MUHAMMAD IBN AL-MUSTAFĀ and ‘UMAR KUNANDI IBN ‘UMAR

Muhammad ibn al-Mustafa and ‘Umar Kunandi ibn ‘Umar, (who both lived in the 18th century), were Dyula scholars from Gonja (Ngbanya), a state located in the lower third of what is now the Savannah Region of Ghana. They co-authored Kitāb Ghunjā (the “Book of Gonja”), an Arabic work dealing with the history of the Gonja state from the 16th to the 18th centuries.

Both men appear to have lived in Buipe, 60 mi (96 km) southwest of Tamale, in western Gonja. They were members of a branch of the Kamaghatay family domiciled there – a family of Muslim Dyula scholars and traders, whose ancestors had been 15th-century immigrants from the old kingdom of Mali, which was based on the Upper Niger River, and flourished from the 13th to the 16th centuries.

In the mid-18th century, Muhammad ibn al-Mustafä and Umar Kunandi jointly authored the Tadhkira li ‘I-Muta ‘akhirin, “An Account for Posterity”, often more simply referred to as Kitāb Ghunjā, written in Arabic, the work is a compilation of local traditions and earlier literary fragments concerning the origins of the Gonja state in the 16th century, together with a chronicle of events – deaths, wars, famines, and the like – from the late 17th to the mid-18th centuries.

The Kitāb Ghunjā may justly be claimed as the earliest known example of Ghanaian historiography, but its conception seems to have been inspired, directly or indirectly, by the earlier and better-known annals written by Timbuktu scholars, the Ta’ rikh al-Südān (“History of the Sudan”), and the Ta rikh al-Fatash (“History of the Searcher”).

Regrettably little is known of the two Gonja authors. At the time of writing the Kitab Ghunja, Muhammad ibn al-Mustafa had already made the long and arduous pilgrimage to Mecca, while Umar Kunandi held the position of imam (political head of the Islamic community), presumably at the Buipe mosque, where the great Gonja ruler jakpa was buried.

Among the sons of Umar Kunandi was another Muhammad al-Mustafa who became imam of Gonja, and died in the early 19th century. A son of this Muhammad al-Mustafa was Muhammad Kamaghatay, nicknamed Karamo Toghma, who served as one of the Muslim counsellors of the Asantehene Osei Bonsu [ruled 1800-24], who appears to have produced an Arabic chronicle – unfortunately no longer extant – of early Asante history.

It is known that Muhammad Kamaghatay was in possession of at least portions of the Kitāb Ghunjā. Thus the mid-18th-century writings of the grandfather on Gonja history seem to have served as a model for the grandson in writing on Asante history in the early 19th century. Yet another member of the Kamaghatay family of Buipe- Uthman, nicknamed Karamo Tia – was to become the first official imam to the Asantehene Kwaku Dua I [ruled 1834-67] in the mid-19th century, and the position continues to be held by his descendants to this day.

IVOR WILKS