Latest / The Songhai Empire: Africa's Powerful Forgotten Kingdom — Fexingo History / Sankore Madrasa: The University That Powered Songhai
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- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Timbuktu as a trading hub, but today I want to zero in on something that made it truly extraordinary — the Sankore Madrasa. Not a single building, really, but a whole district of scholars and students, sometimes called the University of Sankore. Luna: I've heard of it, but I never quite understood how it worked. Was it like a medieval European university? Lucas: In some ways, yes — but also very different. It emerged organically from the Sankore Mosque, which was built in the early 14th century, probably under the Mali Empire. But it really flourished under the Songhai, especially during Askia Muhammad's reign and later under Askia Dawud. By the 16th century, it had become one of the great intellectual centers of the Islamic world. Lucas: The madrasa wasn't a single campus. It was more of a decentralized system — individual scholars, each with their own circle of students, teaching in their homes or in the mosque courtyards. Students would travel from as far as the Hausa kingdoms, the Maghreb, even Egypt to study with famous teachers. Luna: So it was more like a collection of study circles than a formal university? Lucas: Exactly. But it had a curriculum. The core was always the Quran, hadith, and Islamic law — the Maliki school, specifically. But advanced students could study astronomy, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, even poetry. The Tarikh al-Sudan, our main chronicle, mentions scholars who were experts in everything from grammar to logic. Lucas: One of the most famous was Ahmed Baba — a scholar so respected that when the Saadians invaded in 1591, they took him all the way to Marrakech as a prisoner. He spent years there, but even in captivity, he kept teaching. Eventually they let him return to Timbuktu, where he died in 1627. Luna: That's incredible. He must have had quite a reputation if his captors still valued his knowledge. Lucas: Absolutely. And before him, there was al-Maghili, the North African scholar who advised Askia Muhammad on Islamic governance. He wrote a famous treatise called the Obligations of Princes, which influenced the emperor's reforms. But al-Maghili was controversial — he was a strict reformer who condemned many local practices as un-Islamic. Luna: So there was tension between the scholars and the rulers? Lucas: Yes, but it was creative tension. Askia Muhammad saw the value of Islamic learning for legitimizing his rule, and he patronized the scholars heavily. He even gave them land grants and exemptions from taxes. That allowed Sankore to attract the best minds. Lucas: The libraries were another crucial part. Wealthy families and scholars built private collections. The Tarikh al-Sudan says Ahmed Baba had over 1,600 books — a huge number for the time. And these weren't just religious texts; they included works on astronomy, medicine, and philosophy from across the Islamic world. Luna: That's an enormous library for an individual. How did they acquire so many books? Lucas: Through trade, mainly. Timbuktu was at the crossroads of the trans-Saharan routes. Books were a luxury good, imported from North Africa, Egypt, even Spain. Scholars would copy manuscripts by hand, too — a painstaking process. Some of those manuscripts still survive today, hidden in family archives throughout the city. Luna: It's amazing that they survived at all, given the climate and the invasions. Lucas: It really is. And that brings me to something I think is really relevant. Because what we're talking about today — this whole world of knowledge and preservation — it's exactly the kind of thing that makes this show possible. We spend hours reading sources like the Tarikh al-Sudan and Leo Africanus, trying to bring these stories to life. And we do it all without ads, thanks to listeners who chip in. Luna: Yeah, it's a labor of love. If you've been enjoying these deep dives into Songhai history, and you'd like to help us keep going, you can support the show at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Every little bit helps us keep digging into these archives. So, back to Sankore — one of the things that made the madrasa so resilient was its decentralized structure. When the Saadians sacked Timbuktu in 1591, they destroyed some buildings and looted gold, but they couldn't erase the knowledge. The scholars simply went underground. Luna: So the teaching continued even after the empire fell? Lucas: It did, for a while. But the decline of Timbuktu as a trading center, and the political instability, made it harder. By the 18th century, Sankore was a shadow of its former self. Still, the manuscripts survived — hidden in trunks, buried in the desert, passed down through families. And in recent decades, there's been a huge effort to digitize and preserve them. Lucas: The Ahmed Baba Institute in Timbuktu now holds over 30,000 manuscripts. And during the 2012 conflict, when militants threatened the city, librarians smuggled thousands to safety in Bamako. So the legacy of Sankore is still very much alive. Luna: It's a powerful story of resilience. And it makes you think about how much we owe to these scholars. Lucas: Exactly. They remind us that Africa had centers of learning that rivaled anything in Europe at the time. And that knowledge, once created, can survive almost anything.