المستخلص: |
At the beginning, historians were not interested in the history of sub-Saharan Africa, due to the lack of information about it, and its distance from the center of the Islamic caliphate, whether in Damascus or Baghdad. When they reached to the 8th and 9th centuries AH (14th and 15th centuries AD), historians wrote clear and large writings about the region. Among the Muslim historians who dealt with the history of the region was Ibn Fadlallah al-Omari, who did not visit the region but was in direct contact with most of those who visited Sudan, especially those who were in direct contact with the Mamluk Sultan’s Diwan, and by virtue of Al-Omari’s work in the Mamluk Diwan of Construction, he used to meet with these people and receive historical information from them about the place. The article will deal with the historian Ibn Fadlallah Al-Omari›s vision of the history of sub-Saharan Africa, or «the land of Sudan» as it was called by Muslim historians and geographers, that vision discussed the history and civilization of the region, through his authorship of several books, the widest and most important of which was his encyclopedia, which he called “Massalek Al-Absar” which gave historians and geographers - who wrote after him - a clear picture of the region
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