A Songhai kingdom in the region of Gao had existed since the eleventh century, but it had come under the control of Mali in 1325. In the late fourteenth century, Gao reasserted itself with the Sunni dynasty, which would in turn found the far-reaching Songhai Empire.
With the decline of the Malian Empire, the conquered city-state of Gao reasserted itself as the major kingdom in the Sahel. The people of Songhai were farmers and fisherman who lived along the Niger River of Western and Sahelian Africa. After centuries of trade with merchants from across the desert--mostly nomadic Berbers--they converted to Islam around the 1200s.
A Songhai kingdom in the region of Gao had existed since the eleventh century, but it had come under the control of Mali in 1325. In the late fourteenth century, Gao reasserted itself with the Sunni dynasty. Songhai would not fully eclipse Mali until the reign of the Sunni king, Sonni Ali, who reigned from 1464-1492.
Sonni Ali aggressively turned the kingdom of Gao into the Songhai Empire. Ali based his military on a cavalry and a highly mobile fleet of ships. With this military, he conquered the cities of Timbuctu and Djenne, the major cities of the previous Malian Empire. The nomadic Berber groups, who had always played such a crucial role in Sahelian kingdoms, were absorbed under the newly emerging Empire.
Roughly around the same year Christopher Columbus reached the western hemisphere, Askia Muhammad Toure (1493-1528), established the Askia dynasty of Songhai. Muhammad Toure continued Sonni Ali's imperial expansion by seizing the important Saharan oases and conquering Mali itself. From there he went on to conquer the land of the Hausas.
The vastness of Askia Mohammed's kingdom covered most of West Africa, larger than all of the European states of the era combined. With literally hundred of cultures under its control, Songhai ranked as one of the largest empires of the time. In order to maintain his large empire Muhammad Toure further centralized the government by creating a large and elaborate bureaucracy. He was also the first to standardize weights, measures, and currency, causing culture throughout Songhai to homogenize. Muhammad Toure, a fervent Muslim, he replaced traditional Songhai administrators with Muslims in order to "Islamicize" Songhai society.
He also appointed qadis, Muslim judges, to run the legal system under Islamic legal principles. These programs of conquest, centralization, and standardization were the most ambitious and far-reaching in Africa at the time. However, while urban centers were dominated by Islam non-urban areas retained traditional African spiritual systems. The majority of the common Songhai people of the time retained traditional African spiritual practices - even when accepting Islam. Thus within West African Islam itself, the many cultures that made up Songhai shaped various African traditional beliefs around it. This fusion of African spirituality and Islam was reflected in everything from philosophy to architecture.
Under the leadership of Askia Mohammed, the city of Timbuctu once again became a prosperous commercial city, reaching a population of 100,000 people. Merchants and traders traveled from Asia, the Middle East and Europe to exchange their exotic wares for the gold of Songhai. Timbuctu gained fame as an intellectual center rivaling many others in the Muslim world.
Students from far off had long come to Timbuctu's famous University of Sankore to study Law and Medicine. The medieval world sent emissaries to the University of Sankore to witness its excellent libraries with manuscripts and to consult with mathematicians, astronomers, physicians, and jurists whose intellectual endeavors were said to be paid for out of the king's own treasury.
Unfortunately for Songhai it was to be its very size that would lead to its downfall. A vastly spread empire, it encompassed more territory than could actually be controlled. After the reign of Askia Duad, subject peoples began to revolt. Even Songhai's massive army, said to be over 35,000 soldiers, archers and chain-mailed cavalry, could not keep order. The first major region to declare independence was Hausaland; then much of the Maghreb rebelled and gained control over crucial gold mines.
The Moroccans defeated Songhai in 1591 and the empire quickly collapsed. Their victory was due in part to new forms of European weaponry acquired from Spain and Portugal by the Moroccans. The Songhai rulers were forced to retreat southward to the Dendi region near the Niger River. They would retain ruler ship for a time over their own people, but the powerful military and prosperity of their empire would never recover.
Under the Moroccans the scholars at Timbuctu were arrested for treason and some even killed or taken back to Morocco. The university of Sankore destroyed. Ahmed Baba, a scholar of the time, is reputed to have lost over 1,500 books from his personal collection alone under the Moroccan occupation. By 1612, the remaining cities of Songhai fell into general disarray, with Morocco unable to keep the empire intact or safe from attack under their rule. Numerous states broke off to form smaller independent kingdoms or federations. And one of the greatest empires of West African history disappeared from the world stage.
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References:
Adeleke, Tunde. Songhay (Heritage Library of African Peoples- West Africa, 1996)
Hale, Thomas A., Mounkalia Maiga and Nouhou Malio The Epic of Askia Mohommad (1996)
Hunwick, John. Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Sa 'Di's Ta'Rikh Al-Sudan Down to 1613 and other Contemporary Documents (1999)
Mann, Kenny. Ghana, Mali and Songhai: The Western Sudan (1996)
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