Medieval African Empires

Medieval Africa is best known as the period in which African empires thrived throughout the continent and world. These self-sufficient African empires flourished before European and Arabian domination over the continent that still exists today. This is an essential truth to recognize because Africans were in control of their own continent’s wealth. However, in the present day many Africans are unaware of their rich history due to physical, mental, and social conditioning by European and Arabic powers, so that they can exploit Africa’s resources. Most of the wealth taken from Africa is not retained in the continent, but instead benefits many other places in the world. This capitalization on Africa’s natural resources leaves the continent, and …show more content…
This exchange, trade, is extremely because it shaped Africa as well as other areas worldwide. Trade, brought an influx of goods, ideas, religion, and culture, in and out of ancient African empires. Trade was a way for these African civilizations to export luxury goods that they had an abundance of, and import resources that they lacked in that region. Therefore, due to trade these ancient African empires had commercial cities, areas designated for economic activity. In turn, this created an atmosphere that supported a variety of travelers from Europe, Asia, other areas of Africa and many other areas, to profit from ancient African empires (Whipps). Also, gold from these empires was used as the standard currency for international trade, which contributed to the economic developments of the ancient African Empires (Diop, …show more content…
Once Arabs began coming to Ghana due to trade, they began to practice their religion while in Ghana. This is beneficial to our understanding of how trade between Arabs influenced the empire of Ghana, not only by goods but also religion. “Twelve mosques were eventually built in the city of Ghana, although the king himself and his court remained pagan” (Goodwin). This example of how many mosques were built during the Ghanaian empire illustrates how prevalent Islam was. Since the native people had a spiritual faith, it means the mosques were built to satisfy the influx of Arab