![[Ghana_empire_map.png]] *The Ghana Empire at its greatest extent* Muslim trade networks expanded across the Sahara, connecting North and sub-Saharan Africa, facilitating the spread of Islam to West African kingdoms such as Ghana. The kingdom known as Wagadou or the land of herds in the local Soninke language, was a prosperous empire that had become known to Islam in accounts by Arab geographers like al-Fazari and Ibn Hawqal in the ninth and tenth centuries. Ghana's wealth was based on trade in gold, salt, ivory, and slaves. Although its power was beginning to wane by the eleventh century, it would be absorbed around 1240 into the even more powerful Mali Empire, which we will cover in the next chapter. ----- Next: [[11.12 - Muslim Science]] Back: [[11.10 - Islamic Fragmentation]]