Timbuktu's Scribes and the Songhai Empire

Timbuktu: Africa's Forgotten Center of Knowledge — Fexingo History · Sep 21, 2026 · 8m · transcript

In this episode of Fexingo History, we turn away from the famous libraries and scholars to examine the political engine that made Timbuktu’s intellectual golden age possible: the Songhai Empire under Askia Muhammad. While previous episodes have explored the manuscripts themselves and the families who preserved them, here we look at how Askia transformed a merchant city into an administrative capital through legal reform and state patronage. We discuss his controversial but effective use of Maliki jurisprudence to centralize power, the appointment of key figures like Mahmud Kati as qadi, and…