Obaba Museum

From 500AD to 1450AD, a massive trading community stretched throughout the Sahara desert. This community linked wealthy empires of West Africa and the Mediterranean region. Sit tight and enjoy some little facts about the Saharan Trade.

The Sahara desert is known to be the largest desert in the world. It measures about 3.5 million square miles from the Nile River to the Atlantic ocean. The word SAHARA is gotten from an Arabic word SAHIL which means coast or shores.

Traders used huge caravans of camels to transport goods across the desert. Caravans we’re more like convoys of Camels 🐪 following each other, just imagine a convoy of trailers, lol. The desert could be likened to an ocean where merchants transport goods with ships. The ‘ship’ in this case would be the camel and the captain of the ship the Berbers who were skilled and experienced in handling the camel.

The camel was most suitable for this job due to some features; they have a large store of fat in their hump which enables them to survive for several months without food and about 15 days without water, they can drink up to 145 litres of water in one sitting. The camel is said to be able to carry about 330 – 900 pounds of load comfortably.

The camel is said to have gone extinct during the stone age but it appears it simply went out of use as it later resurfaced in North Africa around 300BCE. The arrival of Islam really facilitated the Trans-Saharan trade. In fact the religion and culture of Islam was most effectively spread by trade at least in it’s early phase.

After the Arab conquests of 600BCE, the Berbers converted to Islam as well as many West African Merchants. Arabic provided a common language and value system, making it easier for traders to communicate and record trades. Powerful Islamic empires and Muslim retailers in the North United a whole lot of Afro-Eurasia into one trading system and trade grew.

The combination of increased trade and other factors including Islam created a golden age for the empires of West Africa. This enabled travellers and scholars to move around the world thereby creating new trades.

Thanks for reading through. Let’s know what you think in the comments 🐪👳.