Do most people in Western Africa live as traveling herders?

No but those that live as travelling Traders are the Nomads

Explanation:

A nomad is an individual from a community without fixed home which routinely moves to and from similar territories. Such gatherings incorporate hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), and tinkers or trader nomads. In the 20th century, populace of Nomads gradually diminished, coming to an expected 30–40 million wanderers on the planet starting at 1995.

A Nomad is an individual with no settled home, moving here and there as a method of acquiring food, discovering field for domesticated animals, or in any case earning enough to pay the rent.

Migrant chasing and assembling following occasionally accessible wild plants and game is by a long shot the most established human means strategy. Pastoralists raise groups, driving or going with in examples that typically try not to drain pastures past their capacity to recuperate.

Nomadism is additionally a way of life adjusted to barren areas, for example, steppe, tundra, or ice and sand, where versatility is the most productive procedure for misusing scant assets

the factors that the economies of the muslim empires prosper were:

1- land trade routes-located between three continents  

2- sea trade routes

trade contributed to the spread of muslim empires, and with that islamic culture led to a growing feeling of internationalism resulted in the transfer of technology, science, and other cultural forms.