Essouk
|
Essouk السوق |
|
|---|---|
| Commune and village | |
 Essouk
|
|
| Coordinates: 18°45′N 1°10.5′E / 18.750°N 1.1750°ECoordinates: 18°45′N 1°10.5′E / 18.750°N 1.1750°E | |
| Country |
 Mali
|
| Region | Kidal Region |
| Cercle | Kidal Cercle |
| Population (2009) | |
| • Total | 2,383 |
| Time zone | GMT (UTC+0) |
Essouk (السوق)is a commune and small village in the Kidal Region of Mali. The village lies 45 km northwest of Kidal in the Adrar des Ifoghas massif. The ruins of the medieval town of Tadmekka (or Tadmakka) lie 2 km northeast of the present village. Between the 9th and the 15th centuries Tadmekka served as an important entrepôt for the trans-Saharan trade.
The commune is very large in area but sparsely populated. The 2009 census recorded only 2,383 people in an area of approximately 25,000 km2. The village of Essouk has only a small permanent population. The rainfall is too low for rain-fed agriculture and almost all the population in the area are nomadic pastoralists.
Tadmekka prospered between the 9th and 15th centuries as an entrepôt for caravans crossing the Sahara Desert. For caravans travelling south, the town served as the last stopping place before entering the Sudan. The town is mentioned by al-Bakri in his Book of Routes and Realms which he completed in 1068:
...across the desert plain to Tādmakka, which of all the towns in the world is the one that resembles Mecca the most. Its name means "Mecca-like". It is a large town amidst the mountains and ravines and is better built than Ghāna or Kawkaw [Gao]. The inhabitants of Tādmakka are Muslim Berbers who veil themselves as Berbers of the desert do. They live on meat as well as on grain which the earth produces without being tilled. Sorghum and other grains are imported for them from the land of the Sūdān.
The Arab geographer al-Zuhri writing in the middle of the 12th century, reported that the Almoravids helped Ghana in a war against Tadmekka in 1083-4 and as a result Tadmekka became Muslim. The historian Nehemia Levtzion pointed out that Tadmekka would have been a Muslim town well before this date and speculated that al-Zuhri may have been referring to the conversion of the population from the Ibadi form of Islam to the more orthodox Malaki school of Sunni Islam. Traders in Tadmekka would have had commercial links with North African towns such as Tahert and Ouargla where there were Ibadi communities.
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Wikipedia