Wagadu also known as Awkar was a West African empire based in the modern-day southeast of Mauritania and western Mali that existed from c. 300 until c. 1100. The Empire was founded by the Soninke people and was based in the capital city of Koumbi Saleh. The Wagadu Empire was one of the largest producers of gold in Africa. All the gold belonged to the king. Every golden nugget, weighing between twenty-five grams and half a kilogram, became the king’s property.
The Wagadu Empire covered the area of modern-day Mauritania, Senegal, and Mali. The Wagadu Empire existed between the 4th and 11th centuries and its rulers had the title ghana (‘warrior king’). This is the reason Arab merchants referred to the empire as the Ghana Empire. Each day, the king gave 10.000 meals to his subjects. In the mornings, he would ride around the capital to resolve disputes among his people. The capital of the empire was Koumbi Saleh with 15.000 citizens and it comprised two cities. In the first city lived the Wagadu people and the second city had a community of Arab and Berber merchants.
The empire was also located on major routes of the Trans-Saharan trade network, where it traded in gold, ivory, salt, kola, and cloth. Control of these routes were crucial to its expansion and success; especially once West African gold was in high demand throughout the Islamic world and beyond. Much of the empire was ruled through tributary princes who were probably the traditional chiefs of these subject clans. The Ghanaian king also imposed an import-export tax on traders and a production tax on gold, which was the country’s most valuable commodity. The Ghana Empire lay in the Sahel region to the north of the West African gold fields and was able to profit from controlling the trans-Saharan gold trade.
The kings of ancient Ghana were authoritarian. They inherited rule through their mother's side of the family – matrilineal rather than patrilineal as with kings in Europe at the time – and they claimed descent from an original ancestor whom they believed had first settled the land. Ghana's king was the leader of a religious cult that was served by devoted priests, and the king's subjects were obliged to view him as divine and as too exalted to communicate directly with them.
According to the 11th-century Spanish-Arab chronicler Abū ʿUbayd al-Bakrī, the king welcomed to his capital many of the northern African traders of the Sahara, who, after the Arab conquest in the 8th century, had been converted to Islam. The principal raison d’etre of the empire was the desire to control the trade in alluvial gold, which had led the nomadic Amazigh peoples of the desert to develop the western trans-Saharan caravan road. Gold was secured, often by mute barter, at the southern limits of the empire and was conveyed to the empire’s capital, where a Muslim commercial town developed alongside the native city. There the gold was exchanged for commodities, the most important of which was salt, that had been transported southward by northern African caravans.
The Wagadu army used iron weapons, which gave them an edge over their opponents. At its peak, around 1000 AD, the Wagadu Empire had a standing army of 200.000 soldiers, including 40.000 archers. Although Ghana received great riches from its subordinates, it did not rely on them for its economic growth.
The people of Ghana protected their good relations with Muslim traders, allowed Muslims to live in its cities, and even encouraged Muslim advisers to help the royal court with its administration of legal issues, the kingdom never converted to Islam. The Muslim religion had been the main faith in northern Africa since the 8th century and Ghana's northern neighbors were dedicated believers. These Muslims called themselves the Almoravids and in 1076, in the 11th century, they declared a holy war, or “jihad”, against Ghana under the leadership of Abdullah ibn Yasin.
It is clear, however, that Ghana was incorporated into the Mali Empire, according to a detailed account of al-'Umari, written around 1340 but based on testimony given to him by the "truthful and trustworthy" shaykh Abu Uthman Sa'id al-Dukkali, a long term resident. In al-'Umari/al-Dukkali's version, Ghana still retained its functions as a sort of kingdom within the empire, its ruler being the only one allowed to bear the title malik and "who is like a deputy unto him.
Several factors contributed to the decline of this prosperous empire. The trade routes changed, the new ones opened further east. Additionally, bigger gold mines began operating in modern-day Guinea. These changes caused the Wagadu Empire to lose the monopoly over trade and gold. Cattle overgrazed and pastures changed into a desert. Less arable land meant less food. A series of droughts in the 11th century worsened food issues. The kingdom of Ghana was finally destroyed and many of its people converted to Islam. After this the once powerful state lost its military and commercial power.