of contact with Sudanese kingdoms and of trading initiatives, mainly geared towards gold and slavery, we have very few accounts or overviews of Africa, its peoples, their character traits and history. The speculative and descriptive geography did not reveal anything specific to the old continent. As for the term Ifriqiya, this designated the eastern Maghreb and presented no analogy whatsoever with the name that would later be given to the 'dark continent'. The latter was seen as an archipelago of wild lands inhabited by scattered peoples, which extended to the fringes of the Maghreb, the Sahelo-Sudanese strip, the shores of the Red Sea and the lands bordering the Indian Ocean and the Sea of Zanj. Early travel accounts described a hostile world inhabited by primitive populations; paradoxically, they were of major interest because of trading opportunities in gold, precious wood, ivory and enslaved people.  
How were these territories, criss-crossed for long periods by traders familiar with long-term trade, so cloaked in silence? However, if the Arab merchants had been endowed with audaciousness and commercial skill alone it is unlikely that they could have extracted so much profit from such a remote and perilous undertaking. Those taking such risks must have had an extensive knowledge of routes, stopovers and distances between the countries concerned. But that alone cannot explain the success of the Arab merchants. They also needed an accurate appreciation of the needs, habits, psychological inclinations, tastes and preferences of the African peoples.