User:Ely Ould Sneiba/sandbox

Mauritania population: a short hitorical survey  Mauritania population: a short historical survey 

More than a thousand years ago, there were no Arabs or Berbers on this Mauritanian land, and a thousand years before that, there were no Bafours or Soninke and even less likely Fula and Tekrurs. Without a ceiling, history can go from yesterday morning to Adam’s fall.

The Mauritanian people are no exception to the rule; each component of its population comes from a distant horizon at one time or another. Each one is formerly something other than a West African and a Sahel Saharan population. Thus, each ethnic group comes from somewhere. The settlement of the Mauritanian space is in no way singular.

In addition, there is no such thing as pure ethnicity. The composite character of any people or nation is undeniable. If we dig into the genealogy of each Mauritanian, for example, we will find an ethnic hive, a genetic map going in all directions to all continents. It is the natural order of things; people move, meet others, and crossbreed to give a new society with distinct ethnocultural traits.

The ethnic groups in Mauritania are no exception in this respect: the Fula ethnic community  (Halpulars)  are  mostly  non-Fula initially, the Soninke and Wolof are highly mixed, and the Arab Mauritanians logically come from different lineages.

Elsewhere, more than half of the French are not of French descent, and the Americans are primarily of foreign origin. Only Indians are native to their continent. As for the Arab nation, it is a mix par excellence, including Arabs, Kurds, Phoenicians, Persians, Canaanites, Arameans, Berbers, and Blacks.

The last wave: Senegalese Tekrurs
The last tribe to arrive in Mauritania was not the Banî Hassân, as the Black Mauritanian nationalists have repeatedly claimed, but the Tekrurs. The latter emigrated from Senegal in the second half of the 20th century and were more numerous than the Arab tribes who came from Morocco around the 15th century.

First, the Tekrur migratory movement from the left bank of the Senegal River was spontaneous and without ulterior motives. Independent Mauritania had a young civil service to fill, arable land to cultivate, a long maritime coast rich in fish to catch, iron and copper deposits to exploit, and numerous building sites requiring qualified labour. The Senegalese brothers were there and were naturally welcome in their second homeland.

However, later, the demographic weight became a political argument, and the flow increased with the help of the messy national registry office. Thus, many Fûta nationals from the other bank, Senegal, crossed the river to become Mauritanians. Today, they form the bulk of the FLAM leadership, the bulk of their battalions, and their electoral base.

With the biometric census, this migratory movement has more or less faded, but not without generating an uproar caused by the Fula-Tekruri ethno-communitarians. They are members and sympathisers of the ‘Ne touche pas à ma Nationalité’ movement, meaning that immigration from the West African sub-region to post- independence Mauritania is an undeniable reality. One may add to Fula and Tekrurs other ethnic groups such as Bambaras, Soninke, and Wolofs. Each of them inflated the ranks of the natives of his ethnic group, populations that had settled here for ages.

The Tekrurs are, therefore, along with the Fula and other ethnic groups, the inhabitants of Fûta. Historically, ‘they occupy the left bank of the Senegal River between Dagana and Bakel’.4 They form a subset of the Fula ethnocultural confederation but do not share their origins or way of life with the Fula. The Tekrurs refer to themselves as ‘those who speak Fulani’5 without actually being Fula6. They could have come from the Upper Nile, according to Cheikh Anta Diop, who added that they were sedentary and farmers.7

In 1776, these Futankes led the Toronto Revolution, commanded by Thierno Suleiman Bal. This uprising was provoked by the domination of the Arab Mauritanians: Brakna, Trarza, Oulad Nasser and Tashomsha, among other reasons8. Kane Umar explains:

‘While reading archives, the fall of the Denyankobe dynasty resulted obviously from the Arab Mauritanian control of the country's affairs. The internal wars that broke out between the various members of the ruling family got the support of an Arab Mauritanian tribe or faction allied to either side. Whoever won the rivalry, the Arab Mauritanian was always present in the country. The Arab Mauritanian takeover began well before the last quarter of the 18th century. We can take as an example the movement of Nasr El-Din that he led in the last quarter of the 17th century to the effective conquest not only of Fûta Toro but also of Walo and Cayor by the Tashomsha troops’.9

In addition to the Arab Mauritanian interference in the internal affairs of Fûta, there was the onerous ‘Muudo Hormo, or tribute (5 kg of millet per household per year) that the people of Fûta paid to the Arab Mauritanians’.10

After the success of the Tekrurs against the Denyankobe but also against the Arab Mauritanians Oulad Abdallah and Oulad Nasser, Thierno Abdel Kader Kane will be appointed imam of the new state:

‘After 'Abdulkdder had thus returned home that Sheikh Suleyman-Bal went to fight the Ulad Annaser in Fori*, seeking to avenge Mahmûdu-Ali-Rasin, who had died, after the end of the war with the Ulâd- Abdalla, in the following circumstances: The Ulad Annaser (i) having plundered his properties in Dulumddyi-Funèbe, Mahmadu' Ali-Rasin had gone to defend them, and he was wounded by an arrow and died from this wound... His death was the reason for the expedition of the Fori. The Ulad Annaser mentioned above lived in this place. Sheikh Suleiman Bal set out with the notables mentioned above, and many people from the tribes, such as the Ngenâr, who fell upon the Ulad Annaser at Fori, the latter were defeated... After this, they returned to the Fûta of the Tôro. The sheikh, who had led the expedition until then, passed the command to the boggel commentator Ahmadu-Samba. The Ulad Annaser then had the upper hand over the army of the Fûta: the commentator of the boggel Ahmadu- Samba, a native of Dyàba, was wounded and died of his wound.’11

The Al Mamy Abdelkader Kane claimed his filiation as ‘son of Hammadi, son of Alhadyi- Lamin, son of 'Abdullâhi, son of 'Âli, originating from Damascus by his ancestors’.12 However, it would be deceptive to believe that everything stated in genealogy, an auxiliary of history, is confirmed. Professor Abdel Wedoud O. Cheikh explains this relativity by the fact that societies produce ‘to a large extent the “original” visions from which they are supposed to derive their origins’.13

As soon as he was appointed supreme commander, imam Kane, a formidable warlord, decided to go to fight Oulad Nasser by making the Falo-Kôli expedition by which he broke their power, and then he began to levy on them a capitation tax consisting of fine horses and ingenious utensils’.14

The military exploits thus recorded by the new master of Fûta against the Denyankobe and the Arab Mauritanians did not put an end to hostilities. Almamy Abel Kader Kane faced again the Fula and the Arabs who had joined forces against him. Following this offensive, he ceded ‘the eastern part of Fûta with the land on the right bank around Wali de Sange and Padalal’ to the Denyankobe.15

The Fula
The Fula people were invaders from Africa Horn16, ‘from the north or the east and especially from the northeast17’. They consist of Serer, Wolof, Mandingo, Berber, Arab, and other families. They are an ethnic group with heterogeneous origins. They are divided into Red Fula and Black Fula. The Blacks are Sudanians, and the Reds are Arabs, according to several accounts. El-Bekri wrote in the 19th century:

‘In the kingdom of Ghana, there is a tribe called El-Honehîn, whose ancestors were the soldiers whom the Umayyad sent against Ghana in the early days of Islam. They follow the religion of the people of Ghana, but their members never marry Negroes. They have a white complexion and a beautiful face. A few men of this race lived in Sala, where they were called El-Faman.’ (1859, p. 391; see Monteil, 1911, p. 8).18 Based on this account, Charles Monteil stated, ‘It is these soldiers of the year 739, who came from North Africa, and whose descendants, more than three centuries later, are still standing out, that we consider being one of the main branches of the ancestors of the Red Fula of Western Sudan’19.

In Fûta, from 800 to 1285 AD, there was the Kingdom of Tekrur, then Fûta Toro. The last dynasty to reign over the territory was that of the Denyankobe, founded in the mid-16th century by the Fula warrior prince Koli Tenguella (Tenguella, ‘he was not Koli’s father, but only his foster father, without any possible dispute’)20.

Les Chroniques du Fouta Sénégalais, two manuscripts written in Arabic by Siré-Abbas-Soh and translated by Maurice Delafosse, give the origin of the Yemeni prince Koli: ‘Then came Koli, son of the king of Manden Sundyata son of Mohammadu son of Kinânata, of Himyarite origin; his mother was Fûta-Gay, daughter of Sigâni- Makam (i). His ancestor Kinânata the Himyarite had left the East and come to the country of Manden, accompanied by 20 thousand warriors’21.

The Denyankobe dynasty ended with the revolution of the Tekrur Marabouts. However, it was not Thierno Suleiman Bal who introduced Islam to their princely court but an Arab Mauritanian, ‘a Sherif called Abdallah son of Maghfar’22.

Banî Hassân
For Léon Faidherbe, the first governor of Senegal, people can be divided into two groups: the conquerors and the conquered23. The Banî Hassân were conquerors like the Fula.

Banî Hassân is a Maqil tribal group from the Arabian Peninsula present in the Maghreb since the arrival of Banî Hilal in North Africa. Some genealogists, such as Ibn Khaldun, link them to the Arabs of Yemen, while others, such as the Moroccan historian Ahmed Khaled Annasseri, author of Talaat Al Mushtary, give them a Hashemite filiation: Hassân, the eponymous ancestor, is Ben Moktar, Ben M'hammed, Ben Maqil, Ben Moussa Al Harraj, Ben Jaafar Al Emir, Ben Ibrahim Al Arbi, Ben Mohamed Al-Jaouad, Ben Ali Azzeinabi, Ben Abdallah, Ben Jaafar Attayiar, Ben Ebi Taleb24.

In both cases, the origin of Banî Hassân as genuine Arabs is commonly accepted.

This migratory flow of warrior tradition belongs to the second wave, from Arabia to Egypt. Their movement will cross Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, and Morocco over a few centuries to branch out into West Africa: Mauritania, Azawad, Niger, and Chad.

The first Arab presence in Mauritanian territory dates from the beginning of the 14th century with the Oulad Rizg, followed by Banî Hassân living in the Saghié Al Hamra. Colonel Modat stated: ‘The various authors, Ibn Khaldun, Léon l'Africain and Marmol (15th and 16th centuries), mention the presence in southern Morocco of the Oulad Dleim, Oulad Berbich and Oudaya. These various fractions belonged to Banî Hassân(Dotti Hassane) of the Maqil family25. … From the first years of the 16th century, Jean l'Africain tells us that the Oudaya received a tribute in Ouadane and Oualata’.26

According to Ibn Khaldun, at that time, ‘The Oulad Dleim were still in the coastal region of southern Morocco... the Brabich had not yet gone beyond Souss, while the Oudaya had already gained a foothold in the Ouadane region’27.

In Morocco, during the last stage of their journey from Arabia, the tribes descended from Oudey Ben Hassân are called Oudaya, a plural of Oudey. They include, among other subdivisions, Ereha, Ethel Souss, Almaghafira, and Oudaya," who lived at the beginning of the 12th century in the Molowiya-Taza-Rif triangle’28. The Oudaya were the nursery of the Royal Guard of the Moroccan Sultans, so they were kingmakers. As a good strategist, Sultan Mulay Ismail entered into a strategic matrimonial relationship with the Maghafras. By marrying Princess Khnatha Bent Bakar of the Emirate of Brakna, the sultan relied on the solid army of the Udaya, which came from his tribal confederation29.

In Mauritania, Banî Hassân contains all the descendants of Oudey Ould Hassân as well as his brothers Dleim and Hamma, as the following family tree shows30:

By setting up powerful principalities, such as the emirates of Adrar, Trarza, Brakna, and Oulad Mbareck, alongside numerous traditional entities, stretching from Tiris to the Hodh regions, including the chiefdoms of Oulad Daoud and Ould Nasser in the Hodhs, and Ould Dleim in Tiris, Banî Hassân kept Mauritanian territory under control for centuries before losing it at the end of the 19th century when French colonisation took over.

The Sanhadja

The Sanhadja had also come from the north. According to some Maghrebi genealogists, Ḥimyar is the ancestor of Sanhadja (Ṣanhāja).

Professor Maya Shatzmiller of the Royal Society of Canada reviewed the origins of the Sanhadja and summarised the various hypotheses in support of the ancient Yemeni origin of the Sanhadja:

‘Ibn al-Kalbi: ... The tribes of the Ketama and the Sanhadja do not belong to the Berber race: they are branches of the Yemenite population that Ifricos Ibn Saifi established in Ifrikia with the troops he left there to guard the country" (7). Ibn Khurdâdhbih: "... The homeland of the Berbers was Palestine, whose king was Jalut (Goliath). When David killed him—may Allah bless him— the Berbers immigrated to the Maghreb. Ibn' Abd al-Hakam: "... The Berbers were in Palestine. Their king Jalut was put to death by David, God saved him; they emigrated to the Maghreb... Ibn Qutayba: "... The Jalut in question was called Ouennour, son of Hermel, son of... son of Madghis el-After". Al-Tabari: "... The Berbers are a mixture of Canaanites and Amalekites who had spread to various countries after Goliath was killed; Ifricos, having invaded the Maghreb, transported them there from the coasts of Syria and, having established them in Ifrikiya, he named them Berbers ". Ibn Hawqal: "... With insignificant exceptions, these Berbers are, overall, descended from Goliath. Specialists in their genealogy, history, and traditions have disappeared. From a certain number of them, we have gathered information that we have noted...". Al-Suli: "... He is a descendant of the Berbers, son of Kasludjim, son of Mesraim, son of Champ. Al- Mas'ûdi: "... These are the remnants of the Ghassanids and other tribes that dispersed following the torrent of Arim.31 Overall, there are three filiations: the first one, the most frequent, proclaims the Berbers as originating from Palestine, driven to the Maghreb after the death of Jalut, who belonged to the Arab tribe of Mudar. The second sees the Berbers as descendants of Ham, son of Noah, born in the Maghreb after his exile. The third version gives several Berber tribes a South Arabian Himyarite origin. A slightly different version of these filiations appears in Kitâb al-ansâb32.

This tribe from Adrar launched the Almoravid movement around the middle of the 11th century under the command of the preacher Abdullah Ibn Yassin, at the origin of a great Muslim empire, including Aoudaghost. According to Roger Le Tourneau, Ibn Yacine ‘could have played an important role in the diffusion of Islam and the Arabic language on the edge of the Black Country’33. The leader of the Almoravid movement was Yaḥya ibn Omar Al Lamtouni, assisted by his brother Abu Bakr, and had as his cadi the Yemenite (from Hadramout) imam Al-Hadrami34.

The Sanhadja also founded the Wagdou Empire in the 7th century, better known as the Ghana Empire35. It was controlled by the Soninke from the 8th to the 9th century before being recovered by the Almoravids36. The Emirate of Idaouich, founded in 1778, came from this group.

The Arab Mauritanian or Beïdan ethnic group is socially and culturally homogeneous. It forms one identity whose unity ‘mainly lies in the fusion between Sanhadja and Hassans’37. This mixing was consolidated by 'the adoption of the same language, Arabic, and of common social institutions into which the contributions of each other entered and from which the type of Saharan of Chinguetti, committed to a civilisation of the desert shaped by Islam, progressively emerged38.

The Soninke
According to the oral tradition of the ethnic group, the descendants of Dinga are either ancient Yemenites (Yamaninke) or ancient Egyptians (Aswanik) from Aswan: ‘The first: in their book entitled L'Empire du Ghana, le Wagadu et les traditions du Yéréré, Germaine Diterlen and Diara Sylla remind us that “ Dinga, the mythical ancestor of the Soninké, known as Kare (elder, patriarch) was born in Egypt at Sonna, the name that the Soninké gave to Aswan”, hence the name Aswanik, given to the Soninke. He belonged to the nobility and was one of the Pharaoh's lieutenants in Egypt. Thus, according to this thesis, the Soninke originated in Upper Egypt, in the region of Sonni. Thus, the term Soninke would mean an inhabitant of Sonni. Secondly, the oral tradition reported by the griots tells us that a man named Yougou Khassé Dinga, the ancestor of the Soninké, came from Asia. The Guessérés, or Soninke griots, specify that he was Yemeni. “Dinga Yamaninké ”, they sing. They go further in their narrations when they proclaim, “Welcome to Dinga from India! Welcome, Dinga from Yemen! Welcome, Dinga from Louti! (Loth)”. According to Soninke accounts, he originated from India (Hindi). Nevertheless, his birthplace was Aswan (Shua or Sonan) in Egypt.

Dinga had reigned in that country with the title of Manga (Maghan) and was the lieutenant of a Pharaoh.

After staying in Yemen and Mecca, the patriarch Mama Dinga went to Djenné-Jéno (the ancient site of Djenné located two kilometres northeast of the present city). There, he married a woman and lived with her for 26 years without having any children. Is this Tafé Marcoussi? Dinga then moved to Dia and married Assokhoulé Souloro, who gave him three children. After having contracted three other marriages, he died near the Diokha pond39.’

The Bafours
The last historical people and probably one of the first that historians address when it comes to the genesis of the ancient occupation of Mauritania is the Balfour ethnic group. However, no one claims to be their descendant anymore because the Sanhadja defeated them and then faded into the other ethnic groups of the country and the sub- region.

Were the Bafours a black population? Historians disagree on the question; most consider them white, and Professor Abdel Wedoud Ould Cheikh reports that they would not be Muslims according to the Beïdan oral culture. In contrast, Pierre Bonte described them as Muslims of the Kharijite rite who embraced this faith before the ‘exclusive hegemony of Mâlikite Sunnism in Western Sahara’40.

The Wolofs
Finally, there are the Wolofs, one of the components of the Mauritanian population, a majority ethnic group in neighbouring Senegal, where their language and culture dominate. This community is said to have originated in the Nile Basin, as the anthropologist Anta Diop maintains. They are the founders of the Walo kingdom, ‘which became a distinct feudal state in the second half of the 16th century, slowly freeing itself from its vassalage to the Dyolof41’.

Finally, nowadays, immigration is in full swing, from south to north, but also from north to north and from south to south. Moreover, no ethnic group has ever kept its place permanently and totally. Therefore, the anteriority of one to the other is a never-ending journey through the meandering of history.

Can we ignore, in this context, that it was Christopher Columbus who discovered the “New World” in October 1492? It was six centuries after the first accounts of the existence of the Sanhadja in the Mauritanian Adrar. However, the Sanhadja could have existed there much earlier, and historians only dealt with the history of Mauritania from the 9th century onwards. But, when the Sanhadja entered the Adrar, they found only the Bafours and no one else, especially not the Fula and Tekrurs, whose ethnic confederation was not yet born, the Fula-Tekrour merging later.

To conclude, it would be safe to say that the argument of autochthony is not valid.

Ely Ould Sneiba

Mauritania: the ethnic issue explained

Works cited:

4 Vuillemin Geneviève Désiré. Histoire de la Mauritanie : des origines à l’Indépendance. Karthala, 1997. P434.

5 The first occupants of Fouta-Toro were said to be Fulani, Serer, Ouolof and Soninke. The chief of the region, defeated by the Dia Ogo, was forced to speak the Fulani language 'Hal Poular', which means that he was ordered to speak Fulani from then on.

6 Chavane Bruno. Villages de l’ancien Tekrour : recherches archéologiques dans la moyenne… Karthala Editions, 1 janv. 1985.P32.

7 Anta Diop Cheikh. Precolonial Black Africa. Traduit par Harold J. Salemson. Lawrence Hill and Company Westport, Connecticut. 1987.P 224.

8 Barry Boubacar. Le royaume du Walo : le Sénégal avant la conquête. Karthala Editions, 1 janvier 1985. P 302.

9 Kane Oumar. Les Maures et le Futa-Toro au XVIIIe siècle. In : Cahiers d’études africaines, vol. 14, n°54, 1974. pp. 237-252 ; doi : https://doi.org/10.3406/cea.1974.2643https://www.persee.fr/ doc/cea_0008-0055_1974_num_14_54_26.P1.

10 Kane Oumar. Les Maures et le Futa-Toro au XVIIIe siècle. In : Cahiers d’études africaines, vol. 14, n°54, 1974. pp. 237- 252 ; doi :

https://doi.org/10.3406/cea.1974.2643https://www.persee.fr/ doc/cea_0008-0055_1974_num_14_54_26.P242.

11 Delafosse Maurice. Chroniques Du Fouta Sénégalais. Paris, Ernest Leroux, 1913. P40-41.

12 Ibid. P40.

13 Ould Cheikh Abdel Wedoud. « La société maure : contribution à l’étude anthropologique et historique d’une identité culturelle ouest-saharienne ». Paris, Octobre 1999. P38.

14 Delafosse Maurice. Chroniques Du Fouta Sénégalais. Paris, Ernest Leroux, 1913. P44.

15 Kane Oumar. Les Maures et le Futa-Toro au XVIIIe siècle. In : Cahiers d’études africaines, vol. 14, n°54, 1974. pp. 237- 252 ; doi :

https://doi.org/10.3406/cea.1974.2643https://www.persee.fr/ doc/cea_0008-0055_1974_num_14_54_26.P252.

16 Anta Diop Cheikh. Precolonial Black Africa. Traduit par Harold J. Salemson. Lawrence Hill and Company Westport, Connecticut. 1987. P220.

17 Delafosse cité par Monteil Charles. Réflexions sur le problème des Peuls. In : Journal de la Société des Africanistes, 1950, tome 20, fascicule 2. pp. 153-192 ; doi : https://www.persee.fr/doc/jafr_0037- 9166_1950_num_20_2_2606. P158.

18 Monteil Charles. Réflexions sur le problème des Peuls. In : Journal de la Société des Africanistes, 1950, tome 20, fascicule 2. pp. 153-192doi : https://doi.org/10.3406/jafr.1950.2606. https://www.persee.fr/doc/jafr_0037- 9166_1950_num_20_2_2606. P159.

19 Ibid, P159.

20 Delafosse Maurice. Chroniques Du Fouta Sénégalais. Paris, Ernest Leroux, 1913.P35.

21 Ibid. P21.

22 Delafosse Maurice. Chroniques Du Fouta Sénégalais. Paris, Ernest Leroux, 1913. P36.

23 Barry Boubacar. Le royaume du Walo : le Sénégal avant la conquête. Karthala Editions, 1 janvier 1985. P 427

24 https://www.marefa.org/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D8% B9%D8%A7%D9%81%D8%B1%D8%A9

25 Marty Paul. Etudes Sur l’Islam et Les Tribus du Soudan. Tome III. Les Tribus Maures du Sahel et du Hodh. Paris, Ernest Leroux, 1921. P7.

26 Ibid.P5.

27 Marty Paul. Etudes Sur l’Islam et Les Tribus du Soudan. Tome III. Les Tribus Maures du Sahel et du Hodh. Paris, Ernest Leroux, 1921. P5.

28 Ibid.P5

29https://www.marefa.org/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D8% B9%D8%A7%D9%81%D8%B1%D8%A9

30 Marty Paul. Etudes Sur l’Islam et Les Tribus du Soudan. Tome III. Les Tribus Maures du Sahel et du Hodh. Paris, Ernest Leroux, 1921. P7.

31 Shatzmiller Maya. « Le mythe d’origine berbère (aspects historiques et sociaux) ». In : Revue de l’Occident musulman et de la Méditerranée, n°35, 1983. pp. 145-156 ; doi :

32 Shatzmiller Maya. « Le mythe d’origine berbère (aspects historiques et sociaux) ». In : Revue de l’Occident musulman et de la Méditerranée, n°35, 1983. pp. 145-156 ; doi :

33 Le Tourneau Roger. Une nouvelle étude sur les Almoravides. In : Revue de l’Occident musulman et de la Méditerranée, n°6, 1969. pp. 173-175 ; https://www.persee.fr/doc/remmm_0035- 1474_1969_num_6_1_1020.175.

34 Jacques Barou. Les Soninké d’hier à demain. Hommes & Migrations Année 1990 1131 pp. 9-12.

35 Ibid.P9

36 Ibid

37 O. Maouloud Mohamed. Sahara Occidental. Volume IV. Exposés oraux. International Court of Justice. P360

38 Ibid

39 Sakho. M. Origines des Soninké. Sur http://www.soninkaxu.com/originessoninke.html

40 Ould Cheikh Abdel Wedoud. Ould Cheikh Abdel Wedoud. « La société maure : contribution à l’étude anthropologique et historique d’une identité culturelle ouest-saharienne ». Paris, Octobre 1999. P36.

41 Anta Diop Cheikh. Precolonial Black Africa. Traduit par Harold J. Salemson. Lawrence Hill and Company Westport, Connecticut. 1987.P231.