Some of the ʿAjamī literature produced by African scholars has been digitized, with copies available at the African Ajami Library, the Endangered Archives Programme, the Hill and Manuscript Library, and the SOAS library, among other institutions.https://t.co/UgUUwx8OgK
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) October 26, 2025
The invention of Agriculture in Africa: plant domestication and the spread of African crops to Asia and the Americas.https://t.co/j2JP025ZgF
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) August 24, 2025
Agriculture in both Arabia and India today includes major contributions from African domesticates, including sorghum, pearl millet, and finger millet are traditionally the most productive grains, alongside cowpeas and hyacinth beans.https://t.co/j2JP025rr7
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) August 24, 2025
Agriculture remains the single most important economic activity on the continent, employing about two-thirds of the population and serving as a primary driver of economic growth.https://t.co/j2JP025rr7
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) August 24, 2025
"The inclusion of Nubian priests in Roman frescos depicting Isiac ceremonies suggests that these African missionaries successfully reached the Roman heartland, and transplanted an African religious tradition to distant places beyond the continent"https://t.co/uKKkIGSqzR pic.twitter.com/ufZTW63JrV
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) February 2, 2025
Nsibidi records, transmits, and conceals various kinds of information using a fluid vocabulary of geometric and naturalistic signs depicted on a wide range of mediumshttps://t.co/8P2eQdn0TH
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) January 26, 2025
In antiquity, African travelers and diasporic communities began appearing across several societies in the eastern Mediterranean world and beyond, mostly coming from the kingdom of Kush in various capacities as rulers, diplomats, charioteers and mercenarieshttps://t.co/PHAU9z0gpz
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) October 13, 2024
subscribe to read about the remarkable journey of the world explorer Muhammed Ali ben Said
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) October 13, 2024
⬇️https://t.co/Q2l3CSGfG1
Photo of a lecturer of Swahili in Berlin, ca. 1911
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) September 14, 2024
tomorrow's Patreon article is about an East African's travel account of 19th-century Europe pic.twitter.com/DazHcpLyiX
A brief history of Gold in Africa and the emporium of Sofala.https://t.co/OSSlSvaokU
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) September 12, 2024
Sections of Old Town Mombasa and other streets, ca. 1927-1940,
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) September 8, 2024
Mombasa island was home to four towns during the late Middle Ages; the pre-Islamic town of Kongowea, and the later towns of Mvita (inset), Kilindini, and Tuaca. pic.twitter.com/Q8v1S4OwH2
Lithographs and photos of Swahili men from the East Africa coast and Mombasa, ca. 1846-48, 1900-1914
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) September 8, 2024
the Swahili community of Mombasa was made up of multiple social groups of diverse origins that coalesced into 12 groups between the 15th-17th centurieshttps://t.co/iVYmAvRC7J pic.twitter.com/E1E4Y8pCYE
street in Mombasa Kenya showing the 16th-century Mandhry Mosque
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) September 8, 2024
The island of Mombasa was home to one of the oldest Swahili settlements on the East African coasthttps://t.co/iVYmAvRC7J pic.twitter.com/IqQCytiPsz
By the late 19th century, the expansion of British colonialism on the East African coast eroded the Zanzibar sultan’s authority, with Mombasa eventually becoming part of the British protectorate in 1895.https://t.co/iVYmAvR4ib
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) September 8, 2024
The dzimbabwe ruins of south-eastern Africa are often described as the largest collection of stone monuments in Africa south of Nubia.https://t.co/hbQhe7TrJJ
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) September 4, 2024
The ruined towns of Mapungubwe, Thulamela, and Dzata have attracted significant scholarly attention as the centers of complex societies that were engaged in long-distance trade in gold and ivory with the East African coast.https://t.co/hbQhe7TZzh
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) September 4, 2024
…By 1000 CE, Shroda was abandoned and a large settlement was established at K2 with a ranked society of elites and commoners, whose population later moved to the Mapungubwe hill by 1220CEhttps://t.co/hbQhe7TZzh
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) September 4, 2024
The life and works of a west African mathematician in the diaspora: Muhammad al-Kashnāwī in 18th century Egypthttps://t.co/iBKJky8BVA
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) August 9, 2024
Few classical civilizations were as impactful to the foreign contacts of ancient African states and societies like the Roman Empire.https://t.co/iivTqWVhQx
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) June 9, 2024
While the Roman defeat in Nubia permanently ended its ambitions in this region and was concluded with a treaty between Kush's envoys and the emperor on the Greek island Samos in 21BC, Roman campaigns into central Libya in 20BC were relatively successfulhttps://t.co/iivTqWVhQx
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) June 9, 2024
The increase in commercial and diplomatic exchanges between Kush and Roman Egypt contributed to the expansion of the economy of Meroitic Kush, which was one of the sources of gold and ivory exported to Meditteranean markets.https://t.co/iivTqWUK0Z
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) June 9, 2024
An episode of Naval warfare on the East African coast: the Sakalava invasions of 1792-1817https://t.co/6N3J7iVQP4
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) May 2, 2024
my article:
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) April 28, 2024
"a brief note on African agency in its historical contacts with the rest of the world."
the indigenous and the foreign in Benin arthttps://t.co/p2PMm7cqa3
The labeling of individuals as pirates was a means of advancing the economic and political goals of the European states operating in the oceans
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) March 27, 2024
repeated attempts by the Portuguese, and later by the Dutch, and English to monopolize maritime commerce failedhttps://t.co/PrJKsRXXs8
Even in exceptional cases when Europeans became involved in coastal conflicts involving pirates and African states, the results were often pyrrhic
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) March 27, 2024
such as the Dutch war against the Akan trader and pirate supporter John Canoe in 1724https://t.co/PrJKsRXXs8
The impact of European piracy on Africa's coastal societies was therefore negligible
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) March 27, 2024
However, one notable exception was the region of north-eastern Madagascar where several hundred pirates found refuge in the late 17th centuryhttps://t.co/PrJKsRXXs8
I applaud his speech, but why do they always seem to feel they need to throw the same shade at China, along with the US and France, who have never done the things that the US, France, and other European countries have done to them?
— 𝖂𝖎𝖓𝖈𝖍𝖊𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗 🇯🇲 (@winchesterlyon) March 27, 2024
The labeling of individuals as pirates was a means of advancing the economic and political goals of the European states operating in the oceans
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) March 17, 2024
repeated attempts by the Portuguese, and later by the Dutch, and English to monopolize maritime commerce failedhttps://t.co/PrJKsRYvhG
On the African coast, local rulers were under no obligation to respect Portugal's monopoly over external trade
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) March 17, 2024
In the coastal Senegal facing the island of Cabo Verde, the Wolof people regularly traded with pirates on the island rather than the Portuguesehttps://t.co/PrJKsRXXs8
thread on lamu and similar swahili citieshttps://t.co/ATMmnIpsHM
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) September 28, 2021
"the terms ‘North-Africa’ and ‘Sub-Saharan Africa’ are today considered politically expedient by those who seek to reinforce or subvert colonial narratives
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) February 11, 2024
But for whatever reason these terms exist today, they didn't exist in the pre-colonial world"https://t.co/9ANvkKci3x
simplified copy of al-idrisi's world map and its translation
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) February 11, 2024
'medieval Islamic geographers had no term for the African continent, nor did they have a collective term for "black" African
both were invented much later in colonial geography'https://t.co/9ANvkKcPT5 pic.twitter.com/fYvJjyjbUF
"There was no broad term for the entire African continent in Islamic geography, nor was there a collective term for “black” Africans.
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) February 11, 2024
Ibn Khaldun cautioned readers about the specificity of the geographic terms and ethnonyms like Habash, Zanj, and Sudan"https://t.co/9ANvkKcPT5
"Colonialists advanced a Western epistemological understanding of their colonies, classifying races, cultures, and geographies, while disregarding local knowledge.
— isaac Samuel (@rhaplord) February 11, 2024
Pre-existing concepts of ethnicity were racialized, and new identities were created"https://t.co/9ANvkKci3x
