A Thousand Years

This epilogue discusses how, some four hundred years after its fall, the world was reminded of imperial Songhay's former glory when, in early January of 2012, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawād—or the MNLA—attacked the towns of Menaka and Aguelhok, leading to the collapse of the national army in northern Mali. However, the twenty-first century was not the first instance in which the modern world reflected on West African anterior history, though prior occasions were largely artistic in nature. In any case, through both real-world events and artistic creativity, enactments of West Africa's medieval past have filtered into contemporary consciousness. Even so, in turning from the popular to the academic, histories purporting to convey a sense of global development since antiquity continue to ignore Africa's contributions, not merely as the presumed site of human origins, but as a full participant in its cultural, technological, and political innovations. The epilogue then summarizes the full trajectory of West African history examined in the previous chapters.

Surfeit and Stability: The Era of Askia Dāwūd

This chapter details the thirty-four-year reign of Askia Dāwūd, which punctuates the bloodletting of the nadir, with Dāwūd turning from his remaining brothers to his own children to fill key positions of authority. This essentially meant the descendants of Askia Muḥammad, the Mamar hamey, were now favored over the scions of Kanfāri ʻUmar, the third royal branch. In the process, Dāwūd reclaimed some of the power previously ceded to Songhay's stakeholders. Askia Dāwūd's reign also saw the dramatic expansion of domestic slavery. Though significant throughout the dynasties of the Sunnis and the Askias, the numbers under Dāwūd became so pronounced, their exploitation so extensive, that the period constitutes a stage of evolutionary development. Slavery as qualified reciprocity is the mechanism by which its relationship to servitude and caste will be explored, as well as its intimate connection to spirituality.

Mansā Mūsā and Global Mali

This chapter describes Mali's most legendary figure: Mansā Mūsā. A remarkable period of stability and expansion ensued under Mansā Mūsā, resulting in a West Africa at its pinnacle. Mūsā would embrace Islam emphatically, breaking with predecessors by building mosques in key cities, laying the foundation for Mali's reputation as a Muslim land. Islam would soon become a principal cultural signifier, articulating a realm of growing ethnic diversity while compensating for an imperial presence guided by a minimalist theory of governance. For all of Mūsā's accomplishments, however, he would never fully escape rumors of matricide and intrigue. But in paying close attention to what the sources say, it is as critical to note what they do not say, which leads to the stunning realization that the very zenith of the Malian moment is essentially disregarded in the oral traditions.

The Middle Niger in Pre-Antiquity and Global Context

This chapter discusses the consistent omission of early and medieval Africa in world and imperial histories. West Africa is certainly left out of the narrative of early human endeavor, and only tends to be mentioned, with brevity, in conjunction with European imperialism. Nevertheless, substantial archaeological work has been underway in West Africa for decades, particularly in the middle Niger valley. For it was during the period of the Shang, Chou, Shin, Han, and Tang dynasties of China, the Vedic period in India, and the Mayans in central America, that another urban-based civilization flourished in West Africa, in the Middle Niger region. The chapter then considers the history of civilization in the Middle Niger, which is a study of the multiple ways in which communities continually adjust to and engage with one of the more “variable and unpredictable” environments in the world. Indeed, the story of the Middle Niger connects directly with the celestial preoccupations of big history in that much of its climatic variability is explained by slight alterations in solar radiation, produced in turn by the intricacies of the sun's cyclical patterns.

Prologue

This prologue provides an overview of the history of early and medieval West Africa. During this period, the rise of Islam, the relationship of women to political power, the growth and influence of the domestically enslaved, and the invention and evolution of empire were all unfolding. In contrast to notions of an early Africa timeless and unchanging in its social and cultural categories and conventions, here was a western Savannah and Sahel that from the third/ninth through the tenth/sixteenth centuries witnessed political innovation as well as the evolution of such mutually constitutive categories as race, slavery, ethnicity, caste, and gendered notions of power. By the period's end, these categories assume significations not unlike their more contemporary connotations. All of these transformations were engaged with the apparatus of the state and its progression from the city-state to the empire. The transition consistently featured minimalist notions of governance replicated by successive dynasties, providing a continuity of structure as a mechanism of legitimization. Replication had its limits, however, and would ultimately prove inadequate in addressing unforeseen challenges.

Of Clerics and Concubines

This chapter argues that while the religious leaders of Timbuktu and Jenne enjoyed unrivaled prestige, there were other actors who, though receiving scant attention in the secondary materials, were nonetheless significant figures. Specifically, holy men associated with the Mori Koyra community played influential roles, as did royal women, including, and especially, the royal concubines. Indeed, women were a critical component of the askia's strategy in realizing an ethnic pluralism that would transform relations between the clan and the state, such that loyalties to the former could be accommodated within the latter. Buoyed by a resurgent economy, stellar scholarship, and the reconfiguration of political fealty, Songhay experienced a new age of cosmopolitanism. With so many accomplishments, it is little wonder Askia Muḥammad is revered as one of the most important leaders in West African history, his policies a template for Muslim reformers for centuries to come.

Intrigue, Islam, and Ibn Baṭṭūṭa

This chapter explores the writings of Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, which provide a glimpse into a post-Mansā Mūsā Mali in initial decline. Suffering from invidious comparison with his brother, Sulaymān's reign is yet remarkable in including an episode featuring a demoted wife, Qāsā, challenging for the leadership of his vast empire. It is also with Sulaymān that the pivot to North Africa begins. However, relations between the regions are less than transparent, an opacity reflecting ambiguity that would lead to misunderstanding and, eventually, open conflict. Though waning as a regional power, Mali was highly successful in achieving a paradigm in which Islam and polity worked in close cooperation. This intimate association of culture and statecraft would completely transform the politics of the region for centuries to come. Critical to this new model of West African statecraft were efforts to reimagine and situate the region within the larger Muslim context.

The Meanings of Sunjata and the Dawn of Imperial Mali

This chapter assesses the narrative of the rise of imperial Mali and the life of its founder, Sunjata. Sunjata and Mali's origins are at the center of an involved discussion of sources and method. As such, a layering of testimony is critical to uncovering Mali's imperial transformation, and more important than whether it was completed under Sunjata is the subsequent deployment of his person and period as vehicles of authentication. Perhaps the most poignant example of this is Sunjata's exile, for which issues of historicity fade in comparison with its purpose as a charter for central and provincial power. Similarly, the conquest of the Susu, though highly probable, also establishes the basis for Mali's enduring regional claims. The oral traditions also contain key insights into early Mali's relationship to Islam, evincing a careful balancing act between ancestral and Islamic principles and forces.

Early Gao

This chapter examines Gao's early historical significance, which is often relegated in the scholarship on early West Africa. This tendency issues from a failure to more critically assess the region's two most important thirteenth/seventeenth-century chronicles; a far more plausible rendering of Gao's importance forms when considering those chronicles in conjunction with the external sources, the archaeological record, and the epigraphic evidence. Further contesting the secondary literature is the conclusion that these very different sources are far more harmonious than has been represented. But in closely examining the sources, the very concept of bilād as-sūdān, or “land of the blacks,” must be attenuated, as it does not conform to the demographic realities of North and West Africa. The chapter then explains that Gao represents a crossroads to and through which migrated whole communities across an often artificial divide between Sahara and Savannah.

The Rending Asunder: Dominion’s End

This chapter describes how, between Askia Dāwūd's death in 990–91/1582–83 and the Battle of Tondibi in 999/1591 that marked the beginning of Morocco's occupation, the empire endured the tumultuous reigns of four askias, the depravations of famine, and a civil war so destructive that Timbuktu's religious elites felt compelled to intervene. Less than ten years following the death of Askia Dāwūd, imperial Songhay lay in utter ruin, never more to rise. It is no small irony that an enslaved official was at the epicenter of exigency, nor that slaves were strategically positioned to influence events, nor that those events prominently featured enslaved soldiers. Elites, whether political actors or shaykhs, were therefore as dependent on as they were dominant over slaves. The Moroccan invasion would arrive at a most unpropitious time.