On December 10-12, 2008, an international colloquium (Workshop on "Historical Constructions of "Race" and Social Hierarchy in Muslim West and North Africa") was held in Dakar (Senegal) - a kind of "round table" on the problem of social inequality in African countries, whose population has long been Islamized and in their social and everyday relations is based on the ideology of Islam, which is reflected in the Koran and denies, in particular, the state of slavery among Muslims. Note that the concept of "race"in this context corresponds to the Anglo-Francophone tradition and implies not physical and anthropological affiliation, but ethnic, and often social.

The colloquium was organized by the Northwestern University Institute for Islamic Studies in Africa (ISITA); the Harriet Tubman Institute for Global Migration Studies in Africa (former black slave, heroine of the North - South War in the United States-E. L.) at York University in Canada; and the Shaikh University Regional Center for the Study of Slavery and the Slave Trade. Anta Diopa in Dakar (Senegal). The Center for West African Studies at the University of Dakar and two faculties - Social Sciences and History-actively participated in the organization and work of the colloquium. These departments of the university work hard in the field of studying the history and culture of both African and world countries. Among the books and articles in periodicals of the faculties, you can see research on the history of antiquity and the Second World War, ancient Greek literature and Pushkin studies...

The colloquium was attended by 40 participants from 17 countries: 10 African countries (Republic of Guinea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, Comoros, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal) and 7 New and Old World countries (Spain, Canada, Portugal, Russia, USA, France, Switzerland). 28 reports were presented, each of which was discussed in a lively and fruitful manner. At the same time, Canada, Switzerland,

The United States and France were represented not only by Europeans, but also by African scientists currently working in universities or research centers in these countries.

The work was organized in a number of areas. Two sessions were devoted to common problems. Considerable attention was paid to the discussion of the problem of slavery. It is significant that the topic of the European and Arab slave trade was not discussed at all, but the role and place of "patriarchal" slavery in Africa itself was discussed through the study of the social hierarchy of traditional societies. It was presented on concrete examples - in the public structures of Mauritania, Niger, Northern Cameroon, Mali, and the Republic of Guinea. At the same time, we considered both pre - colonial political formations and the situation in these countries in the XX century-both during colonialism and in the post-colonial period. The situation of the dependent population, the origin of these social groups, and the status of freedmen and descendants of slaves were analyzed in detail.

The second group of reports included presentations on castes and social hierarchy in Guinea, Morocco, Mauritania, south Sudan, northern Nigeria, and West Africa in general. Special attention was paid to the role of these groups in organizing trade and provoking conflicts.

Separate sessions focused on regional issues in North Africa and Fulba, which spread across West Africa from Senegal to Cameroon. At the first of them, Arab-Berber relations in Morocco and Algeria, as well as the process of forming mixed societies, were considered in the key of social history. The Canary Islands were chosen as an example of the latter, where Spaniards, Arabs, Indians, and black Africans form separate social groups. The topic of the second session was the relationship between the Fulbe, once conquerors, and the autochthonous peoples throughout their entire settlement zone. As you know, the latter was held under the slogans of Islamization of "pagans" or "revival of pure Islam" among already Islamized ethnic groups. As a result, two phenomena emerged: what researchers called "religious racism" and social hierarchy based on confessional grounds.

"Literary (or rather written) Muslim sources" as a subject of independent study, on the one hand, and as an important historical source, on the other, were considered at the fifth session. Their range is quite diverse. First, there are recent recordings of oral tradition, often made by the speakers themselves. Secondly, written monuments of the pre-colonial period (especially medieval ones), which are actively collected by both local historians and international foundations. Third, these are archival documents of the XX century. It should be noted that, despite the widespread official replacement of the Arabic writing system by the Latin alphabet carried out by the colonial authorities, many documents, including the latest ones (at the turn of the XX - XXI centuries), are written in "ajami" - an Arabic script adapted to the phonetics of African languages. Now in a number of countries in West Africa (in Niger, northern Nigeria, northern Cameroon), the process of reviving this script is underway.

Finally, the problems of twentieth-century history and the specific practice of Islam in modern Africa formed the theme of the last session. In particular, the question was considered how the hierarchical social structure was integrated into the new "colonial society" with capitalist relations (on the example of the use of different groups of the population in the construction of the Dakar - Niger railway); how school education contributed (or sometimes hindered) colonization of Mauritania; what is the history and role of Islam in modern Ethiopia.

I must say that in West African studies there is no single terminology in the field of studying social strata. Speakers often put different meanings in the same terms and, on the contrary, used different terms to define the essence of a particular concept. First of all, this applies to the concepts of "slave" and "slavery" in the conditions of West Africa, both in pre-colonial times and in modern society. The terms "race", "ethnos", "tribe", and "caste"were used as equal terms. So, griots were called slaves of one or another aristocratic family. The most common definition is "a slave is someone who is dependent on the master." Naturally, in fact, this category includes various groups that are in varying degrees of dependence. Most of the African speakers emphasized the great difference between slavery in Africa and the New World. In their opinion, in a traditional society, the state of slavery is not oppression, but protection. Accepting a slave into a community or clan is an act

patronage of an outsider and persons who, for various reasons, have lost contact with their blood group.

In fact, most of the reports focused on social inequality in a traditional society that had developed in the pre-colonial era, survived the period of colonialism, and persists in many regions of West Africa to this day. During the formation of such a social structure, conquests and Islamization processes played an important role in the hierarchization and stratification of society. At the same time, Muslim conquerors (Fulbe, Hausa, Wolof, etc.) occupied the upper rungs, and the defeated non-Muslims became dependent strata. In colonial times, during the introduction of forced labor in French West Africa, it was the lower social strata who were sent to perform public works related to manual labor ("black labor"), while the top of the local society was in charge of them ("white labor"). The existence of this traditional stratification in the twentieth century was demonstrated by reports on the Republic of Guinea and the Canary Islands. The most significant example is that of northern Cameroon. Here, the border between social strata runs along the lines of "fulbe-nefulbe", "Muslims-non-Muslims", "alien pastoralists (once nomadic pastoralists) - autochthonous farmers". This hierarchy can be traced in the property status, participation in the political life of modern Cameroon, and at the household level (in particular, in the layout of cities and the spatial settlement of certain population groups).

Officially, in all African countries, the institution of slavery has long been eliminated and all citizens have equal rights, provided for by constitutions. In fact, the descendants of slaves still remain incomplete, and in some cases still retain a dependent status. At the colloquium, for example, a 2006 paper on the emancipation of a female slave in northern Cameroon was presented. Freed slaves usually become lumpen and fill up the urban marginal strata.

A great advantage of the reports is a solid source base, and the participants of the colloquium used both traditional, long-known sources (for example, colonial documentation or records of European travelers), and various local materials that have recently entered scientific circulation. All reports were based on the authors ' fieldwork, interviews, and their own observations. Oral tradition was actively involved, and not only audio, but also video recordings were made. Since 1964, an international project for the collection of oral tradition (Fontes Historae African) has been working on the basis of IFAN (Fundamental Institute of Black Africa, in 1938-1960 - the French Institute of Black Africa) under the leadership of the Czech Africanist Ivan Hrbek. The Foundation has already held two conferences - in Accra in 2002 and in Dakar in 2005. It publishes recordings and collections of collected materials. The speakers used the foundation's methodology. It is important to emphasize that, in contrast to the belief often found among African researchers about the unconditional nature of this kind of source, the participants of the meeting reacted critically to it, carefully analyzing such records and conducting a comparative study.

Another body of sources - manuscripts and old printed books, which are now sought throughout Black Africa, stored in most cases in private collections, in families. The Center for Scientific Documentation at the University of Niamey (Niger) already has more than 50 thousand units of storage, many similar manuscripts have been collected in Timbuktu (Mali), and this work continues.

Speakers (both African scholars and their European and overseas colleagues) are very active in using materials from the colonial and postcolonial archives of both metropolitan and (more importantly) former colonial countries. They often contain unique, previously unknown documents. For example, the colloquium presented "Rules for the punishment of Slaves", stored in the archive of Lamidat Maroua (Cameroon).

The colloquium presented a broad picture of the specific situation in many countries of West and North Africa; some theoretical questions were raised about the relationship between the ideology of Islam and the traditions of dependence in local societies; new types of sources were introduced to scientific circulation; and a fruitful exchange of views of scientists from different countries of Africa, Europe, and the New World took place. All meetings were attended by students, undergraduates, and postgraduates. The colloquium materials are available on the Institute's website. According to Henrietta Tubman, separate reports are also planned to be published.

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