Sonni Ali was a soldier and began his career with the conquest of Timbuktu
in 1469. He also succeeded in capturing Jenne and attacked the Mossi and
other enemies on all sides. Finally he concentrated his forces for the
destruction of Melle and subdued nearly the whole empire on the west bend
of the Niger. In summing up Sonni Ali's military career the chronicle says
of him, "He surpassed all his predecessors in the numbers and valor of his
soldiery. His conquests were many and his renown extended from the rising
to the setting of the sun. If it is the will of God, he will be long
spoken of."[19]

Sonni Ali was a Songhay Negro whose father was a Berber. He was succeeded
by a full-blooded black, Mohammed Abou Bekr, who had been his prime
minister. Mohammed was hailed as "Askia" (usurper) and is best known as
Mohammed Askia. He was strictly orthodox where Ali was rather a scoffer,
and an organizer where Ali was a warrior. On his pilgrimage to Mecca in
1495 there was nothing of the barbaric splendor of Mansa Musa, but a
brilliant group of scholars and holy men with a small escort of fifteen
hundred soldiers and nine hundred thousand dollars in gold. He stopped and
consulted with scholars and politicians and studied matters of taxation,
weights and measures, trade, religious tolerance, and manners. In Cairo,
where he was invested by the reigning caliph of Egypt, he may have heard
of the struggle of Europe for the trade of the Indies, and perhaps of the
parceling of the new world between Portugal and Spain. He returned to the
Sudan in 1497, instituted a standing army of slaves, undertook a holy war
against the indomitable Mossi, and finally marched against the Hausa. He
subdued these cities and even imposed the rule of black men on the Berber
town of Agades, a rich city of merchants and artificers with stately
mansions. In fine Askia, during his reign, conquered and consolidated an
empire two thousand miles long by one thousand wide at its greatest
diameters; a territory as large as all Europe. The territory was divided