Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Sa'dī's Ta'rīkh Al-Sūdān Down to 1613 and Other Contemporary Documents - Paperback

by Hunwick (Author)

The principal text translated in this volume is the Ta'rīkh Al-sūdān of the seventeenth-century Timbuktu scholar 'Abd al-Raḥmān al-Sa'dī. Thirty chapters are included, dealing with the history of Timbuktu and Jenne, their scholars, and the political history of the Songhay empire from the reign of Sunni 'Alī (1464-1492) through Moroccan conquest of Songhay in 1591 and down to the year 1613 when the Pashalik of Timbuktu became an autonomous ruling institution in the Middle Niger region. The year 1613 also marked the effective end of Songhay resistance. The other contemporary documents included are a new English translation of Leo Africanus's description of West Africa, some letters relating to Sa'dīan diplomacy and conquests in the Sahara and Sahel, al-Ifrānī's account of Sa'dīan conquest of Songhay, and an account of this expedition by an anonymous Spaniard.

This publication has also been published in hardback, please click here for details.

Author Biography

John Hunwick, is Professor of History and Religions, and Director of the Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa at Northwestern University. His publications include Shar'īa in Songhay (Oxford, 1985) and Arabic Literature of Africa, Vol. II & IV and The African Diaspora in the Mediterranean Lands of Islam (Princeton, 2002)

This Book won the Text Prize Award of the U.S. African Studies Association in 2001.