Ouadane, which UNESCO, along with its peers Chinguetti, Tichit and Oulata, classifies as a World Heritage Site, is located at an altitude of 400 meters above sea level and more than 600 km from Nouakchott, and 93 km to the northeast of its famous counterpart, Chinguetti.
condemned in history
Despite Chinguetti’s fame, Wadan preceded it in its upbringing and prosperity, according to the Mauritanian historian Muhammad Al-Mukhtar Al-Saad, “Wadane was most likely founded in the ranges of 536-540/1142-1145 AD by students of Qadi Ayyad, whose reference here has more than historical and social significance. There are multiple accounts. Regarding the foundation, although the most common ones are those that they attribute to three pilgrims: Hajj Othman Al-Ansari, Al-Hajj Yaqoub Al-Qurashi, and Al-Hajj Ali Al-Sinhaji. Some narrations add a fourth pilgrim, Abdul Rahman Al-Saim.
Dr. Al-Saad explains to Sky News Arabia that “the first mention of Ouadan was mentioned in the year 850 AH / 1447 AD in a letter from a Genoese merchant in Tawat, before Portuguese writings in the 15th and 16th centuries mentioned it as the most powerful commercial center in (Bilad Zinj).
As mentioned by Azurara Azura Noting that it is “the only one in Sudan that is surrounded by a wall,” Kada Mosto said Ca Da Mosto who visited the area in 1455-1456. It is a six-day walk from the beach for a camel rider, and it engages in important commercial activities, and its inhabitants are from Sanhaja..
As for Valente Fernandez, Valantin Fernandes Who visited the region between 1506-1507, considered Ouadan the most important metropolis of Adrar at all. Pacheco Berra estimated Pacheco Pereira In the same period, the population of Ouadan numbered three hundred stoves, and he said that they were from Sanhaja Azenegues And that they are Muslims who adhere to the Mohammedan Sharia, and that the gold trade is active and important.”
Wadi Alam and Wadi Nakheel
The scholar Al-Wadani, the student Ahmed bin Atwair Al-Jananah, says in his book The Journey of Al-Muna and Al-Manna: “And one of the strangest oddities of the time is what the elites of Tripoli, its scholars, the imams of its mosques, and its common folk have told us about Wadan, which is that they still hear, in succession from an ancestor, old and new: Fezzani…”. So I pondered in my heart from where the knowledge of Waddan flew to Tripoli, with its very distance, and I understood that the reason for this was that Waddan, in an ancient time, had so much knowledge, and so many scholars, that you would find forty successive houses, in each of them a scholar. So, how about two or three scholars, including a house and two houses, and so on, and for that the origin of the derivation of two valleys: the fold of a valley of knowledge and a valley of palm trees.”
To this day, the residents of Ouadan tell stories that indicate how far their city has reached at the height of its prosperity, such as the story of the keys to student Idi.
The story, as told by Sky News Arabia, the grandson of the student Idi Muhammad Al-Mukhtar Syed Ahmed Al-Aidi, took place in the late nineteenth century. The student Idi returned one evening from his field seven kilometers from Ouadan to discover that he had forgotten his keys there, so he stood on the edge of the mountain and called the nearest farmer and asked him To tell the next farmer.. and the request moved from one farmer to another until the farmer next to the field of Taleb Idi, who gave the keys to his neighbor, and so it moved from one farmer to another until it reached its owner without any of them leaving his field.
Caravan Forum
For centuries, Wadan has been the most important presence in the desert, not only for its brilliance as a center of scientific and cultural radiation, but also for its importance in the desert trade system as a complex of trade routes on the western axis, and its control over the Salt Salt.
In his speech to Sky News Arabia, Mr. Muhammad Al-Mukhtar Al-Saad explains that the Portuguese “tried to establish a trading center in Bouadan between 1485-1490 to attract trade across the desert, and two campaigns reached it in 1544-43 and 1584. We do not know the circumstances in which the Portuguese presence was ended in They condemned neither the date of the end of their commercial activities in that region, and all we know is that Rodrigo Reinel, representative of the King of Portugal Jean II, received it with a hostile reception, forcing him to withdraw from it quickly, with great effort and a heavy price, and the Portuguese were satisfied with the exchange of Argin Center on the Atlantic coast. .
tourist destination
For decades, Ouadane has been attracting tourists, especially scholars who study the phenomenon of the Quill Heart, located 40 km from Ouedan, as well as those interested in the manuscripts contained in its ancient libraries.
The growing activity of armed groups in the region years ago led to a decline in tourism in the region, which greatly affected the residents of Ouedan, for whom tourism became one of their sources of income.. But the security approach adopted by Mauritania and international efforts to eliminate terrorism enabled this to return to life. activity, and the area began to witness a turnout of tourists again, as Wadan is now preparing to receive 200 European tourists, most of whom have arrived in the city.
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