The History of Africa Magazine

19/04/2023

Palm produce had dominated, to a great extent, the trade between Europeans and west Africans in the 19th century CE. King Gezo of Dahomey(present day Benin republic) had made conscious efforts in the 19th century CE to substitute the sale of captured and enslaved men and women to the Europeans, for palm oil and other produce of Dahomey. The slave merchants were furious and turned down the trade. This slowed down the economy of Dahomey and led to the almost collapse of Dahomey. Dahomey was eclipsed by the war with its former enemy, Abeokuta(meaning underneath the rock in the Yoruba language) that occurred just before the war with France in 1894. This war ushered in France as Dahomey's colonial overlords.

Image: a palm plantation in Imo state, Nigeria today.

19/04/2023

THE RISE OF THE 'MOHAMMADANS'

The European transatlantic slave trade known to have excelled in cruelty and inhumanity and lasted for over 300 years, starting from the 16th century CE, but it wasn't the first or the one that excelled in inhumanity and barbarism: before it, there was the Arab/Islamic slave trade that lasted for over a thousand years.
The Arabs are not a 'BC peoples, the Arabs are an AD peoples' - Prof. John Henrik Clarke. For anyone who can speak Arabic(an 'AD' language as well) is an Arab. Before the advent of these desert wonderers, there was an ancient(BC) group of people known as the Nabataean. These ones hated slavery for themselves and for others. Strabo, a first century Roman Historian wrote this of the Nabataean; "Nabataean is a country with large population and well supplied with pasturage. They also dwell on islands situated on the coast nearby... And Nabataean, formerly, lived a peaceful life. But later, by way of rafts, went plundering the vessels of people sailing from Egypt. But they paid a penalty, when a fleet went over and sacked their country".
But it wasn't this situation that brought an end to the Nabataean, who later stopped wondering and settled in Petra(modern day Jordan) and Hegira, in NW Arabia, where the ruins of their civilization is still visited by tourists and archaeologists; it was serious of earthquakes on their settlements and the clash of the frankincense trade, which they dominated, that destroyed the Nabataean.
It was among the descendants of the Nabataean in Petra, that Abdullah Abdulmutalib, a merchant himself, gave birth to a son who grew up to became a caravan trader and later, a leader of a band of caravan robbers... whose ideological stance, gave rise to what became Islam in the 8th century CE. He was Muhammad ibn Abdullah (initially, the word Muhammad was a title but became used interchangeably in the 8th and 9th cen. CE, when the Qur'an was written, over 100 years after the said Muhammad was supposed have died). Research by Robert Spencer and Historian and writer, Dan Gibson sheds more light on this historical fact. Muhammad wasn't born in a city called Mecca, for during the 6th century CE, the city of Mecca did not exist. No any ancient map of Arabia had Mecca before the 8th cen. CE. The city came into existence in writing and then in reality, when the concept of Islamism was invented and the Quran written in the 8/9th century CE. Expansionist philosophy gave rise to the spread of the idea. Slavery and the sword became its trademark. It was the expansionist ideology that brought Islamism into north Africa, that influenced African tribal groups like the garamantes, Berbers, Gutali, Tebu, Wolof of the Senegal river, Fulani etc that joined forces with the Arabs and invaded Iberian peninsula in 711 CE... And they did not come bearing flowers, although they later brought great material civilization to the South of Europa that spread out. The Fulani at this time were around Mauritania, Western Sahara and Guinea. They had not spread to Niger, Nigeria and northern Ghana. They were the first islamized group in w. Africa and aided in spreading the ideology through their nomadic travels and traditional 'holy wars'.
Before the 15th cen. CE "not not of the people of the Soudan(west Africa then) were enslaved, most of the slaves brought into north Africa were Europeans, until after the 15th cen. CE when slavery was refocused on Africans." For instance, "Mulai Ismaili of merknes had 25000 European slaves who contributed to the building of his colossal stables."(- The golden age of the moor, Dr Ivan Van Sertima).
Arabs preferred to castrate their male African enslaved persons and preferred more female European slaves. This contributed greatly in altering the native population of N. Africa, beside migration, intermarriage between both Arabs, Europeans and Africans. That was how all black north Africa became mostly white, brown north Africa, known preferably as Mediterraneans by Europeans today, as compared to the population south of the Sahara.

Image: Arabs capture of Caucasian enslaved women.

11/04/2023

THE 'CHURCH' WAS THE DRIVING FORCE OF TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE AS MUCH AS ISLAM WAS AT THE HEART OF ARAB SLAVE TRADE

IN 1455 CE, Pope Nicholas V. wrote a Roman bull(romanus pontifex) declaring that all Moors, Saracens and all non-christian blacks were to be sentenced to perpetual slavery and Charged as heretics during the early stages of the 'Inquisitions'. By 1492 CE, the Moors (African Maghrebs and some Arabs) surrendered their castles in Iberian peninsula with Spain claiming most of the Moorish territories and persons of black-skin became the 'property' of Spain. Some escaped back to Africa.
In 1493 CE, another declaration was made by Pope Alexander VI(inter caetera), known as 'doctrine of discovery' which gave rise to the idea of 'discovery' as a concept in Europe. What followed this was noted by Karl Marx thus; "what was good for the europeans was obtained on the expense of untold suffering by the Africans and American Indians... the discovery of gold in the America, the extra patient enslavement and the entombment of the minds of the aboriginal population... the turning of Africa into a commercial warrant for the hunting of black skins, signaled the rosy dawn of the capitalist production". Little wonder, Rev. Richard Furman, President of the S. Carolina Baptist convention in 1823 CE, stated that, " the right of holding slaves is clearly established in the holy scriptures, both by precepts and by example ". He was a slave owner. "I draw my warrant from the Scripture of the old and new testaments to hold slaves in bo***ge" -Rev. Thomas Witherspoon of the Presbyterian church of Alabama, in a letter to 'the emancipator' in 1839 CE. These 'justifications' were stated by many churchmen and women, drawing from the Judeo-Christian Bible.
The revered book of the Mohammedans, the Qur'an, which was written in the 8th/9th century CE, by those who took over from the Nabataean, also indicated in many verses that slavery was 'just'. But in this case, it was often Stated that the followers of the Islamic ideology were to by loving and gentle among themselves but to "fight them[non-followers of the ideology] and allah will punish him by your hands" (Quran 9:14, 15) and that "allah will strike terror unto the unbelievers(Q. 8:60)... and until they pay gizya(Q. 9:29). 'Gizya' was supposed to be an Islamic tax, targeted at the non-followers of the ideology, even if they are not enslaved but if their lands are taken over by followers of the Islamic ideology. Following several injunctions in the Arabian Quran, the Mohammedans in Iberia had sought to control the situation: "anyone who is known to be from those lands which are known to be lands of Islam should be let go and should be adjudged free. This is the ruling of the jurist of Andalusia "-( Al Umari, 14th cen. Arab historian. But for all else, slavery was allowed.
This was the ugly web that Africa was caught in, in the 7th cen. CE and the 15th cen. CE. And in this way, many Africans became Mohammedans for convenience, especially the Garamantes(an ancient black skinned people with kinky hair), of north Africa, who joined forces with the Islamizing Arabs, whom together went in and took over Iberia in 711CE.
According to Dr. Josef Ben Jochannan, " Africa took-in both the hook, the line and sinker" and that had stretched to this very day. Africans born into this just 'follow the followers', sometimes, even somewhat blindfolded.

Image: a Moor on sale after the beginning of their fall in Spain. The last expelled Moor was in 1492 CE.

10/04/2023

THE FALL OF THE MOORS

On January 2, 1492 CE, the last leader of the Moors in Granada was forced to surrender the key to their last stronghold to Isabella of Castile. This was the fall of the Moors in Europe after the onslaughts that had began in 1485 CE. The Moors had ruled Iberian peninsula for over 700 hundred years.
According to American historian, Will
Durant in the 'The Lessons of history'; "the Mohammedans[as islamized Africans were known then] could list the rulers, artists, poets, scientists who conquered and adorned a substantial portion of the white man's world from Baghdad to Cordova, while western Europe groped in the dark ages"(c. 565 CE - 1095 CE, Will and Ariel Durant).
"It was a great fall indeed"(-Dr Ivan Van Sertima) and Africans once again lost the control of trade routes in the Mediterranean. Following the escape of some Africans and Mulattoes back to north Africa and into inner West Africa, unrest started in Morocco, that was to eventually lead to the destruction of the Songhai empire, then under emperor Askia Ishaq, in 1599 CE. This wave of destruction was supported by Elizabeth I of England, who had armed the
Moroccans with the newly invented gunpowder canons and muskets, under the leadership of a Spaniard mercenary known as Judar Pasha. It had taken 1900 Goldsmiths to melt down the gold that Judar and his men brought back to Morocco in 1599 CE, after the plunder of Timbuktu, Djenne and all the cities of the Songhai empire. The Moroccans even removed doors from houses, cut down trees and carted all back to Morocco.
Sankore university( which was about the 3rd ever university in the world, where Europeans also came to study from scholars like Sidi Yiya and Ahmed Baba, was destroyed. Ahmed Baba, head of the university was chained back to Morocco. In the library of the university of Fez today, four volumes on different subjects are preserved in the library with the title; Ahmed Baba, that great Moroccan scholar.
The first set of enslaved persons to have been chained to the plantations in the Americas, when European transatlantic slave trade began, came from Spain under the aegis of the Pope and Rev. Bartholomew De las Casas of the Roman Catholic Church. And when Europeans began plundering West Africa, there was no strong united forces to hold them back. The downward trajectory of Africa had just began

Image: The Moors surrender to Spain on January, 2, 1492 CE.

08/04/2023

THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE MOORS.

During the European Dark Ages, between the 7th and 14th century AD, the Moorish Empire in Spain became one of the world's finest civilizations. General Tarik and his Black Moorish army from North-west Africa conquered Spain after a week long battle with King Roderick. Starting in April of 711 AD, the conquest of the whole of the Iberian peninsula took 7 years afterward. The word tariff and the Rock of Gibraltar were named after Jabal Tarikh. They found that Europe, with the assistance of the Catholic Church, had returned almost to complete barbarism and blood letting. The population was 90% illiterate and had lost all of the civilizing principles that were passed on by the ancient Greeks and Romans.
The Moors reintroduced mathematics, medicine, agriculture, and the physical sciences. The clumsy Roman numerals were replaced by hindu-arabic figures including the zero and the decimal point. As Dr. Van Sertima says, "You can't do higher mathematics with Roman numerals." The Moors introduced agriculture to Europe including cotton, rice, sugar cane, dates, ginger, lemons, and strawberries. They also taught Europe how to store grain for up to 100 years and built underground grain silos. They established a world famous silk industry in Spain. The Moorish achievement in hydraulic engineering was outstanding. They constructed an aqueduct, that conveyed water from the mountains to the city through lead pipes, from the mountains to the city. They taught Europe how to mine for minerals on a large scale, including copper, gold, silver, tin, lead, and aluminum. Spain soon became the world center for high quality sword blades and shields. Only Byzantine rivaled Moorish Spain in beauty. Spain was eventually manufacturing up to 12,000 blades and shields per year. Spanish craft and woolen became world famous. The Moorish craftsman also produced world class glass, pottery, vases, mosaics, and jewelry.
The Moors introduced to Europe, paved, lighted streets with raised sidewalks for pedestrians. Education was made compulsory, before then, during Greek and Kemet era, education was only for a specified few. The university of Salamanca was built and taught in by African scholars, Arabs and a few habiru(Hebrew speaking groups). Soap was reintroduced into Europe by the Moors; Europe had stopped bathing long after the fall of Rome in the 5th century CE. This had resulted in several plagues that almost decimated the population of Europe, among other factors like constant bloodletting in the name of religion.

26/03/2023

A brief entry of the Nabataean into Africa, through what is today Sinai(Suez) canal in the 1st century CE

19/03/2023

"AFRICAN NAIVETY BEGAN IN ANCIENT TIMES"
-Prof. John Henrik Clark

'Never make a stranger suffer and whatever else you may do to a stranger, do not kill him... For he knows not the laws by which you live' -Oba Ewuare of the Benin Empire, 1470 CE.
There was always the error among Africans that other peoples around the world share the same values with them. According to Historian, Prof. John Henrik Clark, "the African would feed a stranger before he thinks of the children's meal..." It was cultural. "For if you are humane and another human being comes into your house, you invite him to dinner..." You offer him a meal and rest. This was the cultural predisposition that the Portuguese met in Africa when they arrived in 1485. No one would have known that "the welcomed guest would enslave the man of the house and the woman who cooked the meal".
In 1470, Oba(a royal title, meaning 'king' in the Edo language of present-day Nigeria), Ewuare the great, of the Benin empire that was centered around Bini city, envisioned a day in the future when strangers from across 'the salt waters' would set the empire up in flames. His later successor, Oba Ozoluo(1481-1504CE) knew of the prophecy, but when the Portuguese arrived in 1485 CE, he received them as the welcomed guests of the emperor. He even gave the Portuguese permission to build forts on an island that became known as Fernando Po. It was from here that the Portuguese, first began exploiting the Congo, the bight of Biafra and what is today Equatorial Guinea. Elmina castle, in what is today Central region of Ghana(where over 12 million Africans who walked through the 'gate of no return' ended up as enslaved persons in the Americas) was to come shortly after.
When the Akan groups, revolted against the presence of the unfriendly strangers on their coast, the Portuguese left briefly to return later on, as messengers from a God who created all things. What followed could better be explained with the words of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's first President: "when the Europeans came to our lands, we had the land and they had the bible; 'close your eyes, let's pray'. And we closed our eyes shut. When we opened our eyes, they had the land and we had the bible".
There was also an ancient Masai prophecy that said "when the white one comes, the African shall die". This prophecy was also known by the Garamantes who made up the number of Africans that took over Iberian peninsula in 711 CE. But none was considered by these Africans.

18/03/2023

MICHAEL JOE JACKSON, was a descendant of one of the millions of Africans that were snatched from their communities, cities, chiefdoms, clans and villages to be chained and sold in the Americas by those who mostly became European-Americans. There are so many African-Americans who fall into this class of the "American dream"; such as Booker T. Washington, Denzel Washington, Malcolm X, Whitney Houston, Jesse Jackson, Eddie Murphy, John J. Jackson, Prof. John Henrik Clarke and over 22 million Afro-Americans whose greater great grand parents were enslaved in the Americas in the 16the century CE, by descendants of the ten European barbarian tribes, that about 1000 years before had shattered Rome from within in the 5th century CE.Rome was not conquered from without, it was shattered from within.

This was a tragic era in the history of Africa, leaving Africans crushed to a point that over 24 millions of Africans became enslaved in the Americas. Michael J. Jackson was a descendant of those enslaved Africans: dinka, Wolof, Xhosa, kelenjin, Ibibio, Akan, Yoruba, gbamileke, Igbo, Mossi, Ba'haya and so on.
Michael was born in August of 1958 to a family of Jehovah's witness. He rose in the entertainment industry to become a household name around the world, earning himself the public acclaimed title: The King of pop.
But whatever had gone out of the normal order of things to make this descendant of Afro-Americans, during the course of his glowing rise, to make him want to change his appearance, is a textbook illustration of a psychological struggle with reality. Michael went from being a black boy to a point of looking more like a Caucasian woman before his death in 2009.

Image: NAACP

18/03/2023

18/03/2023

SINGULARITY OF AFRICAN ANCIENT CULTURES

All African cultures had their traditional attires, that signified different elements of their different ways of leading their lives, belief systems, response to environmental conditions, social hierarchy or status in society and so on. The one thing that pointed to African singular origin, from the very beginning, was their food culture, as anthropological research into African ancient cultures indicates. African spices, and ways of eating and preparing food appeared similar or almost the same. Yam, cassava, millet, guinea corn, soya beans, palm oil and a lots of food crops that have their origin in Africa, had similar or slightly varying uses. Alcoholic drinks, food and different sorts of local 'snacks' of different kinds were drank or eaten by all of Africa. The cultural attires differed, although with varying degrees of
similarities.
The Arabs(from the time of the Nabataean, through to the advent of the Mohammedans in the 7th century CE) and the Europeans(from the 15th century CE), were to later influence African modes of dressing that is reflected in most cultures in Africa up to this day. Modern fashion trends in Africa, influenced mostly by European Americans, reshaped, in different ways, African modes of dressing.
The first entry of foreigners from western Asia, into Africa, began at about 3001 BCE and intensified around 1675 BC, when a group of herdsmen known as the 'haribu' or 'habiru'(that were to be later known as Hebrews), as well as the 'shepherd kings'(hyksos), crossed into Africa on land, along the 16 miles land bridge that linked African continent to west Asia, at where we now have the Suez canal. The foreign influence was not substantial at this point, for "the foreigners took away more than they brought in"-(Prof. John Henrik Clark). The influence was more substantial in the 7th century CE and the 15th century CE.

Image: different African sources.

03/03/2023

The complete desertification of this region of Africa happened at about 3100 BCE. Before then, what is now known as the Sahara desert was a vast green land with lakes and a sea about the 'size of France and the United Kingdom' -(Chancellor Williams in the DESTRUCTION OF BLACK CIVILIZATION).

IMAGE:Algerian part of the Sahara desert.

28/02/2023

"...when a thief who had stolen your bed implores you to go to the King's judge for redress, then the king and the judge are the thief's brethren".
-East African adage.

11/02/2023

'DIVIDE AND CONQUER'

The unity of the oppressed often mean doom for the oppressor. "what is good news for the wolf is bad news for the sheep... and what is good news for the sheep is bad news for the wolf" -Malcolm X.

When the first modern Europeans arrived Africa in the 15th century CE, they were obviously surprised at the thriving kingdoms, chiefdoms and empires in Africa. There was no hunger, desolation, lack or plagues. This was indicated by the letters the explorers, captains of ships and later colonial administrators and missionaries that wrote back to their home countries in Europe. These men and women from Europe were writing of the truth of what they found in Africa. The first to have arrived from Europe were the Portuguese who were seeking resources to develop their country, out of the dire conditions of the 'dark ages'. This included Mungo Park and Goldie, during the renaissance era in Western Europe. What happened to Africa after this was a textbook illustration of 'divide and conquer'.

11/02/2023

NAMIBIA, where the desert meets the sea.
This has completely occurred in about 3100 BCE as a result of a natural phenomena known as the 'wobble of the earth' or axial procession.

11/02/2023

Abuja..became Nigeria's capital city in 1991. The city has a reputation of being the fastest growing city in Africa.
Among the cities that were considered as the capital city for that west African country after Lagos was viewed as overpopulated and too congested, was Lokoja; a town of about 150km from Abuja. Lokoja is a confluence town. The town was rejected as a possible capital city because of the warring nature and 'land conscious' disposition of the ancient tribal groups that inhabited the region, known as Igbira and Igala.
The Igala Kingdom, headed by a mysterious and magical monarch, had, in the late 19th century CE, after the Berlin conference of 1884/85, rejected the incoming colonialists; the British.
The monarch, along with another monarch(oba) of Benin(the capital city of the 13th century CE, Benin empire that was destroyed by the British), were the only monarchs in all the regions that made up what became Nigeria in 1914 CE to have rejected the the coming of the British. The other monarchs were bitter and so were the British. They both paid with their lives as the British were ushered in by the rest of the monarchs around the coast and the Niger river area as well as the Sahel.
The monarchs who ushered in the British were rewarded with items such as umbrellas, rum, bicycles(known then as 'iron horse' by the locales), mirrors and horses(which were among the items given to Tor(king) of the Tiv people, Sugar and other junks from Europe. For the European had nothing better to offer except "promises broken at the point of a gun"-(David Diop) and a notion that they were sent by God... Or did they meant the Pope? Some of the monarchs, especially those in the northern regions of the Hausa, Fulani, kanuri and Nupe speaking tribes were promised perpetual rule alongside the British. This promise was reiterated at the country's "independence" in 1960.
The tremendous "victories of the 'white men' was achieved by default on the side of a race, too preoccupied with the immediate present and less with its own future... And a race whose blind trust in the 'white man' surpasses all understanding" -Chancellor Williams.

This myopic view at statecraft has negatively affected the country's ability to manage its human, natural and material resources to this very day. But shouldn't the present generations know better?

05/02/2023

WRESTLING has been part of human societies as early as the advent of organized agriculture in about the 10th millennium BCE. But wrestling first became a sport in Africa, as early as the 4th millennium BC. For a better understanding of the times referred to, this was long before there was a Greece, Rome or any organized state in Europe. European 'Barbarian tribes' like the Magyars, the Umbrians and Oscans, Visigoths, Franks, Lombards, Astrogoths, Saxons, Vandals, Varangians, Goths(which make up Europe today) etc, had not become organized enough to form a state; these were wandering tribes that survived the 'Ice Age' and the plagues that almost decimated Europa.
Some African tribal groups like the Wolof of west Africa, some descendants of Nubians along the Nile, Igbo and Tiv tribal nationalities of west Africa are among the earliest to have been practicing wrestling as a sport. Anthropological researches indicates that, certain names were associated to traditional African wrestling. These names included; 'ijakadi', 'Kokowa', 'waa karen'(especially among the Tiv people), 'jejedi' and several other words that meant wrestling as a sport in several African languages.
Wrestling was used to settle disputes(just as a dual, with death to the vanquished, was used for same, among the Membrano, Sioux, Apache and some other native American tribes before Europeans arrived the Americas in the 15th century CE).
'Champions' in these traditional African wrestling were given traditional titles that earned them a seat at there 'inner circles' of nobilities. In some African tribes, a bride was 'won' as a result of a wrestling match.

The Wolof and Igbo people of west Africa are still practicing the culture of traditional wrestling as a sport.

03/01/2023

AFRICA: THE ROOT OF GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT
"...The very same people we are enslaving and in war with in Haiti and Martinique and Saint Lucia and Tobago are the very descendants of the people who built the Pyramids and we are copying all their works." -Napoleon Bonaparte(in the Ruins of Empires).
"No group can enslave another for centuries without coming up with a notion of superiority... and when the colour and other physical traits of those peoples are quite different, It was inevitable that the prejudice should take a racist form." -Walter Rodney(How Europe Underdeveloped Africa)." The world knew no racialism until western Europe placed it into the consciousness of the world"(-Prof. John Henrik Clarke). This was in the 15th cen. CE, beginning with the papal bull(Romanus pontifex), written by Pope Nicholas V. in 1455 CE. For before western Europe entered into history in the 1st century CE, when Rome conquered the Barbarian tribes of western Europe(Anglo Saxons -Brits today, Goths, Vandals, Lombards -Germanic tribes, Astrogoths-Balkan tribes, Varangians -some Russ and Scandinavians, Franks -French people etc)... Mediterranean civilization of Greece and Rome consisted of Africans and Mediterranean groups such as the Estrucans.
The roots of the Greek enlightenment was in Africa, around the Nile. St Clement of Alexandria once wrote, "if a book of a thousand pages can be written, it won't contain the names of Greeks who came to study in Kemet." These Greeks included Plato, Aristotle and Socrates, who studied in Waset, as named by the indigenous Africans, which was later changed to Thebbe by the Greeks when they invaded and the present Arabs, who took over the land of Kemet from the indigenous people in the 7th cen. CE, called it Luxor. All these Philosophers did not complete their studies before they went back to Athens. It took about 40yrs to complete an education in Ancient Kemet. A learner commenced at Age seven and completed at the age of forty. They came as adults but never got through.
Socrates(Deme Alopece, 470BC-399BC) returned to Athens and was accused of 'impiety and corrupting the young'. After a trial of one day, he was sentenced to death in Athens, because of the mysterious knowledge that he came back with. The known bust of Socrates, housed in the Louvre, was done not during his lifetime, as was also indicated by the curators. It was supposedly meant to depict the philosopher. The image above was the exact statuette of him during his lifetime.

30/12/2022

"AFRICA was doing well on her strides, long before the first European stepped foot on her soil...."
Northern African civilizations and Kingdoms that connected Africa(through a 16-mile land bridge) to the continent across the sea, had seen the invasion of African lands for thousands of years by foreign groups like the Assyrians, Hittites, Greeks, Romans and so on, but for the Soudan(west Africa) and the rest of Africa(upper and lower Aethiopia), it began in the 15th century CE.

Africa had a society where there was no word for a jail, orphanage, a brothel or old people's home... Africa knew none of that, yet, anthropological researches indicates that there was law and order, engendered by culture, traditions, 'social living' and African spirituality; the elements of which later went into the conception of Judaism, Christianity(and Christendom) as well as islamism. "...The society took care of its own" - Prof. John Henrik Clarke.

//Today's Review//: on radio stations on the frequency modulation in East and West Africa.

26/11/2022

"The view of this place still amazes me." Moorish architecture have been modified and maintained for over six hundred years, since the African Moors were sacked out of what became Spain on February 2nd, 1492 CE, as they lost their last stronghold; Granada. This had happened through onslaughts that were engendered by the efforts of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella de Castile.
The Moors( known then in Iberia as Mauri/moros), had marched out of Africa, through the strait of Gibraitar (gabrielle, Jabel Tariq), under the leadership of a warring, islamized African general, known as Tariq... and had taken over the lands of the Visigoths and parts of the lands of the Franks(French people today), in 711 CE.

The question remains this, how come Africa(where the first universities came into existence and where the first group of humans to ever build in stone, existed) and India, China; some of the earliest civilizations, were pulled behind by western Europe, through the simple use of gunpowder that came out of China... and the simple use of a book: the Bible.... While Europe and her cousin, America, an entity built on stolen lands, with the sweat and blood of Africans, had maintained such dominance in modern times, through the Power of Nuclear bombs, jet fighters and 'economic manipulations'. And if Africa was pulled to the ground, as it was the case, how did China, under the same Yoke, shook it's head off o***m and crack, to start building? But why has Africa not pulled herself up, faster, off her own yoke, as did China, which was the initial target of Western Europeans' subjugation, before Cristobal Colonand stumbled on the Americas, while seeking a western ocean route to Asia, in order to get resources to develop Europe, out of the dire conditions of the 'dark ages?' And at the same time, Europe discovered the richness of Africa, and to a good extent, India from Marco Polo's writings.

We shall be taking a brief look at this, from a historical perspective.
Image: Barcelona.