The Ashar African Market, located on 510 N. Cunningham Ave. in Urbana, offers a diverse selection of rice, grains, flours, vegetables, spices, meats, and frozen foods. It also provides an option for online shopping with in-store pickup, which is especially convenient during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The history of African markets is intertwined with the rich cultural and intellectual heritage of West Africa. West African Muslim scholars, who were often bilingual or multilingual, played a crucial role in shaping West African historiography. They composed the majority of West African manuscripts, primarily in the Ajami and Arabic scripts.
West African Intellectuals and Their Contributions
Some of the notable West African Muslim scholars and authors include:
- Muhammad b. Malik al-Andalusi al-Jayani al-Dimashqi (d. 1238)
- Ahmad b. Muhmmad b. Isa al-Burnusi al-Fasi (d. 1493)
- Abd al-Rahman b. Abu Bakr al-Suyuti (d. 1505)
- Ali b. al-Qasim al-Tijibi (d. 1507)
- Abd al-Rahman al-Akhdari (d. 1575)
- Ahmad bin Furtu
- Muhammad ibn al-Sabbagh (fl. 1640)
- Abu Abdullahi Muhammad b. Masanih (1595-1667)
- Hasan b. Masud al-Yusi (d. 1691)
- Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Fulani al-Kishwani (1699-1741)
- Muhammad al-Yadali b. al-Mukhtar b. Maham Sacid al-Daymani (d. 1751)
- Ahmad b. 'Abd al-Aziz al-Hilali (d. 1761)
- Mukhtar b. Buna al-Jakani (d. 1800)
- Sidi al-Mukhtar b. Abu Bakr al-Kunti (d. 1811)
- Sidi Abd Allah b. al-Haj Ibrahim al-Alawi (d. 1818)
- Sidi Muhammad b. Sidi al-Mukhtar (d. 1825)
- Nūḥ b. al-Ṭāhir al-Fulānī (d. 1860)
- Uthman dan Fodio and his daughter, Nana Asma'u (1793-1864)
- Muhammad Bello
- Muhammad Bukhari bin Uthman
- Abd al-Qadir dan Tafa
- Muhammad al-Amin al-Kanemi (1776-1837)
- Sidiyya "al-Kabir" b. al-Mukhtar b. al-Hayba al-Ntishai 'i (d. 1868)
- Sidi Muhammad b. Sidiyya "al-Kabir" (d. 1869)
- Muhammad Fal b. Mutali al-Tandaghi (d. 1870)
- Muhammad al-Mami b. al-Bukhari al-Barikalli al-Shamshawi (d. 1875)
- Xaali Majaxate Kala (1835-1902)
- Muhammad Mawlud b. Ahmad Fal al-Musawi al-Yaqubi (d. 1905)
- Muhammad Fal b. Muhammadhan b. Ahmad b. al-Aqil al-Daymani (d. 1915/16)
- Abd al-Qadir b. Abd Allah b. Muhammad b. Muhammad Salim al-Majlisi (d. 1918/19)
- Baba b. Sidi Muhammad b. Sidiyya (d. 1924)
- Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba (1853-1927)
- Muhammad Ahmad b. Mahmud b. al-Rabbani al-Tandaghi (d. 1935)
- Shaykh Muusaa Kamara (1864-1945)
- Moor Kayre (1869-1951)
- Samba Jaara Mbay (1870-1917)
- Mbay Jaxate (1875-1954)
- Muusaa Ka (1889-1963)
- Muḥammad al-Hāshimī b. Aḥmad b. Sa‘īd/Alfa Hāshim (d. 1931-1932)
- Muhammad Mahmud b. Abd al-Fattah al-Abyiri (d. 1970s)
- Muhammad b. Abu Madyan al-Daymani (d. 1976)
- Harun b. Baba b. Sidi Muhammad (d. Baba b. Sidi Muhammad (d. 1988)
- Mamadou Cissé (1897-1993)
Other notable authors include Muhammad b. Yusuf al-Ḥasani al-Sanusi, Muhammad b. Sulaymān b. Abi Bakr al-Jazuli al-Taghtini al-Simlāli, Muhammad Abd al-Wadud b. Hammayh al-Abyiri, and Muhammad b.
The works of Muhammad b. Yusuf al-Ḥasani al-Sanusi are referenced 513 times in other West African manuscripts, highlighting their significant influence.
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West African Manuscripts and Their Contents
West African manuscripts contain a wealth of information on various topics, including history, law, theology, and literature. They provide valuable insights into the intellectual and cultural life of West Africa over centuries.
West African manuscripts also contain copies of the Ten Commandments and the New Testament, composed after 1727 CE. Additionally, they include a copy of Risāla al-Qayrawāniyya, a treatise on Maliki law used as a textbook for religious instruction throughout the Sahara and Western Sudan.
These manuscripts also record significant historical events, such as the enthronement of Askiyà Dāwūd (d. 1583) in 958/1551-1552. They also contain Dhikr bilād Mallī, a chronicle of the region abstracted from the Tārīkh al-sūdān, covering topics such as the Mali state, the town of Jenne, Timbuktu, the Tuaregs, and the Songhay dynasties.
Furthermore, West African manuscripts contain a history of the populations of the Timbuktu region, Tārīkh Iwellemedan, and the Risāla fī ẓuhūr al-khalīfa al-thānī ‘ashar, composed by Nūḥ b. al-Ṭāhir al-Fulānī (d. 1860) as a "propaganda pamphlet" for the leader of the Fulani Empire of Masina, Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Būbū al-Fulānī/Aḥmad Lobbo (d. 1845).
Additionally, they feature Fulfulde poems and compositions, such as Mā shajara bayna al-shaykh al-ḥājj ‘Umar al-Fūtī wa-amīr Māsina al-shaykh Aḥmad b. Aḥmad ‘inda Hamdallāhi and Ta‘rīf al-‘ashā’ir wa-l-khillān bi-shu‘ūb wa-qabā’il al-Fullān, composed by Alfa Hāshim (d.
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Marginalia in West African manuscripts, particularly those from Timbuktu, provide additional context and commentary on the main texts. These include addenda, corrections, clarifications, and highlighting of specific portions of text. Some marginalia bear no direct relevance to the adjacent text, serving as independent fragments, such as prayers for the protection of the manuscript or explications of the Islamic West abjad system.
Regarding West African manuscripts and 19th century CE Brazilian manuscripts, "'[e]arlier manuscripts often include both father and mother of the scribe ("son of X and Y") or even the name of his mother alone', while '[m]ore recent manuscripts, especially those written in colonial and post-colonial West Africa, tend to be patrifocal' and therefore contain only the name of the scribe's father."
One manuscript contains a religious poem on tawhid called Jawahir min al-kalam by Ibn Sulaym al-Awjili (d. 1801/2), with glosses in Arabic and Soninke. The colophons are written in a vernacular language close to Mandinka, suggesting the manuscript originates from southern Senegal, the Gambia, or Guinea-Bissau.
Another anonymously authored composition on cosmogony includes a colophon stating it was finished on a Sunday by al-Mustafa Suware ibn Yirimaghan Suware in Suwarekunda, possibly located in the Bambukhu region of eastern Senegal or Badibu in the Gambia.
Legal Discussions and the Issue of Enslavement
The earliest mention of the wrongful enslavement of Muslims in West African texts appears in Muhammad ‘Abd al-Karim al-Magili's replies to Askia Muhammad in 1498. Al-Magili argued that enslaved persons claiming to be free Muslims should be believed, even if they had previously admitted to slave status.
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Ahmad Baba's text written in 1615 is the best-known legal discussion of wrongful enslavement in the Muslim intellectual tradition in West Africa. He laid out arguments defending the free Muslim status of many enslaved "Blacks."
Rural African Market Day in Kakuri Nigeria 🇳🇬 West Africa
Comparison and Context in Historical Analysis
The West African Arabic Manuscript Database (WAAMD) is a bi‑lingual online catalog of Arabic manuscripts. The database helps researchers overcome difficulties in comparing historical objects that belong to different cultural areas.
Comparison does not simply detect resemblances and differences, but also provides an important method for denaturalizing objects. It paves the way for reading “against the grains” of the historiographical narrative/cultural frameworks in which objects have been inscribed, and calls into question their fallacious, discursive coherence.
The comparative approach focuses on sources rather than objects. Sources are the nexus of specificity: specific people produce them in a specific time and place and in specific environments. Sources are actions endowed with intentionality.
The study presented here compares two institutions. One, the droit d'aubaine, was in effect across most of Europe and defined the relationship between foreigners and territory. The second institution in our comparison is the Bayt al-mâl, or treasury, a traditional Islamic fiscal institution found in a number of Ottoman-era governments, whose prerogatives were reduced to managing heirless estates and burying the poor.
The law regulating this right and its associated practices was among the cornerstones of early modern royal power, particularly in France, where the droit d'aubaine was more widely practiced than in the rest of Europe. It constituted one of the key elements in the unification of customary law and legal rights.
From this perspective, the history of citizenship in France is fundamentally linked to the legal and political evolution of the French state, because only the king and his officers-and not seigneurs or local municipalities-had the power to confer on an individual the title and privileges of citizenship.
The interest of the Duchy of Savoy-Piedmont, the focus of Cerutti's research, is partly linked to the wealth of the available archival sources, which include several dozen fascicles of records relating to the droit d'aubaine. Detailed examination of the records of over three hundred legal proceedings that took place during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries allowed Cerutti to reconstruct and situate the actions taken in the name of the “aubaine” and identify the reasoning behind each instance in which the law was applied.
In the case of the Duchy of Savoy-Piedmont, the available sources seem to confirm this interpretation. -officials of the Royal Treasury would burst into the room where the corpse of the deceased was laid out. In the early eighteenth century, though these were hasty interventions at the time of death, everything was recorded in meticulous detail: from the position and appearance of the deceased to the presence of doctors, priests, women, or servants assisting him, and especially neighbors and friends, relatives, or colleagues, whose every act and utterance were taken down.
In over half of the procedures analyzed, the royal fiscal officials ultimately recognized the heirs’ legitimacy: “We recommend that the attorney general withdraw his claim to the inheritance of the de cujus in favor of the claimants, by further prolonging the sequestration of these same assets until such time as the creditors are satisfied.”
Roughly 60 percent of the three hundred cases that Cerutti analyzed ended in the recognition of one or more legitimate heirs and consequent “levata della mano regio” (a withdrawal of the Treasury's claim).
Other International Markets in Champaign-Urbana
Besides Ashar African Market, Champaign-Urbana boasts a variety of international markets offering diverse culinary experiences:
- World Harvest: Located in Urbana, this store offers a variety of European and Asian foods, spices, flours, and coffee beans. It also features a deli and a cafe with Mediterranean options, including gluten-free, vegetarian, and vegan choices.
- Fresh International Market: With two locations in Champaign, this Asian grocery store offers a large selection of rice, noodles, snacks, and fresh produce. The market imports food from 28 different countries.
- Annapoorna: Located in Champaign, Annapoorna has been providing the community with a wide range of Indian foods since 2003, including spices, pastes, and more.
These markets contribute to the rich cultural tapestry of Champaign-Urbana, offering a taste of home for many and a chance to explore new flavors for all.
