ABSTRACT

European colonialism, both in Africa and the Middle East, also placed existing Arab-African contacts on an institutionalized basis, be it within the framework of a French African empire that included the Maghreb and much of West Africa or within the larger structures of imperial European trade and political relations. The net effect of the European presence was to freeze Arab-African contacts at the official level, but, on the other, to contribute to an expansion of Islam on the continent. On the Arab side, Lorna Hahn suggests that "in some instances, the anti-colonial struggle led Arabs to emphasize Arab contributions to world civilization—in contrast to the apparent lack of such contributions by Black Africans—as an indication of their own fitness for independence." The Arabs were barely able to mention their favorite topic, and even Nasser now took the opportunity to reverse course, asserting that economic integration must come before political unity and offering himself as a disinterested mediator in African disputes.