Songhai Empire

Legacy

The manuscripts and mosques of Timbuktu and Gao recall a golden age of African scholarship, and the Songhai language is still spoken along the middle Niger.

Timeline of Songhai Empire

1. 1464
   c. 1464: Sonni Ali takes power at Gao

   Songhai was a kingdom on the middle Niger river, centred on Gao, that had once been subject to the Mali Empire. As Mali weakened in the 15th century, the Sonni dynasty of Gao grew more powerful. Around 1464 Sonni Ali, later called Sonni Ali Ber ('the Great'), came to power. A brilliant general, he built a powerful army and a fleet of boats on the Niger. Over his 28-year reign he turned a small state into an empire, and Songhai appears on the map as the rising power of the Niger Bend.

2. 1465
   Songhai conquers Mema from the Mali Empire

   Mema was a region west of Timbuktu and one of the oldest provinces of the Mali Empire. In the 1460s Sonni Ali's predecessor, Sulayman Dama, attacked it. According to the Mali Empire article, Songhai completed its conquest in 1465, early in Sonni Ali's reign. The article on Sonni Ali says Songhai already controlled the Niger valley as far as Mema when he came to power. The conquest pushed Songhai's frontier west into Mali's old heartland and marked the shift of power from Mali to Songhai.

3. 1468
   Sonni Ali takes Timbuktu from the Tuareg

   Timbuktu, the great trading and learning city on the Niger Bend, had been held by Tuareg Berbers since Mali lost it in 1433–1434. Its leaders asked Sonni Ali for help against the Tuareg. He took the city in 1468 (the Sonni Ali article dates the request to 1469). Muslim chroniclers accused him of brutality toward its people and especially its scholars, whom he saw as allies of the Tuareg. Controlling Timbuktu gave Songhai the terminus of the trans-Saharan caravan routes, and with it great wealth.

4. 1473
   Djenné surrenders after a long siege

   Djenné was a rich trading town in the inland Niger delta, linked by river to Timbuktu, and its people resisted Sonni Ali's attempts to take it. He used his fleet of river boats to lay siege to the town. According to tradition the siege lasted seven years, and in 1473 the starving townspeople finally surrendered (one passage in the Songhai Empire article gives 1475). With Djenné, Songhai controlled the trade of the whole middle Niger, from the gold-producing south to the Saharan routes.

5. 1492
   Sonni Ali dies; his son Sonni Baru succeeds

   Sonni Ali died on 6 November 1492 in uncertain circumstances (the Tarikh al-Sudan says he drowned while crossing the Niger), and his son Sonni Baru succeeded him. Like his father, who had practised a mixture of Islam and traditional religion, Baru drew his support from the traditional religious leaders of the Songhai. Muslim leaders in the towns distrusted him, and within months one of Sonni Ali's generals used Baru's lack of Islamic faith as the reason for a rebellion.

6. 1493
   Askia Muhammad defeats Sonni Baru at Anfao and takes power

   Muhammad Ture, one of Sonni Ali's generals, rose up against Sonni Baru in 1492, claiming that he was not a faithful Muslim. In April 1493 he defeated Baru at the Battle of Anfao, outside Gao, and took power with the title Askia. He founded the Askia dynasty and became known as Askia the Great. He reorganised the empire with a strong bureaucracy and a professional army, and he made Islam a pillar of his rule, inviting Muslim scholars to his court. Under him Songhai grew into one of the largest empires in African history.

7. 1496
   Askia Muhammad's pilgrimage to Mecca (dated 1496 or 1497–98)

   In 1496 Askia Muhammad set out on the pilgrimage to Mecca with 500 horsemen and 1,000 foot soldiers, carrying a great deal of gold (one source dates the journey to 1497–1498). He gave generously to charity, including a hostel in Medina for West African pilgrims, and returned nearly two years later with large debts. The titles of al-hajj and caliph that he brought back strengthened his religious prestige. He returned determined to spread Islam, building schools and mosques and bringing scholars to Timbuktu.

8. 1502
   Songhai defeats a Mali army and seizes Diafunu

   After his pilgrimage, Askia Muhammad launched a series of campaigns to expand the empire in every direction. To the west, his armies attacked the shrinking Mali Empire. According to the Mali Empire article, in 1502 Songhai forces defeated the Malian general Fati Quali Keita and seized the province of Diafunu, though the article on Askia Muhammad dates its capture to 1501. His campaigns also brought the salt mines of Taghaza in the Sahara within its borders.

9. 1528
   Askia Muhammad deposed by his son Musa

   By the 1520s Askia Muhammad was well over 70, ill and secretly blind, while his many sons quarrelled. In August 1528 his son Musa forced him to abdicate and took the throne. Musa ruled only three years before his own brothers killed him, and a later ruler exiled the old king to an island in the Niger. The empire entered a period of plots and civil wars, though it kept its territory. Askia Muhammad finally died in 1538.

10. 1549
    Askia Dawud's reign (to 1582) brings stability and victories

    After years of succession disputes, Askia Dawud, another son of Askia Muhammad, became ruler in 1549 and reigned for 33 years until 1582. His reign brought stability and security, and a string of military successes. He fought the Mossi and Borgu, and in 1550 and 1558 he attacked Mali, whose mansa gave him his daughter in marriage. But his army did not adopt firearms, and it still relied on spears and arrows. Meanwhile Morocco began demanding the revenues of the Taghaza salt mines, a sign of trouble to come.

11. 1590
    Ahmad al-Mansur of Morocco sends Judar Pasha across the Sahara

    Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur of Morocco wanted control of the trans-Saharan trade and believed, wrongly, that Songhai owned gold mines. When Askia Ishaq II refused his demand for payment for the Taghaza salt, he decided to invade. On 16 October 1590 an army left Marrakesh under Judar Pasha, a commander of Spanish origin, with thousands of soldiers, many armed with arquebuses (early muskets), and a train of 8,000 camels. Estimates of its size vary from 4,000 to 20,000 men. After a hard four-month crossing of the Sahara it reached the Niger in February 1591.

12. 1591
    Moroccan musketeers rout the Songhai at Tondibi; Gao sacked

    On 13 March 1591 the Moroccan army met the much larger Songhai army of Askia Ishaq II near Tondibi, just north of Gao. The Songhai tried to break the Moroccan lines with a stampede of cattle, but the Moroccans' guns turned the tide, and the Songhai cavalry fled or were cut down. Judar Pasha went on to sack Gao, whose people had already fled, then moved on to Timbuktu and Djenné. The Songhai Empire collapsed. Moroccan soldiers ruled the Niger Bend from Timbuktu, and Songhai disappears from the map.

Periods and reigns

• Sonni Ali 1464–1492
• Sonni Baru 1492–1493
• Askia Muhammad I 1493–1528
• Askia Musa 1528–1531
• Askia Muhammad Bonkana 1531–1537
• Askia Ishaq I 1539–1549
• Askia Dawud 1549–1582
• Askia al-Hajj 1582–1586
• Askia Muhammad Bani 1586–1588
• Askia Ishaq II 1588–1591

Rulers

• Sonni Ali 1464–1492

  Conqueror of Timbuktu and Djenné

• Askia Muhammad I 1493–1528

  Founder of the Askia dynasty; organised the empire

• Askia Dawud 1549–1582

  Long, prosperous reign

• Askia Ishaq II 1588–1591

  Defeated by Morocco at Tondibi

Realms on the map

• Songhai Empire 1463–1591