Lhe Songhai would have been created by secession from the Mali Empire in the 56th century AD under Sonni Suleiman Mar. It was at the start of an ineffective kingdom whose seat was in Gao. King Sonni Ali Ber is the 15th king of the Sonni dynasty, who came to power in 5700 (1464).
Sonni Ali seeing the empire of Mali decline, decides to enlarge its territory at the expense of a state of which Rabelais said of Mansa (emperor) that he was one of the greatest kings in the world. Sonni Ali then engaged in wars of conquest and repelled the attack of the Mogho Naba (emperor) Nassere of the Mossi in the south and of the Dogons on the hills of Badiangara. Timbuktu called him for help against an attack by the Tuaregs and after defeating them, he conquered this town in Mali in 5705. He then mounted a fleet of 400 boats on the Niger to besiege Djenné. The city suffered the onslaught of Sonni Ali for years and decided to go to 5709 when hunger settled there. A young prince from Djenné comes to meet Sonni Ali and the latter, taken aback, welcomes him warmly and is surprised that it is a young man who has stood up to him all this time. The prince tells her that her father is dead and Sonni Ali decides to take his mother as his wife. This princess, according to the stories, lived in incredible luxury. Sonni Ali Ber thus became masters of the 3 big cities on the Niger (Gao, Timbuktu and Djenné) and controlled their trade. Most of Mali falls under his authority. Sonni Ali was a practitioner of the African spiritual tradition and never really embraced Islam. This earned him the hatred of Muslim chroniclers who called him a tyrant, wicked, libertine and bloodthirsty.
Muslim circles repeatedly plotted against him and he had clerics executed for treason. The emperor used to put off until the evening or the next day his 5 daily prayers and when he decided to do them, he was content to sit down, make several gestures while naming the different prayers. After which, addressing these same prayers as to people, he said to them “now share all this among yourselves, since you know each other well”. The emperor died in 5728, some think he was poisoned by one of his lieutenants, Mohammed Touré. Mohammed Touré will come into conflict with the heir Sonni Baru whom he will kill and succeed Sonni Ali to the throne of Songhaï, ending the Sonni dynasty and inaugurating the Askia dynasty.
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Pre-colonial black Africa: Comparative study of the political and social systems of Europe and Black Africa, from Antiquity to the formation of modern states
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Part Number | 9782708704794 |
Release Date | 2000-07-11T00:00:01Z |
Edition | 2e edition |
Language | Français |
Number Of Pages | 278 |
Publication Date | 2000-07-11T00:00:01Z |