Askia Daud
Askia Daud was the sixth ruler of the Songhai Empire, a prominent West African state established in the late 15th century. He rose to power following the overthrow of his father in 1529 and managed to navigate a tumultuous political landscape marked by sibling rivalries and internal conflicts. Daud's reign, which lasted from 1549 until his death in 1582, is regarded as a golden age for the empire, during which he focused on strengthening the economy through agriculture and commerce, as well as supporting intellectual pursuits and the establishment of an imperial library in Timbuktu.
Notably, he was also an effective military leader, successfully expanding the empire's territories through campaigns against the Mali Empire and other neighboring regions. His diplomatic efforts helped maintain stability within the empire, although his reign ultimately proved to be an anomaly amid the subsequent civil unrest that followed his death. Daud fathered at least sixty-one children, ten of whom became rulers, highlighting the dynastic complexities of the Songhai leadership. However, within a decade of his passing, the empire faced significant challenges, ultimately leading to its decline following an invasion by Moroccan forces in 1591.
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Subject Terms
Askia Daud
Emperor of the Songhai Empire (r. 1549-1582)
- Born: c. early sixteenth century
- Birthplace: Songhai Empire (now in Mali)
- Died: July or August, 1582
- Place of death: Tondibi, Songhai Empire (now in Mali)
Under Askia Daud, the Songhai Empire realized its golden age, its most prosperous and stable period. In land area, the empire in its day made up one of the largest states anywhere in the world.
Early Life
Askia Daud (AS-kyah dowd) was the sixth of his line to rule the Songhai Empire in central West Africa. His dynasty was founded in 1492 by his father, Muhammad Ture (Mohammed I Askia)), under whom the term “askia” became both a title signifying “emperor” and a dynastic name. The system of royal succession was patrilineal, but the rule of primogeniture was not strong, resulting in considerable instability.
Trouble began in 1529 when a group of royal brothers, which included Askia Daud, overthrew their father. Following this, three half brothers and a cousin preceded Askia Daud, the totality of their reigns amounting to twenty years. Members of the royal family were both the foundation of the Askia Dynasty’s power and the major threat to it. The first act of any new askia was to determine which of his brothers and cousins he could trust. The loyal ones would be appointed to high posts; those who posed a threat would be eliminated.
Askia Daud’s immediate predecessor was Askia Ishaq I, said to be pious and intelligent but also cruel and authoritarian, a ruler who kept himself in power through terrorizing others. Ishaq’s reign, which spanned a decade, degenerated into plots, counterplots, murder, and extortion.
Life’s Work
Askia Daud had attained the rank of kurmina-fari, viceroy of the western half of the empire, by 1545. The preceding two kurmina-fari had been purged by Ishaq. Askia Daud’s major achievement in this position was to attack the capital city of the declining Malian Empire to the southwest. On his approach he was so successful in ravaging the countryside that the Malian ruler and most of the inhabitants abandoned their city. Askia Daud remained there for a week, remembered only for being a vandal. He ordered his soldiers to pack the royal palace full of filth so that when the Malians returned, they would find it unusable.
Ishaq died in March of 1549. He had named a son as heir, but the ruling circles in the capital of Gao promptly ignored this. They had been impressed by Askia Daud’s ability to survive in a government ruled by a paranoid like Ishaq, a feat requiring considerable political skill, even though Askia Daud had not been a favorite of his father.
Askia Daud was in the right place at the right time. As the Timbuktu chronicler Mahmud Kati put it,
His father the Askia Muhammad and his brothers had labored and sowed for him, and, when he came, he had only to harvest; they had prepared the ground and, when his turn came, he had only to stretch out in order to go to sleep.
By the time Askia Daud came to sit under the royal dais, a large number of his brothers and cousins had killed one another, and more had died on the battlefield serving Songhai. This depletion of the royal brood kept Askia Daud’s reign relatively free from internal strife.
Askia Daud had considerable abilities and likable personal traits. He was small, smart, tenacious, and brave. He was an eloquent speaker and a wit who loved to joke, somehow escaping the dour strain characteristic of his family. He also was experienced as a politician, having been involved in affairs of state since the overthrow of his father. Once in power, he proved to be a statesman of moderation and wisdom. He knew that the might of the empire rested on economic strength, so he encouraged agriculture and commerce. He was the only ruler of his era in the Western Sudan who is reported to have had a treasury of coined money. He supported intellectual pursuits, becoming the all-time most generous benefactor of the scholars at the university at Timbuktu, and he created an imperial library where he employed scribes to copy manuscripts.
Askia Daud also was an able military strategist. While his brothers had been focusing their energies on internal foes of the empire, provinces on the periphery had quietly slipped back into independence and external foes had recouped their power. Askia Daud took the empire to where it had been under his father. His most notable success was in the west against the Malians, where campaigns in 1550 and 1558-1559 added new lands in the upper Niger Valley to his empire. He was also successful in raiding the Mossi, who lived to the south (in what is now called Burkina Faso), although his objective here was to capture slaves rather than to conquer new territory.
He had less success to the east, where his effort to bring Kebbi (northwestern Nigeria) into the empire was unsuccessful, and his attempt to quell a revolt in the city of Katsina, an eastern outpost of the Songhai Empire, failed also.
Near the end of his reign, imperial borders remained stable. In 1570-1571, Askia Daud led an expedition of twenty-four thousand Tuareg allies against Arab tribesmen who were revolting in the western Sahel (southeastern Mauritania). A revolt by the Fulbe of Macina (the inland delta region of Mali) was put down with such ferocity by one of Askia Daud’s sons, the askia announced his official disapproval.
During the last few years of his life, Askia Daud spent much of his time on his farm at Tondibi, thirty miles upstream from Gao. He died there of natural causes in the summer of 1582.
Significance
Askia Daud’s reign marked the golden age of the Songhai Empire. Its borders were secure, internal peace brought prosperity, commerce and agriculture flourished, and trans-Saharan trade boomed. Unfortunately, Askia Daud’s reign proved to be an aberration. Eight askias succeeded Muhammad Ture, together ruling more than sixty-three years. Seven of those askias reigned for a total of thirty years; Askia Daud alone reigned for thirty-three years.
Askia Daud had at least sixty-one children, ten of whom ascended to royal power. Within a decade of Askia Daud’s death, a major civil war known as the Revolt of the Balama, fought between rival half brothers in 1588, weakened the empire in the face of external enemies. In 1591, one of these, the sultan of Morocco, who had been kept in check by Askia Daud’s judicious diplomacy and a timely subsidy in gold, sent an army across the Sahara Desert that eventually destroyed the Songhai Empire.
Bibliography
Bovill, E. W. The Golden Trade of the Moors. 1958. Reprint. Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener, 1995. A still-useful, seminal study that provides an overview of the rise and fall of the Songhai Empire.
Cissoko, Sekene Mody. “The Songhay from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century.” In Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century. Vol. 4 in General History of Africa, edited by D. T. Niane. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Cissoko is an African scholar recognized as an authority on the Songhai Empire and the Askias who ruled it.
Hunwick, John. “Secular Power and Religious Authority in Muslim Society: The Case of Songhay.” Journal of African History 37 (1996): 175-194. A look into the internal workings of the Songhai government, particularly the relationship between church and state.
Hunwick, John. Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Sadi’s Ta’rikh al-Sudan Down to 1613 and Other Contemporary Documents. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 1999. The only full English translation of al-Sadi’s classic seventeenth century work about the Songhai Empire. Includes a lengthy section on Askia Daud’s reign and should be used as the starting point for any serious research on this subject.
Levtzion, Nehemia. “The Western Maghrib and Sudan.” In The Cambridge History of Africa, edited by Roland Oliver. Vol. 3. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1977. Written by the doyen of medieval West African studies, this volume provides the standard interpretation of the Songhai Empire and Askia Daud’s place in it.
Saad, Elias N. Social History of Timbuktu: The Role of Muslim Scholars and Notables, 1400-1900. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Saad explores how Askia Daud was famous as a patron of the Timbuktu intelligentsia, and looks deeper into this relationship, revealing curious insight.