Songhay carried on a vigorous trade with the outside
world and particularly with the Arabic countries. The ruling class,
in particular, continued to follow the religion of Islam, but it is
generally believed that the masses of the population remained
faithful to the more traditional West African religions based on
fetishism and ancestor worship. Two of the more powerful rulers
were Suni Ali, who began his 28-year reign in 1464, and Askia
Mohammed, who began his 36-year reign in 1493. Askia
Mohammed was also known as Askia the Great. The security of
Songhay was undermined when Arabs from Morocco invaded and
captured the key trading city of Timbuktu in 1591. Thus ended the
last of the three great empires of West Africa.
It would be a mistake, however, to assume that those parts of West
Africa which remained outside of these three empires fulfilled the
usual European image of primitive savagery. On the contrary, a
number of other small yet powerful states existed throughout the
entire period. If this had not been so, the Europeans, as they
arrived in the fifteenth century, could have pillaged West Africa
at will.
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