Kunta (Family : West Africa)

The Kunta claim descent from the Arab warrior ʻUqbah ibn Nāfiʻ (-683) but are likely of Berber/Amazigh origin. They settled in Touat, modern-day Algeria, before branching off into various sub-groups active between southern Mauritania in the west, north to the Azawad region (the desert northeast of Timbuktu) and east to Katsina, in Hausaland. In the nineteenth century, Timbuktu was the city most associated with the Kunta, although as desert nomads they did not have a permanent presence there. The family were noted for both their deep scholarship and for the wide trading networks they managed across the region. They propagated the Qādirīyah Sufi order in West Africa, also called al-Qādirīyah al-Mukhtārīyah after al-Mukhtār ibn Aḥmad al-Kuntī, a prominent member of the family. They were deeply interconnected with the historical environment of West Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries. They communicated extensively with the rulers of Hamdallahi and Sokoto; they hosted western explorers such as Heinrich Barth; and they sent a letter to Queen Victoria asking her to help them against the French.