A Critical Analysis of the Accounts of Songhay, Hausaland and the Chad Areas of Africa as Recorded by Al-Hassan Bn. Muhammad Al-Wazzan Al-Zayyati (Leo Africanus) in the 16th Century A.D.

Abstract

The essence of this article is to highlight the mundane issue of history and historiographical analysis while revisiting some past accounts from a rare source material of a given geographical zone of African continent.  In attempting to achieve this aim, the student of history is herewith, introduced to that aspect of historiography, which emphasises the significance of internal textual criticism of the source with a view to validate the level of corroboration or otherwise of the given information.  It is with the understanding of such internal inconsistencies and drawing-up from available sources to supplement the contained information as employed herein in this article on Leo Africanus on Africa, that a possible reconstruction of the history hopefully could be appreciated.