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Men engaged in a traditional prayer inside a temple, showcasing cultural attire and practices.

Are Africans Muslims?

ThinkAfrica explainer Are Africans Muslims? Africa is home to one of the largest Muslim populations in the world—but not all Africans are Muslims. The continent is religiously diverse, with Islam, Christianity, and indigenous belief systems all deeply rooted across different regions. The short answer: many Africans are Muslim, especially in North, West, and parts of […]

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Why Did Europeans Colonise Africa?

ThinkAfrica explainer Why Did Europeans Colonise Africa? Europeans colonised Africa for a mix of economic, political, strategic, and ideological reasons. Industrial economies wanted raw materials, rival states wanted prestige and territory, military planners wanted routes and bases, and many leaders wrapped expansion in missionary and “civilising” language. The short answer is simple: Europeans colonised Africa

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The Myth Africa Lost against Europeans due to Worshipping False Gods

An African claimed the battles of the “Scramble for Africa” were successful because Africans worshipped false gods. The fact though is that African countries didn’t lose wars because of false gods. If worshipping the Christian God won wars, New Kingdom Egyptian dynasties, Kushite empire, the Chola Chola dynasty, Persians and later Mongols would not have

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Schuenemann et al. (2017) Study — Full Catalogue of Direct Quotes and Limitations

Executive Summary Schuenemann et al. (2017) Ancient Egyptian Mummy DNA Study — Full Critical Evaluation Core Findings:  🔹 Severe limitations acknowledged by the authors: missing excavation records, loss of biographical context, analysis from a single Middle Egyptian Greco-Roman site, and nuclear genome data from only three individuals.  🔹 Heavy reliance on mitochondrial DNA (maternal lines),

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Timeline of Ethiopia 

Below is a timeline of the most important milestones in Ethiopian history, from prehistory through antiquity and into the early modern period. This timeline debunks multiple stereotypes often perpetuated about African—and specifically Ethiopian—history. First, it dismantles the colonial myth that African civilizations lacked historical depth or intellectual complexity before European contact, showing continuous innovation from

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Debunking the Myth: Why Claims That Africa Had No Civilizations Lack Both Academic and Moral Merit

One of the most persistent and unfounded myths about Africa is the claim that it had no civilizations before European contact. This narrative is not only historically inaccurate, but it is also morally bankrupt, as it seeks to erase the achievements of millions of people and justify colonial exploitation. The timeline provided offers clear archaeological

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Debunking the Misinterpretations of Ancient Egyptian DNA: A Critique of Schuenemann et al. (2017) By Professor Stuart Tyson Smith

In 2020, Stuart Tyson Smith, professor of anthropology at UC Santa Barbara, offered a sharp critique of the 2017 Nature study by Schuenemann et al., which claimed that ancient Egyptian mummies showed stronger genetic ties to the Near East than to Sub-Saharan Africa. At first glance, this study seemed to confirm longstanding Eurocentric narratives that

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The Forgotten Millions: Africa and the Caribbean in Two World Wars

Picture this: the mud-splattered trenches of France, the suffocating jungles of Burma, the searing deserts of North Africa. Now, populate these scenes not just with Tommies and Yanks, but with the ebony faces of African soldiers ⚔️, the sturdy frames of Caribbean porters ⛵, and the sun-scorched feet of barefoot carriers laden with supplies they

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Origins Of The Zulu Kingdom

The Zulu Kingdom of the 19th century was a monarchy along the Indian Ocean, stretching from the Tugela River in the south to the Pongola River in the north, with an estimated population of 250,000 over 30,000 square kilometers (11,500 square miles). Cattle served as the main currency. Unique cultural practices included Nguni stick fighting,

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Origin of the Fulani (also called the Fula, Fulbe, Peuls) of West Africa (4th millennium BC to Present)

The Fulani people, numbering about 38 million, are found mostly in the western part of Africa. They are also known as the Fulbe or Peuls and in the Middle Ages (covering the 5th to the 15th century of the Common Era) were very reliant on cattle herding. The Fulani people trace their origin far back

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Question: Could African farmers copy Rich Countries for wealth creation?

Have you ever thought, “Why can’t farmers in African nations study the richer countries and imitate what they did to become wealthier”? Phrased another way the question is “Couldn’t Africa do today what the developed economies like the United States, France and the United Kingdom did to create wealth?” The answer is no and yes,

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Myths about Africa: Do conflicts and insecurity have nothing to do with rich countries?

Ever since the abolishment of slavery and the granting of independence to African nations, the continent has been stricken with what seems like never-ending conflicts. There are pockets of violence here and there between groups in Africa, and this has seriously stunted its growth, damaged perceptions of rule of law, unification, and development as there

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Africans in Roman London (48AD – 410AD): what DNA tests of 22 Londoners found

There have often been wrong assumptions regarding ancient relationships between Africans and the rest of the world, particularly Europe. For example; people wrongly assume that it was Europeans that travelled to Africa, first, or that the age of discovery between the early 15th century and 17th century was the first point of contact between Africans

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Yakut Khan: the Indian Admiral of African ancestry, story of the 1690 CE defeat of the East India Company

Yakut Khan, whose real name was Siddi Qasim Khan and also known as Sidi Yaqub, was an Indian of the Siddi ethnicity (also referred to Sheedi or Habshi)[1]. The Siddi ethnic group is a social grouping for the identifiable descendants of East Africans that migrated to India during the second millennium of our era. They

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The Garamantes: The Civilisation that mined Fossil Water from the Sahara for 1,000 Years

700 miles south from the Mediterranean coast, there, stretches a sub-beaten arid African desert, with temperatures that can rise up to 55 ºC in the summer, an average annual rainfall that is less than half an inch, and sometimes even it doesn’t see rain for years. One would never imagine that a lost 3,000-year-old-African civilization

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The Zulu Kingdom

The Zulu kingdom of the 19th Century was ruled by a monarchy and extended along the coast of the Indian Ocean from the Tugela River in the south to Pongola River in the north. It had an estimated population of 250,000. It covered 30,000 square kilometres (11,500 square miles). Its main currency was cattle. The

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African Rulers in Indian History: Janjira, Maharashtra, India (1622-Present)

The princely state of Janjira fluttered its red flag with the crescent moon until India won independence in 1947 and merged all the princely states with the union by the following year. The state of Janjira is noted as being among the smallest of the princely States in Menon’s “The Story of Integration of Indian Princely States.” However, compared

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Queen Hatshepsut: African Proof that a Woman Can Rule the Most Powerful Nation on Earth, Competently

Granite statue of Queen Hatshepsut It is common knowledge that Pharaohs of ancient Egypt excelled in building incredible monuments and temples both for the gods they worshipped and for themselves as a display of power and to ensure that they would be remembered forever throughout the Egyptian Pharaonic Empire. Today, tourists from all parts of

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Kingdom of Numidia (202BC – 46BC)

What kingdoms existed in Africa before the Scramble for Africa of the late 19th century and its well known recent period of colonisation by Europe? We look at the Kingdom of Numidia (202 BC – 46BC). Numidia were crucial in the crushing defeat of Rome during the Battle of Cannae that wiped out the ruling class of Rome and their betrayal of Carthage to back Rome contributed to the downfall of the Carthaginian republic during the 3rd Punic War.

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Sultanate of Mogadishu (10th -16th century): spotlight on Middle Ages African global trade hub

When his nephew Emperor of the Ming dynasty Zhu Yunwen started eliminating rivals and demoting his uncles, Zhu Di, was “forced”, provided wonderful pretext, to rebel and depose his nephew and become the emperor himself. To add legitimacy to his rule, he did something very unusual and had one his best fleet admirals sail to the East Coast of Africa to get Giraffes. These were labelled the first re-appearance of one of the 4 benevolent animals in Chinese mythology, the Qilin. Where did they go to? What was the role of the Sultanate of Mogadishu, present-day Somalia, in the medieval world?

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1,000 year kings’ list of Bunyoro-Kitara, Uganda (including the first ruler, a woman)

The evidence of civilisation around the Great Lakes of East Africa dates back 5,500 years, but if we want to name names, monarchs tend to keep better records because their right to rule depends on it. So, we know that the kingdom of Bunyoro-Kitara existed from the 11th century to today, surviving an attempt by

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