The interjection of a King in Sudan, a Rustamid Prince in Bagdad and a Marinid widow in Mecca: Amazighs and non-urban groups as diplomats in service to Maghrebi dynasties in intra-Islamic and within-Africa contexts

This paper describes several episodes relative to the Rustamid dynasty (9th Century C.E.) where diplomacy, inter-group negotiation and mobility in Africa and towards the central Islamic lands was conducted with the help of Amazigh collaborators.
By comparing these with later diplomatic exchanges (13th-14th Centuries C.E.) examples having in common the connection West-East, the ḥajj and/or the question of intra-Islamic leadership, this research examines such journeys’ broader implications for stablishing a Maghrebi distinctiveness in the practice of diplomacy in its broad sense, as both a chance for individuals’ mobility and a political tool within medieval North African dynastic governance. This research argues that some elements of the exchanges’ motivations and results between Maghrebi and Eastern dynasties are consistent during the medieval period, but the early ones are marked by the absence of an intra-Islamic system of mutual leadership recognition, while this isn’t the case in the later ones.
It also highlights the composition of the diplomatic corps and the significant role of the Amazigh social network in facilitating diplomatic exchanges and other kinds of negotiation, as well as general mobility as a service rendered to the dynastic interests, though the North African space. These exchanges reveal the dynastic usage of flexible social networks of “diplomats”, mediators and enablers of mobility extracted from non-urban populations for several purposes, such as maintaining communication with other dynasties while asserting legitimacy in an intra-Islamic milieu, negotiating power within internal groups and even as interpreters of African languages.
The findings underscore the distinctiveness of Maghrebi diplomacy, marked by both its integration of local tribal systems and participation in a broader intra-Islamic system, crucial for sustaining dynastic mobility and diplomatic activity in a West-East axis and within its African context.