00:00The year is 1493.
00:04A war camp sits on the banks of the Niger River.
00:09Smoke still rises from the last battle.
00:13A general stands over a fallen king.
00:18He was born with no royal blood.
00:21No throne was ever meant for him.
00:24But tonight, he takes one anyway.
00:28His name is Mohamed Toure.
00:32Soon, the world will know him by another name.
00:37Askiya the Great.
00:40And the empire he is about to build will become the largest West Africa has ever seen.
00:48This is his story.
00:56To understand Askiya, you must first understand the man he replaced.
01:02His name was Sunni Ali.
01:05For nearly 30 years, he ruled the kingdom of Songhai from the city of Gao.
01:10He was not a gentle king.
01:14He was a conqueror.
01:17City after city fell to his armies.
01:20Timbuktu, Jene, the old lands of the Mali Empire.
01:25One by one, they bent to his will.
01:29His soldiers feared him.
01:32His enemies feared him more.
01:35But there was a problem.
01:39Sunni Ali ruled a Muslim land.
01:41Most of his people were Muslim.
01:44Yet many scholars whispered that he was not a true believer.
01:48They said he mixed old traditions with the new faith.
01:52They said his justice was cruel, not righteous.
01:56Still, no one dared say it to his face.
02:01Then, in 1492, the unthinkable happened.
02:07Sunni Ali drowned crossing a river.
02:11The tyrant was gone.
02:14And Songhai was suddenly a kingdom without a king.
02:22Sunni Ali's son, Sani Baru, took the throne next.
02:27But he was not his father.
02:31He lacked his father's iron grip.
02:34And he made a fatal mistake.
02:37He turned his back on the Muslim scholars his father had ignored.
02:42He leaned on the old ways instead.
02:45The devout Muslims of Songhai were furious.
02:51Among them was a general named Muhammad Touré.
02:54He had served in Sunni Ali's army for years.
02:58He was disciplined.
03:00He was pious.
03:01He was patient.
03:03And he saw his moment.
03:06Touré rallied the Muslim scholars and soldiers of Songhai behind him.
03:10He accused Sunni Baru of abandoning the faith.
03:14Then he marched against his own king.
03:18In 1493, their armies clashed.
03:23Touré won.
03:25Sunni Baru's dynasty ended that day.
03:29And Muhammad Touré crowned himself the new ruler of Songhai.
03:33He took a new title, Askiya.
03:37History would remember him as Askiya Muhammad I.
03:41A man with no royal blood now sat on the highest throne in West Africa.
03:51A conqueror can seize a throne in one battle.
03:56But an empire is not built in a day.
04:01Askiya understood this better than any ruler before him.
04:06He divided his kingdom into provinces.
04:09Each one had its own governor, answering directly to him.
04:14He built a standing army.
04:16Professional soldiers.
04:18Not just tribal warriors.
04:20He created a system of weights, measures, and taxes that stretched across the whole empire.
04:28Under his rule, Songhai grew larger than Mali had ever been at its peak.
04:33Trade flowed along the Niger River like never before.
04:38Salt came south.
04:40Gold came north.
04:43And two cities became the beating heart of it all.
04:47Gao, his capital, and Timbuktu.
04:51A city already famous, but about to become legendary.
04:58Under Askiya, Timbuktu blossomed into one of the great centers of Islamic learning on Earth.
05:06Its Sankore Mosque became a university.
05:09Scholars traveled from Cairo, from Mecca, from across the Muslim world just to study there.
05:16Books were treasured like gold.
05:25Askiya Muhammad was no longer just a general who won a battle.
05:30He was becoming the architect of a golden age.
05:39But Askiya wanted something more than power.
05:43He wanted legitimacy.
05:46He wanted the world to know that his throne was not just won by the sword.
05:52It was blessed by faith.
05:56So in 1497, he did what only the wealthiest rulers dared to do.
06:03He set out on the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca.
06:09His caravan was enormous.
06:12Historians say it included over a thousand soldiers.
06:16Camels loaded with gold stretched for miles.
06:21Along the way, he gave gifts to the poor.
06:25He built rest houses for future pilgrims.
06:27He spent gold like a man who believed there was always more where it came from.
06:34Some compare his journey to the famous pilgrimage of Mansa Musa of Mali,
06:40nearly two centuries earlier.
06:42But Askiya's pilgrimage had a different purpose.
06:46Mansa Musa traveled to show the world his wealth.
06:50Askiya traveled to secure something wealth could not buy.
06:55In Mecca, he met religious authorities and was granted a powerful title.
07:01He returned to Songhai as the recognized representative of the caliph in West Africa.
07:08It was more than a title.
07:11It was proof.
07:13Proof that his empire was not just powerful.
07:17It was righteous.
07:20He came home and used this authority immediately.
07:25He expanded Islamic courts across his empire.
07:28He appointed judges trained in Sharia law.
07:32He turned Songhai into one of the most formally Islamic states West Africa had ever seen.
07:39The slave general was now a defender of the faith.
07:49But empires, like men, grow old.
07:55By his final years, Askiya Muhammad was blind.
08:01He could no longer lead his armies.
08:04He could barely lead his court.
08:06And the throne he had seized by force, his own son, now wanted for himself.
08:16In 1528, his son forced him from power.
08:20The man who once toppled a dynasty was now cast aside by his own blood.
08:30He died a few years later, remembered by history, but exiled from the empire he built.
08:40Songhai itself would not last forever either.
08:45In 1591, a foreign army crossed the Sahara Desert.
08:51They came from Morocco.
08:54And they carried something Askiya's soldiers never had.
08:59Guns.
09:01Muskets tore through an empire built on discipline, faith, and gold.
09:09Within a single battle, centuries of power began to crumble.
09:17An empire raised by faith and administration fell to gunpowder.
09:27Askiya Muhammad began his life with nothing.
09:31No throne, no birthright, no claim to power at all.
09:37He ended it as the ruler of the largest empire West Africa had ever known.
09:44He built courts.
09:46He built scholars.
09:48He built a city of books in the middle of the desert.
09:52And for a moment, Songhai stood as proof that the greatest empires are not always built by kings.
10:02Sometimes, they are built by the men no one expected to rule at all.
10:08But Songhai's fall raises a new question.
10:22That story is still waiting to be told.
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