Conversion to Islam in Fictional and Nonfictional Sources ven though they are experts in assessing re- liability, most historians prefer nonfictional sources: why bother with a source that an- nounces at the outset that the author is consciously altering what actually happened? Still, in fields for which primary evidence is scarce, historians some back and he once again took the throne. Clearly, there are too many coincidences and narrow escapes for the storyteller's account to be strictly factual, but his account of the king's conversion to Islam is utterly plausible. At first glance, the second account, from the Islamic geographer al-Bakri, writing in 1068, ap- pears to be more straightforward. It describes how a Muslim teacher persuaded a king in Mali to convert to Islam. Recall, though, that al-Bakri lived in Spain his entire life and thus did not himself see the Mali king's conversion or the rainfall that followed it. Historians always prefer eyewitness accounts because details can be distorted in the times find valuable information in fictional sources. Very few sources describe the Islamicization of sub- Saharan Africa before 1100. Here, we compare a fictional source with a nonfictional source on the same topic to see what we can learn about early conversions to Islam in Africa. The first account is from a collection of sailor's fictional tales composed in the mid-900s in the port of Siraf on the Arabian Sea. The conversion of the king to Islam is described as part of a plot that is so intricate as to defy be- lief. Caught in a storm, an Arab slave ship from Oman is shipwrecked in an African kingdom, most likely in modern Somalia or Kenya. The ship's captain abducts the ruler and sells him as a slave at Oman. Several years later the same ship is again blown off course to the same locale; and when the traders go before the ruler, they are amazed to see the king they had kidnapped. The king explains that he got away and fled to Cairo and escaped being kidnapped by slave traders two more times. Finally, he reached his former kingdom, where his countrymen welcomed him retelling. This second account captures what an educated Muslim geographer writing in Córdoba heard about the conversion of a distant ruler to Islam. Not an eyewitness account, it is a just-so tale that explains why the king of Mali was called "the Muslim." Sources: G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville, The East African Coast: Select Documants from the First to the Earlier Nineteenth Cantury (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), excerpt 5, "Buzurg bn Shahriyar of Ramhormuz: A Tenth-Century Slaving Adventure," pp. 9-13. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville; N. Levtzion and J. F. P. Hopkins, eds, Corpus of Barty Arabic Sources for West African History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), excerpt 22, "Al-Bakri," pp. 82-83. From Buzurg's "A Tenth-Century Slavlng Adventure" He [the king] answered: "After you had sold me in Oman, my purchaser took me to a town called Basrah"-and he described it. a year and more, when there came a party of men from Khorasan [west Iran, modern Turk- menistan] mounted on camels. Seeing a large crowd, I asked where all these people were "There I learnt to pray and to fast, and cer- tain parts of the Quran. My master sold me to another man who took me to the country of the king of the Arabs, called Baghdad"-and he described Baghdad. "In this town I learnt to speak correctly. I completed my knowledge of the Quran and prayed with the men in the mosques. I saw the Caliph, who is called al- Muqtadir [r. 908-932]. I was in Baghdad for going. "I was told: To Mecca. "What is Mecca?' I asked. ""There,' I was answered, is the House of God to which Muslims make the Pilgrimage.' And I was told the history of the temple. "I sald to myself that I should do well to follow the caravan. My master, to whom I told all this, did not wish to go with them or to let me go. But I found a way to escape his watchfulness and to mix in the crowd. of pilgrims. On the road I became a servant to them. They gave me food to eat and got Finally, they instructing me, I performed all the ceremonies of the pilgrimage.... "And here I am, happy and satisfled with the grace God has given me and mine, of knowing the precepts of Islam, the true falth, prayers, fasting, the pilgrimage, and what is permitted and what is forbidden." for me the two cloths needed for the ihram [the ritual garments used for the plgrimage]. From al-Bakrl's The Book of Routes and Realms, about the Malal Reglon (modern-day Mal) sincere Muslim. The man made him recite from the Quran some easy passages and taught him religious obligations and prac- tices which no man be excused from know- Beyond this country lies another called Malal, the king of which is known as al-musulmani [the Muslim). He is thus called because his country became afflicted with drought one year following another; the inhabitants prayed for rain, sacrificing cattle till they had extemi- nated almost all of them, but the drought and the misery only increased. The king had as his guest a Muslim who used to read the Quran and was acquainted with the Sunna [the model of behavior that all Muslims were expected to fol- low). To this man the king complained of the calamities that assalled him and his people. The man said: "O King, if you beleved in God (who is exalted) and testifled that He is One, and testifled as to the prophetic mission of Muhammad (God bless him and give him peace), and if you accepted all the religious laws of Islam, I would pray for your deliver- ance from your plight and that God's mercy would envelop all the people of your country, and that your enemies and adversaries might envy you on that account." Thus he continued to press the king un- til the latter accepted Islam and became a ing. Then the Muslim made him walt till the eve of the following Friday, when he ordered him to purify himself by a complete ablu- tion, and clothed him in a cotton garment which he had. The two of them came out towards a mound of earth, and there the Muslim stood praying while the king, standing at this right side, imitated him. Thus they prayed for a part of the night, the Muslim reciting invoca- tions and the king saying "Amen." The dawn had just started to break when God caused abundant rain to descend upon them. So the king ordered the idols to be bro- ken and expelled the sorcerers from his coun- try. He and his descendants after him as well as his nobles were sincerely attached to Islam, while the common people of his kingdom remalned polytheists. Since then their rulers have been given the title of al-musulmani [the Muslim).