The Askiya's Gardens: Agriculture and Irrigation in Songhai

The Songhai Empire: Africa's Powerful Forgotten Kingdom — Fexingo History · Aug 3, 2026 · 7m · transcript

When we think of the Songhai Empire, we picture gold, salt, and camel caravans crossing the Sahara. But underneath that trade was something more fundamental: agriculture. This episode digs into the farming systems that fed Gao, Timbuktu, and Djenne — the irrigation works along the Niger River, the crops that sustained a growing population, and the granaries that stocked the empire for lean years. We look at how Askia Muhammad and his successors managed land and water, the role of the Sorko people as river specialists, and what the Tarikh al-Sudan and Tarikh al-Fattash tell us about harvests…