Songhay Kingdom

9 Key excerpts on "Songhay Kingdom"

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  Routledge Library Editions: International Islam

  • Various(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  For a period in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth cen- turies Songhay appears to have been part of the domain of the emperor of Mali. The Ta'rikh al-Sudan states that a certain 'Ali Golom, son of the twelfth Dia, Assibai, and a former captain of the Mali army, freed Songhay from the Mali yoke and ruled Songhay under a new dynastic title of Shi or Sunni, but no date is given for this. The same work also states that Songhay passed under Mali control while Mansa Musa the Mali ruler was away on pilgrimage (1321-24) and that he visited Gao and Timbuktu on his return. However, a seventeenth-century fragment of a work which appears to be a resume of the Ta'ri/ch al-fattash states that Mansa Musa went on pilgrimage in the reign of the Shi Makara, who was apparently the fourth Shi after 'Ali Golom. This would suggest that 'Ali Golom came to power some time in the second half of the thirteenth century. It may well be that Mali's hold over Songhay was ephemeral and that dominion was re-established a number of times. including once under Mansa Musa. The descendants of Shi 'Ali Golom all used the same title, but form part of the Dia patrilineage and are not to be considered a new dynasty. The eighteenth Shi was 'the oppressor, the libertine, the aggressor and tyrant' (T/Sudan, p. 64). 'Ali-Ber ('Ali the Great) known to history as Sunni 'Ali (reg. A.D. 1464-92.) Rouch (Contrihution, p. 185), basing himself on Dubois' paraphrase of Al-Maghili (Tomhouctou, p. 122), speaks of Religion and State in the Songhay Empire, 1464-1591 127 'l'evolution religieuse de Sonni 'Ali', and concludes that Sunni 'Ali began his reign as a Muslim and then reverted to idol worship and magic later on. This sounds like a plausible hypothesis on the surface, but it is unfortunately based on an inaccurate trans- lation of Al-Maghili's Arabic.

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  Slaves and Slavery in Africa

  Volume Two: The Servile Estate

  • John Ralph Willis(Author)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  II Notes on Slavery in the Songhay Empire

  J.O.Hunwick

  This paper is an attempt to assemble and, so far as is possible, to analyse the information available on the institution of slavery in a single African state. Although there was a Songhay state from as early as the eighth century in all probability, virtually nothing is known of its history and institutions until the time when it expanded from its nucleus in Songhay proper1 to become an imperial power in the second half of the fifteenth century, asserting its complete domination over the Middle Niger “from Kanta to Sibiridugu”2 and raiding and exacting tribute from a much wider belt of the Sahel from the R. Senegal to the Air massif and northern Hausaland.3 Slavery, of course, existed in the area long before the fifteenth century and continued to exist long after the destruction of the Songhay empire by the forces of the Sa‘dian sultan al-Mansur. But the particular interest in restricting this inquiry to the epoch of imperial Songhay (roughly the period 1450–1600) lies in the light such an inquiry may throw on the social and economic institutions of a single cohesive and highly organised African state and of the ways in which Islam may have affected traditions of slavery and servitude in such a state. The period is treated as a unity despite the change of dynasty from the Sunnis to the Askias in 1493. The change appears to have had no influence on slavery as an institution, except in so far as the enslavement of Muslims under the Askias was much less common.

  The sources upon which this study is based are regrettably very limited. There are the two well-known chronicles, the Ta’rikh al-Sudan written in Timbuktu in c.1655 by ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sa‘di4 and the Ta’rikh al- Fatash, a work written by several hands and compiled in its original form c. 1655 by Ibn al-Mukhtar, a descendant of the qadi of Tindirma Mahmud Ka‘ti.5 In addition there are two works of a juridical nature: the “Replies” of the North African scholar al-Maghili to the questions of Askia al-hajj Muhammad I, written probably in Gao, c.1498,5a and the replies entitled Mi‘raj al-su‘ud or al-Kashf wa’l bayan li-asnaf majlub al-sudan written by the Timbuktu jurist Ahmad Baba in 1608 in reply to questions sent to him from the Saharan oasis of Tuwat.6 The final source is the seventh part of Leo Africanus’s Della Discrittione dell‘Africa first published in 1550 and containing information on the Middle Niger gathered by the author in the course of two journeys in the area in the early years of the sixteenth century.7

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  A History of West Africa

  • Toyin Falola(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  22 The Mali Empire occupied a very strong position, with impressive accomplishments in philosophy, indigenous knowledge systems, and political management. The empire was structured to lean on spiritual and Islamic beliefs, with an economic system that brought about the class stratification of those who were higher in social status and those who were lower. Power relations between genders constituted another integral part of their political system, and there were stipulated etiquettes that governed political participation and power distribution in society. The Mali Empire asserted a great deal of political power exercised by the center, which superseded all subsidiary units.

  The Songhai Empire

  The third and last of the major Western Sudanese empires was the Songhai Empire, which succeeded Mali by the fourteenth century. The dominance of empires rarely went unchallenged, going by the reality that a highly centralized government was always prone to intermittent internal and external aggressions. This occurred especially when the political drivers maintaining its existence were conquered or dead. Even if the former was impossible, perhaps because of the military infrastructure in place, the latter was inevitable as successful kings would not live forever. As Mali expanded geographically and became politically impenetrable, other emerging groups sought available opportunities to overtake it and become the new center of power.

  Here was the Songhai Empire, which rose to prominence as soon as Mali’s sovereignty was challenged and its political pride severely wounded. As Mali faltered nearly half a decade before Mansa Sulaymān’s reign ended,23 it paved the way for a strong Songhai Empire to take over.24 Perhaps because this newly fledgling empire had consciously learned from the downfall of the previous rulers, critically studying the reason for their eventual weakness, Songhai decided on a different approach to systematize its relationship with its subsidiaries. Power distribution in the Songhai Empire was different because it was a heterogeneous society reflective of plural identities and societies.25

  The diversity in the Songhai Empire was institutionalized by a political system that enabled representation to break the walls of ethnic affiliation. It bolstered a system where political participation transcended familial loyalties, evoking what Francis Fukuyama referred to as “natural sociability.”26 This means that the empire was symbolic and can be linked to some ideas in a modern democracy, in which heterogeneity was well managed to recognize different identities. From the tenth century until circa 1591, Songhai had an imposing political dynasty that was able to manage resources and people.27

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  Worship Music Culture

  • John R DeValve(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Regnum

    (Publisher)

  18

  Askia Muhammad abdicated the throne in 1528, blind, frail, and unable any longer to govern. The Askia dynasty continued throughout the sixteenth century, but only one king, his son Askia Dawud (1549–1583), approached his brilliance and greatness. After Dawud’s reign, the Songhai Empire rapidly declined under a succession of weak rulers, internal quarrels, and threats from enemies.19

  The end came quickly. In 1590, 4,000 Moroccans traversed the Sahara, hoping to seize control of the rich trans-Saharan commerce and the gold fields rumored to be held by the Songhai. With primitive firearms, the Moroccans on March 13, 159120 defeated an army of up to 40,000 Songhai warriors armed only with spears, swords, and bows. They captured the cities of Timbuktu and Gao, inflicting heavy casualties on the Songhai and forcing them downriver. The promised riches, however, never fully materialized, and the Moroccans found Songhai territory difficult to govern from afar, eventually abandoning the enterprise three decades later. The descendants of the Moroccan soldiers continued to dominate Songhai territory from Timbuktu, but they were unable to maintain control south of Gao.21

  Three Centuries of Decline

  The effects of the Moroccan invasion on Songhai were catastrophic. Not only was the empire destroyed but also the major cities were looted and burned. A process of rapid decline set in. Trade across the Sahara and with the forest lands diminished, not only because of the invasion and resulting chaos but also because Europeans began to develop more efficient and lucrative maritime trade routes along the coast.22 The population of the great cities declined while the colleges fell into ruin and decay, their professors forced into exile and their priceless manuscripts destroyed or stolen. Raiding and warfare resulted in desertification, and many fields were taken out of cultivation. Disastrous droughts, plagues, and famines stalked the land.23 The empire broke up into many warring city states and petty kingdoms, with each of the subject peoples declaring independence. Stability across the region deteriorated, and the peace and unity of the glory days melted away into a semi-permanent state of anarchy, insecurity, and poverty.24

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  The New Cambridge History of Islam: Volume 2, The Western Islamic World, Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries

  • Maribel Fierro(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  That, and shortly after- wards the occupation of Timbuktu, brought about irreversible changes. The learned civil elites of Timbuktu, the central seat of learning in the Su ¯da ¯n, and now the seat of a foreign military government, gradually lost its autonomy and reputation. The Songhay state of Gao, the latest in a line of powerful West African states, crumbled as well. With the fragmentation of power, political authority was parcelled out among local centres. All along the Sahel, from Bagirmi and Wa ¯day in the east, to the Bambara territory in the west, small states came into being. Most, if not all, displayed the traces of the slow but persistent conversion of local collec- tives; clans of chiefs, tribal fractions, linguistic or ethnic minorities and even specific occupational groups gave voice to various forms of profession of an Islamic faith. The mobility of some of these groups, like the ‘cattle’-Fulbe from the two Futas, or the Wangara-Dyula traders from the heartlands of Mali, effected new patterns of the spread of Islam in black Africa. During the ‘age of empires’, Muslim existence south of the Sahara could be, very generally, depicted as one in quarantine. Muslims, hitherto, were newcomers: arriving as individuals or in family units, as traders, refugees, travellers or profes- sionals, they settled in confined areas, which sometimes developed into urban quarters, and offered their religious services. But they did not remain out- siders. Court functions, regeneration by intermarriage, migration and reset- tlement, diffused their norms of behaviour, their legal and moral values and their special skills throughout the urban centres where they had lived among themselves and retained their proper religious standards. Examples of this process of intermingling, both socially as well as geographically, abound during the tenth/sixteenth century. In particular, Muslim existence in rural areas became common, albeit marginal.

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  Mali

  A Search For Direction

  • Pascal James Imperato(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  19 Thereafter, Mali broke up into small independent chiefdoms, and the Keitas retreated to Kangaba, where they became provincial chiefs.

  At its peak in the fourteenth century, Mali extended from Senegal and Gambia in the west to Gao in the east and from what is now southern Mali to Walata in the Sahara. The Keita dynasty of Mali was unique in the early states of the Western Sudan in that it ruled for four centuries. In other states, even founding dynasties were overthrown. This staying power reflects both the prestige of the Keita dynasty and the almost religious respect with which it was held. For in spite of disputes at court, usurpations, and the eventual erosion of the empire's periphery, the dynasty survived and continued to rule a Malinke homeland. Mali's principal weakness was that it was a heterogeneous empire in which difficulties at the imperial center opened the way for revolts at the periphery. The weakening at the center was frequently rectified by strong rulers or powerful usurpers who quickly retrieved lost provinces. Mali's retreat from the eastern Sahel opened the way for the emergence of Songhay hegemony in this area.

  Songhay

  The Songhay Empire began as a small chiefdom along the banks of the Niger River in present-day eastern Mali. The impetus for its growth and that of its capital, Gao, was the salt trade that originated in the Taghaza mines in the Sahara and the gold trade, over which Songhay assumed control after Mali's decline. According to some traditions, the rulers of Songhay converted to Islam in the early eleventh century. Songhay was then a vassal state of Mali, and in 1324 and 1325 Kankan Moussa, the Mali ruler, visited Gao and received the homage of Za Yassiboi, the Songhay ruler. Two of Za Yassiboi's sons traveled to Mali with Kankan Moussa. One of them, Ali Kolon, escaped and returned to Songhay, where he eventually succeeded his father as ruler around 1335. He took the name Sonni (meaning savior) and established a lineage that lasted until 1492. There were a total of twenty Sonni kings, the most eminent of whom was the next to last, Sonni Ali Ber (d.1492), who ruled from 1465 to 1492, A warrior-king, he greatly expanded Songhay, conquered Timbuctoo, annexed parts of Mali, and eventually made Songhay independent of the latter.20

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  Caravans of the Old Sahara

  An Introduction to the History of the Western Sudan

  • E. W. Bovill(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  XV

  THE FALL OF THE SONGHAI EMPIRE

  Neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. ISAIAH xiii. 20.

  N O quality in the character of the Western Sudanese so excited the admiration of the early Arab and European explorers as their love of peaceful pursuits. Nevertheless the population contained many subversive elements. The great number of mutually hostile tribes springing from many different stocks, the varying degrees of civilization, a diversity of religious beliefs, a widely diffused predatory instinct, and an almost total absence of natural geographical boundaries weresome of the factors which combined to throw the country into turmoil directly the restraining hand of a powerful central authority was removed.

  It is not surprising to find, therefore, that the immediate sequel to the defeat of the Songhai army by Judar at Tondibi was a general outbreak of anarchy and brigandage. The news of the flight of Askia Ishak and his shattered forces let loose all the turbulent elements and produced chaos throughout those parts of the tottering empire which had not yet felt the direct impact of the invader. The tribes who had been under the tutelage of Songhai, flushed with the excitement of their unexpected liberation, abandoned themselves to orgies of licence and excess. The Fulani and the Zagrana (who have not been identified with certainty) flung themselves upon the Songhai peasants of the lacustrine region above Timbuktu. The rich province of Jenne was ravaged from end to end by hordes of pagan Bambara, whose especial object was the abduction of Muslim women. The Tuareg, who had held the Songhai in respect, grew bolder in their raids on the riverain peasantry. ‘Security gave place to danger,’ wrote Es Sadi, ‘wealth to poverty, distress and calamities and violence succeeded tranquillity. Everywhere men destroyed each other; in every place and in every direction there was plundering, and war spared neither life nor property nor persons. Disorder was general and spread everywhere, rising to the highest degree of intensity.’1

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  The Performance of Healing

  • Carol Laderman, Marina Roseman, Carol Laderman, Marina Roseman(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  gasi ), the roar of the deities, and the murmur of the audience have long echoed in the dry air above Songhay villages. The Songhay, who trace their origin to the eighth century, have a long and glorious history, the peak of which was the Songhay Empire of Askia Mohammed Toure (1493–1528). Possession ceremonies, which probably date to Toure’s reign, are a major component of Songhay religion (Olivier de Sardan 1982, 1984; Stoller 1989a). They are ceremonies in which visions and sounds are fused to recreate Songhay experience from mythic past to realistic present.

  Possession and the Songhay Cosmos

  Islam, which first spread to Songhay in the eleventh century, has had a long and powerful presence there. Yet Songhay cosmology blends both Islamic and indigenous concepts. According to Adamu Jenitongo, my principal teacher in Songhay, the Songhay world consists of seven heavens, seven hells, and earth, on which there are four cardinal directions. This seven-heaven concept derives from Islam. Most Songhay divide life on earth into two elementary domains: the world of social life and the spirit world, which Songhay call the world of eternal war. Meanwhile, God lives in the most distant, seventh heaven. Since God is so distant, contact with God comes only through the good offices of Ndebbi, God’s messenger, who inhabits the sixth heaven. Priests chant their magical incantations to Ndebbi, who then carries the message to God for a decision. Songhay elders are divided about which members of the spirit family reside in the second through fifth heavens. Some, including Adamu Jenitongo, suggest that these heavens house the ancestors (a Songhay notion); others maintain that they are the abode of angels (an Islamic notion).

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  Africans

  The History of a Continent

  • John Iliffe(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  More clearly than the long-distance trade of Songhay or Borno, Hausaland’s commerce was rooted in the agriculture, craft production, and local exchange of a population dense enough to escape some of the centrifugal tendencies of colonising societies. This, however, lay largely in the future. Sixteenth-century Hausaland was still racked by warfare as its new kingdoms jostled for supremacy. Behind these political changes in the savanna lay military innovations. Until perhaps the thirteenth century, infantry dominated West African battle- fields. Free bowmen were the core of Mali’s army, while warfare among stateless peoples often resembled a tournament with few casualties. Horses reached the savanna from the north during or even before the first millen- nium ad , but they apparently either lost size in a less favourable environment or were small ponies that gave their owners an advantage in mobility rather than combat, especially because they were ridden without saddles, stirrups, or bits. These are the horses depicted in the magnificent terracotta statuettes excavated from the Niger Valley. Larger breeds of war-horses with the necessary harness probably reached West Africa during the thirteenth cen- tury. The model may have been the Mamluk cavalry of Egypt, for their first use in the savanna is attributed to Mai Dunama Dibalemi (c. 1210–48) of Kanem, the state most in touch with Egypt. Mali adopted the new techniques by the 1330s. The Kano chronicle attributed them to Sarki Yaji (c. 1349–85). Wolof states possessed a few horses by the 1450s and Songhay had an important cavalry force by the time of Sonni Ali (1464–92), whose power may have rested on it. The innovation then spread southwards. The Yoruba 78 africans: the history of a continent state of Oyo, for example, probably adopted cavalry during the sixteenth century.

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