Aztlan

In Aztec history and mythology, Aztlan, supposedly an island in a lake in the west or northwest of Mexico, was the place of origin for their people and the birthplace of their patron god, HuiTZiLOPOCHTLi.

Nahuatl for “place of whiteness” or “place of herons,” Aztlan was the mythical point of departure for the AzTECS’ peregrination to TENOCHTiTLAN. The Aztecs were seeking a replica of this original home when they finally arrived in Tenochtitlan. One tradition gives their date of departure as A. D. 1111. The name Aztecs literally means “people of

Aztlan,” although they and their neighbors referred to them as Mexica.

Historians differ as to how much of this origin myth to accept as historical fact. It cannot, however, be discounted merely as cynical self-aggrandizement on the part of the Aztecs, many of whom seem to have sincerely believed that their people originated in a place whose location became lost in the mists of time. Moctezuma I (r. 1440-69), for example, once sent forth about 60 magicians loaded down with the most precious gifts available to present them to the god or his emissaries, or to the less peripatetic descendants of their distant ancestors.

The vague and sometimes confused nature of the Aztec origin myth as well as the familiar motif of a people wandering in the desert in search of a new home led at least one contemporary European observer, Fray DiEGO Duran, to conclude that the Aztecs were one of the lost tribes of Israel. Quoting from the prophet Hosea, Duran pointed out that God had punished these tribes for their sins by condemning them to be perpetually cowardly and proposed this divine castigation as the reason for (and perhaps justification of) their defeat at the hands of decidedly inferior numbers of Spanish invaders.

Further reading: Michael Coe, Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs, 4th ed. (London: Thames & Hudson, 1994); Nigel Davies, Aztecs: A History (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980); Diego Duran, The History of the Indies of New Spain, trans. Doris Heyden (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995); Mary Miller and Karl Taube, The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya: An Illustrated Dictionary of Mesoamerican Religion (London: Thames & Hudson, 1993).

—Marie A. Kelleher

Baba, Ahmad (1556-1627) scholar Ahmad Baba, an Islamic scholar, writer, and jurist, wrote books and treatises on theology, jurisprudence, history, and Arabic grammar, some of which are still in use today.

Ahmad Baba was born on October 26, 1556, in Arawan, near the city of Timbuktu. At the time Timbuktu was part of the Songhai Empire, renowned for its dedication to Islamic scholarship. The city became a center of Islamic learning. Baba was a member of the influential Aqit family, who formed part of the ruling patriciate of Islamic scholars in Timbuktu. He studied Islamic theology and law, remaining an active part of the scholarly class in Timbuktu for most of his life. Ahmad Baba was a prolific writer, with a total of 56 works attributed to him, 32 of which still exist. Most of his works dealt with jurisprudence, but he also wrote on theological subjects, grammar, and historical biography. Ahmad Baba also wrote Kifayat al-Muktaj, a revision of the popular historical source Nayl al-Ibthikaj on Maliki Islam (see Islam). In addition to writing, Ahmad Baba was an avid collector, and his personal library contained thousands of volumes.

Although Baba lived most of his life in Timbuktu, he spent several years in exile in Marrakech, Morocco. In 1591 the sultan of Morocco invaded the Songhai Empire and took control of Timbuktu. The people of the city rebelled against the Moroccans in 1593 under the leadership of the local literati. In 1594 Mahmud ibn Zargun, the pasha of the region under the Moroccans, deported Ahmad Baba and other scholars to Marrakech. Despite his status as an exile, Ahmad Baba continued to teach and practice law with the permission of the Moroccan authorities, and it was here that he wrote Kifayat al-Muktal. After the death of the Moroccan sultan in 1607, Ahmad Baba returned to his native Timbuktu, where he died in 1627.

Further reading: “Ahmad Baba,” in Historical Dictionary of Mali 2nd ed., ed. Pascal James Imperato (Metuchen, N. J.: Scarecrow Press, 1986), 80-81; Elizabeth Heath, “Ahmad Baba,” in Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, eds. Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 1999), 53-54.

—Lisa M. Brady