Instead he centralized the bureaucracy, appointing virtually all of the mayors and provincial governors, established Sharia law throughout the empire, expanded Sankore University in Timbuktu and built numerous schools through Songhai. The new ruler, a devout Muslim, was responsible for few additional conquests. He continued to enlarge the empire, taking control of important Trans-Saharan trade routes as well as other cities and provinces of Mali.Īfter Sunni Ali Ber’s death in 1492, his son, Sonni Baru, became emperor but soon lost the throne to Askia (Emperor) Muhammad Toure one year later. Sunni Ali Ber, the military commander responsible for these victories, is widely considered the first great ruler of the Songhai Empire.
Songhai then began its own imperial expansion at the expense of Mali, conquering Mema in 1465 and three years later seizing Timbuktu, the largest city in the region, from the Taureg who had recently taken it from Mali. Recognizing the weakness at the center of Mali, Gao rebelled in 1375. Mali’s power however was eventually weakened by palace intrigue that interrupted the orderly succession of emperors. As the city and region grew in importance, the Malian Empire incorporated both as it expanded across the West African savanna. and established it as their capital in the 11th century during the reign of Dia Kossoi. The Songhai people founded Gao around 800 A.D. The cities of Timbuktu and Djenne were the other major cultural and commercial centers of the empire. Gao, Songhai’s capital, which remains to this day a small Niger River trading center, was home to the famous Goa Mosque and the Tomb of Askia, the most important of the Songhai emperors. From its capital at Gao on the Niger River, Songhai expanded in all directions until it stretched from the Atlantic Ocean (modern Senegal and Gambia) to what is now Northwest Nigeria and central Niger. The Songhai Empire was the largest and last of the three major pre-colonial empires to emerge in West Africa.
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