuḥ b. al-Ṭāhir’s skillfulness in embedding new pieces of writing into an older chronicle, the seventeenth-century “Chronicle of Ibn al-Mukhtār,” to produce a masterful work in support of his patron, Aḥmad Lobbo. The latter is portrayed as sultan, the authoritative ruler of West Africa and the last of a long line of legitimate rulers modelled on Askiyà Muḥammad, the foremost Askiyà emperor of the Songhay; as the twelfth of the caliphs under whom the Islamic community would thrive, according to a ḥadīth ascribed to the Prophet; and as “renewer” of Islam, who, according to another Prophetic tradition, is sent every one hundred years by God to prevent the Muslim community from going astray.