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The Moroccan invasion of the Songhai Empire began with an expedition sent in 1590 by Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur of the Saadian dynasty, which ruled over Morocco at the time.
The Battle of Tondibi was the decisive confrontation in the 16th-century invasion of the Songhai Empire by the army of the Saadi dynasty in Morocco. The Moroccan forces under Judar Pasha defeated the Songhai under Askia Ishaq II , guaranteeing the empire's downfall.
The situation, which continued to worsen under Muḥammad Bāni (1586–88), culminated disastrously for Songhai under Issihak II (1588–91) when Moroccan forces, using firearms, advanced into the Songhai empire to rout his forces, first at Tondibi and then at Timbuktu and Gao.
Commanded by Judah Pasha, the Moroccan army was very well equipped with the most sophisticated firearms of the time. Consequently, when both troops clashed at the battle of Todibi in 1591, the Songhay soldiers were forced to succumb to the superior firepower of their invaders.
The Songhay were so disdainful of the new technologies of war it is said that they threw captured Moroccan firearms into the Niger. The 4,000-strong Moroccan army entered the Sahara in late December, provisioned by 10,000 camels and 1,000 pack horses.
The Moroccan invasion of the Songhai Empire began with an expedition sent in 1590 by Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur of the Saadian dynasty, which ruled over Morocco at the time. The Saadian army, led by Judar Pasha, arrived in the Niger valley region in 1591 and won its first and most decisive victory against the forces of Askia Ishaq II at the Battle ...
The internal political chaos and multiple civil wars within the empire allowed Morocco to invade Songhai. The main reason for the Moroccan invasion was to seize control of and revive the trans-Saharan trade in salt and gold. The empire fell to the Moroccans and their firearms in 1591.
With its capital at Gao and managing to control trans-Saharan trade through such centres as Timbuktu and Djenne, the Songhai empire prospered throughout the 16th century until, ripped apart by civil wars, it was attacked and absorbed into the Moroccan Empire c. 1591.
In 1590, Al-Mansur took advantage of the recent civil conflict in the empire and sent an army under the command of Judar Pasha to conquer the Songhai and gain control of the trans-Saharan trade routes.
However, by the later part of the sixteenth century fractious disarray among the descendants of Askiya Muhammad weakened the state, ultimately leading to the Moroccan invasion of 1591. Songhay's capitulation to the invaders ended the age of the great medieval west African states.