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Songhay And Timbuktu
In the fourteenth century, Walata — which served as the southern terminus of the Saharan trade — was still more important as a commercial town than was Timbuktu. The emperor Mansa Musa sought to encourage intellectual life in Timbuktu and Malian scholars to study in Fez. By the first half of the fifteenth century the level of scholarship in Timbuktu was such that a student who came from the Hejaz realized that the scholars of Timbuktu surpassed him in the knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh).
Under Malian rule the imams of the Friday mosque were Sudanese. (A Friday mosque is the large mosque where a town’s entire population could gather for Friday prayer. A town could have many regular mosques but would most likely have only one Friday mosque.) After the Tuareg conquest of Timbuktu in 1433, scholars from the oases of the northern Sahara replaced Sudanese scholars as the imams of the Friday mosque. It was about the same time that the Sankore scholars, members of three Sanhaja families who had migrated from Walata, became prominent in Timbuktu. Those three Sanhaja families became very closely associated with Akillu, the Tuareg chief. When Sonni Ali, founder of the Songhay kingdom, conquered Timbuktu, Akillu brought a thousand camels to carry the fuqaha of Sankore to Walata. Those people of Sankore who had remained behind in Timbuktu were persecuted, killed, and humiliated by Sonni Ali because, he claimed, “they were close friends of the Tuareg.” Even a source as hostile to Sonni Ali as Tarikh al-Sudan (The history of the Sudan) admits that Sonni Ali’s persecution of the scholars of Timbuktu notwithstanding, “he acknowledged their eminence, saying: ‘without the ulama the world would be no good.’ He did favors to other ulama and respected them.” The ulama favored by Sonni Ali were the descendants of scholars who had come from the northern Sahara and beyond, who unlike the Sanhaja of the southern Sahara had no relations with the Tuareg, Sonni Ali’s enemies.
Sonni Ali combined elements of Islam with beliefs and practices of the Songhay traditional religion and was greatly respected as a magician-king. He observed the fast of Ramadan and gave abundant gifts to mosques, but he also worshiped idols and sought the advice and help of traditional diviners and sorcerers. He pronounced the shahadah (declaration of faith), without understanding its meaning. He prayed but was careless in observing the correct time of the prayers. Sonni Ali therefore was no different than most West African kings who maintained a middle position between Islam and the traditional religion, but he encountered unique historical circumstances. His successful military exploits brought him to rule over regions that had previously been under stronger Islamic influence. The political confrontation with the representatives of Islam, not the deficiency in the practice of Islam, brought about the declaration of Sonni Ali as an infidel. The legal and doctrinal justification of the takfir (charge of belief) against Sonni Ali, against the general consensus, was provided by the North African militant Muhammad ibn Abd al-Karim al-Maghili (d. 1503).
Shortly after Sonni Ali’s death his son was overthrown by Askiya Muhammad, a senior commander in Sonni Ali’s army, who entered into an alliance with the scholars of Timbuktu and with chiefs and governors of the more Islamized western provinces. A new balance was achieved between those provinces west of the Niger bend and Songhay proper, down the river, which remained strongly traditional and had hardly been affected by Islam. Askiya Muhammad made Islam one of the central pillars of the state. He made the pilgrimage to Mecca and visited Egypt on the way. There he met the Egyptian writer and Sufi teacher Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (1445–1505), who introduced him to the Abbasid caliph. According to al-Ifrani, Askiya Muhammad “took from him [al-Suyuti] his theological teachings and learned from him what is lawful and what is forbidden. He [Askiya Muhammad] also heard his [al-Suyuti’s] lessons on the precepts and prescriptions of the Shari’a and benefited from his advice and admonitions.” He came back with the title of caliph, which was granted him by the Abbasid caliph in Egypt.
From what is known about Songhay under the Askiyas (the royal title of the dynasty established by Askiya Muhammad), little was done in practice to reform the empire in line with Islamic political theory. The Askiyas sought the advice of the scholars of Timbuktu on religious issues rather than on matters of state policy, in which army commanders and other senior officials at the court were more influential. In 1498 Askiya Muhammad appointed Mahmud ibn Umar Aqit as qadi. He was succeeded by his three sons, who held office until the end of the sixteenth century. The transfer of the office of qadi to the Aqit family marked the growing influence of the Sankore Sanhaja scholars. As qadi Mahmud ibn Umar Aqit asserted his independence in Timbuktu to the extent that he sent away Askiya Muhammad’s messengers, preventing them from carrying out the askiya’s orders. There were also tensions in the next generation between Askiya Dawud, son of Askiya Muhammad, and the qadi al-Aqib, son of the qadi Mahmud. Once, following an exchange of hostile words, the qadi refused to see the Askiya, who was made to wait before the qadi’s home for a long time before he was given permission to enter. The Askiya humiliated himself before the qadi until reconciliation. There were other ulama in Songhay, who played the traditional role of Muslim divines in Sudanic states as intimate advisers whose relations with the rulers were devoid of the tensions between the Askiyas and the qadis. These ulama prayed for the ruler and recruited supernatural aid to protect him and his kingdom, receiving in return grants of land and charters of privilege. Such documents were known as hurma in Songhay and mahram in Bornu, meaning “sanctity,” “immunity,” or “inviolability.”
Askiya Muhammad was deposed in 1528 by his son Musa, who defied the intercession in the dispute with his brothers. This was a departure from the accepted norms of political conduct, a sign of the unmitigated rule of violence. The period of illegitimate despotism came to an end with the accession of Askiya Ismail in 1537. He set free his father, Askiya Muhammad, who in return ceremonially invested Askiya Ismail with the insignia that he had received in Cairo from the Abbasid caliph: a green gown, green cape, white turban, and an Arabian sword. Askiya Dawud, the last ruler in the line of Askiya Muhammad’s sons, ruled for thirty-three years (1549–82). As a prince he received a good Islamic education, and as king he continued to study with a shaykh who came to the palace every morning. He exceeded his father in generosity toward Muslim scholars. He gave his daughters in marriage to scholars and merchants. When one of the scholars of Timbuktu visited Askiya Dawud in his palace, he was shocked by the persistence of pre-Islamic practices at the court. “I was amazed when I came in,” the scholar said, “and I thought you were mad, despicable, and a fool, when I saw the people carry dust on their heads.” The askiya laughed and replied, “No, I was not mad myself, and I am reasonable, but I am the head of sinful and haughty madmen, and I therefore made myself mad to frighten them so that they would not act unjustly towards the Muslims.” Even a devoted Muslim like Askiya Dawud was therefore unable to relieve the monarchy of its pre-Islamic heritage.
There were between 150 and 180 Quranic schools in Timbuktu in the middle of the sixteenth century, which formed a broad basis for higher levels of learning in all the branches of the Islamic sciences. Students studied a subject with the scholar best known for his authority in that field. By the end of the sixteenth century scholarship in Timbuktu matched that of Morocco. During the time that the most prominent Muslim scholar in Timbuktu, Ahmad Baba (1556–1627), was exiled to Marrakesh (1594–1607), the leading scholars of the Maghreb, including the qadis of Fez and Meknes and the mufti of Marrakesh, came to hear his lessons. At that time intellectual life in Timbuktu was influenced by Egyptian scholars, with whom scholars from Timbuktu studied when they visited Cairo on their way to Mecca. Most of those scholars were from the Shafii school of law, with whom the Maliki scholars of Timbuktu studied subjects other than law, such as the hadith and mysticism. Scholarship in Timbuktu thus had wider exposure than the parochial Maliki scholars of Morocco. Indeed, the scholars of Timbuktu preferred the view of the more sophisticated Egyptian al-Suyuti to the zealous Maghrebi reformer Muhammad ibn Abd al-Karim al-Maghili on issues that were central to West African Muslims. Al-Suyuti saw no harm in the manufacture of amulets, provided there was nothing reprehensible in them, but al-Maghili was against any trade in amulets. Al-Suyuti gave license to some forms of association with non-Muslims, but al-Maghili insisted that between Muslims and infidels there was only jihad.
Sufism was brought to Timbuktu from the Maghreb and the northern Sahara in the fifteenth century. In the sixteenth century the leading scholars of Timbuktu were Sufis. Like contemporary Egyptian Sufis, they were not affiliated to any Sufi brotherhood (tariqah). Commerce seems to have been problematic for mystics; a mystic who engaged in commerce was gradually deprived of his nightly visionary encounters with the Prophet. Still, some of the scholars famous as saints and ascetics were quite wealthy, mainly from gifts by the city’s merchants, and more so through the generosity of the Askiyas. Members of scholars’ families were sometimes important merchants. Individuals might have spent the first part of their lives as merchants before they retired to pursue advanced studies. The scholars of Timbuktu were also spokesmen for the city’s trading community. Even legal opinions were influenced by commercial interests, such as Ahmad Baba’s ruling on the lawfulness of tobacco, because Timbuktu became an important center for the tobacco trade.
Songhay And Timbuktu
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Last Updated: 04/2022
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