Latest / The Songhai Empire: Africa's Powerful Forgotten Kingdom — Fexingo History / The Sankore Madrasa: Songhai's Great University
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Songhai's armies, its trade, its taxes. But I want to turn to something that made Timbuktu legendary in its own right: the Sankore Madrasa. It wasn't just a mosque — it was one of the great universities of the medieval world. Luna: I've heard of Sankore, but I don't know much about how it actually functioned. Lucas: It started earlier, under the Mali Empire, but it really flourished under Songhai. By the time Askia Muhammad came to power, Sankore had become a center for Islamic scholarship that rivaled anything in Cairo or Baghdad. Students came from all over West Africa and beyond. Lucas: The curriculum was broad. You had the Quran and hadith, of course, but also law, astronomy, mathematics, medicine. They taught the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence, which became the standard in the region. And the language of instruction was Arabic. Luna: So it was truly a university in the modern sense? Lucas: In many ways, yes. It had different faculties, degrees, and a system of ijazas — that's like a certification or diploma. Scholars would issue these to students who mastered a subject. And there were hundreds of teachers, each specializing in something. Lucas: The most famous scholar associated with Sankore is Ahmed Baba. He was a prolific writer and teacher in the late 16th century. He wrote the Tarikh al-Sudan, which is one of our main sources for Songhai history. He was also a fierce defender of orthodox Islam against what he saw as deviations. Luna: Did he run into trouble with the authorities? Lucas: Actually, he got along well with Askia Dawud, who was a big patron of scholarship. But when the Saadians invaded, they deported Ahmed Baba to Marrakech along with many other scholars. He spent years there under house arrest, but he kept teaching and writing. Lucas: The Saadian conquest was devastating for Sankore. The Moroccan occupiers looted the libraries, burned manuscripts, and dispersed the scholarly community. Timbuktu never fully recovered its intellectual glory. Luna: That's heartbreaking. How many manuscripts are we talking about? Lucas: The numbers are hard to pin down, but we know there were tens of thousands — maybe hundreds of thousands. Private libraries were common. Wealthy families would collect books from across the Islamic world: North Africa, Egypt, even Spain. The manuscript trade was a huge part of Timbuktu's economy. Lucas: Sankore wasn't just a building. It was a whole complex of schools and libraries around the mosque. Students would live with teachers, and teaching was often done in the courtyard or under a tree. It was a very personal, apprentice-style education. Luna: It sounds like a vibrant intellectual community. Lucas: Absolutely. And it wasn't just religious. There were poets, historians, astronomers. One scholar, al-Sa'di, also wrote a chronicle — the Tarikh al-Sudan. These texts give us incredible detail about Songhai politics and society. Lucas: The ulema — the scholarly class — had real political influence. They served as advisors, judges, and diplomats. Askia Muhammad himself consulted them on matters of state, especially after his pilgrimage, when he became more concerned with Islamic legitimacy. Luna: So Sankore was the brain of the empire. Lucas: Exactly. And its decline after 1591 wasn't just a loss for Timbuktu — it was a loss for the entire region. The intellectual networks that connected West Africa to the wider Islamic world were severed. It took centuries for something like that to re-emerge. Luna: What happened to the manuscripts that survived? Lucas: Many were hidden or buried by local families. In recent decades, projects have rediscovered them and digitized them. There are now major collections in Timbuktu, though they've faced threats from conflict. But the legacy of Sankore lives on in those texts. Lucas: I think one of the most remarkable things is that Sankore was a truly open institution. It didn't just serve the elite. Anyone with a thirst for knowledge could find a teacher, and many teachers provided education for free, supported by endowments or wealthy patrons. Luna: That's a far cry from the stereotypes people have about pre-colonial Africa. Lucas: It is. And it's a reminder that Timbuktu was a crossroads of ideas, not just goods. The Sankore Madrasa embodied that intellectual ferment. It's a story that deserves to be better known.