The Songhai-Saadian War of Archives

When Saadian armies sacked Timbuktu in 1591, they seized not only gold and captives but something far more durable: the city's scholarly inheritance. This episode tells the story of the Tarikh al-Sudan and Tarikh al-Fattash — the two great chronicles of Songhai history — and how they survived the Moroccan occupation. We follow the travails of the scholar Ibn al-Mukhtar and his son Mahmud Kati, who buried manuscripts in the desert sand when Judar Pasha's arquebusiers arrived. We examine what the chronicles reveal about Songhai's own sense of its past — from the ten kings of the Dia dynasty to Sonni Ali's military campaigns and Askia Muhammad's pilgrimage. And we ask whether the Moroccan destruction of Timbuktu's libraries was as total as later accounts claimed, or whether Salafi reformism under Ahmad al-Mansur deliberately targeted certain texts. A story of ink, dust, and resilience — and how a conquered empire wrote itself back into history. #TarikhAlSudan #TarikhAlFattash #MahmudKati #IbnAlMukhtar #JudarPasha #AhmadAlMansur #TimbuktuManuscripts #Songhai #Saadian #SankoreMadrasa #OralTradition #HistoricalChronicles #WestAfrica #1591 #Tondibi #History #FexingoHistory #AfricanHistory #SonghaiEmpire #SunniAli Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo