LIBYA, THE TRANS-SAHARAN TRADE OF EGYPT, AND ‘ABDALLAH AL-KAHHAL, 1880–1914

Abstract

Egypt's trans-Saharan trade along its fromier with Libya underwent perceptible changes in the course of the nineteenth century. The development of strong commercial ties with the kingdom of Darfur during the previous century and the implantation of an imperial regime in the eastern Sudan, beginning in 1820, dramatically changed the direction of trade with Black Africa, away from the Sudan toward the east. During most of the nineteenth century, Egypt drew heavily on the resources of what is now present-day Sudan for supplies of slaves, ivory, feathers, gum, and other products of the trans-Saharan African export market.1 The western originating in such entrepots as Katsina, Kano, and Kukuwa, and in new markets in Abeche and Wara, traversed the deserts of Libya via the oasis towns of Murzuq, Awjila and Jalu, passing eastward through the Egyptian oasis of Siwa before halting at various small villages outside Cairo in the vicinity of the Pyramids. Trade along this route, dormant in the early part of the nineteenth century, revived in spasms, apparently as a result of periodic efforts by sultans of Wadai to open up commerce with the north. It fell under the control of the Majabra,