Tarikh al-fattash

The Tarikh al-fattash is a West African chronicle written in Arabic in the second half of the 17th century. It provides an account of the Songhay Empire from the reign of Sonni Ali (ruled 1464-1492) up to 1599 with a few references to events in the following century. The chronicle also mentions the earlier Mali Empire. The French scholars Octave Houdas and Maurice Delafosse published a critical edition in 1913. It has been argued that this edition conflates the text from an early incomplete manuscript with that of a re-written forgery produced early in the 19th century. The Tarikh was originally believed to have been written by Mahmud Kati but this has been questioned and Ibn al-Mukhtar, a grandson of Mahmud Kati, is now believed to have been the author.

During his visit to Timbuktu in 1895 the French journalist Félix Dubois learnt of the chronicle but was unable to obtain a copy. Most copies of the manuscript had been destroyed early in the 19th century by the order of the Fula leader Seku Amadu, but in 1911 an old manuscript was located in Timbuktu that was missing some of the initial pages. A copy was made and sent to the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (MS No. 6651). The original Timbuktu version is designated as Manuscript A while the copy is Manuscript B. A year later a seemingly complete manuscript was located in Kayes. A copy of this manuscript, which includes the name of an author, Mahmud Kati, is designated as Manuscript C. As well as the initial chapter, Manuscript C contains various additions and deletions compared to Manuscript A.

After Octave Houdas and Maurice Delafosse had completed a translation of the Tarikh al-fattash they received a further manuscript that had been acquired by the French traveller Albert Bonnel de Mézières in Timbuktu in September 1913. The preface of this anonymous 24 page document announced that it was written at the request of Askiya Darwud b. Harun. He is known to have reigned in Timbuktu between 1657 and 1669. The text of the manuscript is closely related to the Tarikh al-fattash and presents similar material in a similar order. It includes an introduction which differs from that in Manuscript C, followed by text that is either identical to Manuscript A or is an abridged version of that contained in Manuscript A, missing many of the details.

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