Chapter Thesis:
The Abbasid age was a time of remarkable achievements in architecture and fine arts, in literature and philosophy, and in mathematics and sciences.
Section Thesis: African Societies: Diversity and Similarities
Africa is so vast and its societies so diverse that it is almost impossible to generalize about them; differences in geography, language, religion, and politics contributed to africa lack of political unity over long periods of time.
Sub Section Thesis: Societies With and Without States
Some African societies had rulers who exercised control through a hierarchy of officials in what can be called states, but others were stateless societies organized around kinship; stateless societies were larger and lacked concentration of political power.
Sub Section thesis: Common Elements in African Societies
Religion, economics, and history were closely intertwined in Africa.
Sub section: The Arrival of Islam in North Africa
Between 640 and 700 CE, the followers of Muhammad swept across north Africa from Suez to Morocco's Atlantic shore, by 670 CE, the Muslims ruled Ifriqiya; with the arrival of Islam in Africa, ties in Africa became closer.
Sub Section Thesis: The Christian Kingdoms: Nubia and Ethiopia
Islam was not the first universalistic religion to take root in africa, and the wave of Arab conquests across northern Africa had left behind its islands of christianity; Christian converts had been made in Egypt and Ethiopia even before the conversion of the Roman empire.
Section Thesis: Kingdom of the grasslands
As the Islamic wave spread across north Africa, it sent ripples across the Sahara, not in the form of invading armies but at first in the merchants and travelers who told the dusty and ancient caravan.
Sub Section Thesis: Sudanic States
The Sudanic states often had a patriarch or council of elders of a particular family or group of lineages as leaders.
Sub Section Thesis: the Empire of Mali and Sundiata
The empire of Mali was the creation of the Malinke peoples, who in the 13th century took control of Ghana, which was by then in decline; the beginning of Malinke expansion is attributed to Sundiata, a leader whose exploits were celebrated in great oral tradition.
Sub Section Thesis: City Dwellers and Villagers
The cities of the western Sudan began to resemble those of north Africa; the towns were commercial and often included craft specialists and a resident foreign merchant community.
Sub Section Thesis: The Songhay Kingdom
As the power of Mali began to wane, a successor rate was beginning to emerge, the people of Songhay dominated the middle areas of the Niger valley; their leader Sunni Ali was a ruthless leader.
Sub Section Thesis: Political and Social life in the sudanic States
In all the Sudanic states, Islam was fused with the existing traditions and beliefs, the fusion of traditions can clearly be seen in the position of women because of matrilineal societies.
Section Thesis: The
