Abstract
On February 28, 1591, a Moroccan army reached Niger across the Sahara, 135 days after leaving the capital Marrakesh. The musket-wielding combatants who survived the ordeal had been sent by the Moroccan ruler, Ahmad al-Mansur, to defeat the king of Songhay, Askiah Ishaq II, who had assembled an army of 80,000 footmen and horsemen, armed with lances and javelins (al-Gharbi, 207–08). The battle took place on March 13, 1591 and ended with the slaughter of the Songhay army by the superior weaponry and discipline of the Moroccans. The “Sudan” (land of the Blacks) subsequently submitted to Morocco and sent a tribute of 100,000 pieces of gold and 1,000 slaves to Marrakesh, while promising an annual khiraj/tribute too. So “deluged” was al-Mansur with gold that he was given the epithet, al-Dhahabi, the golden.1
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Notes
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Matar, N.I. (2004). The Maliki Imperialism of Ahmad al-Mansur: The Moroccan Invasion of Sudan, 1591. In: Rajan, B., Sauer, E. (eds) Imperialisms. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403980465_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403980465_9
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