Askia Dawud

Askia Dawud (died 1582) was the ruler of the Songhai Empire from 1549 to 1582, a son of Askia Muhammad I. His reign — the longest of any Askia — saw the empire rise to a peak of peace and prosperity after a generation of succession disputes. The years 1549-1582 sometimes given as his life dates are his reign; his birth is not attested in the sources. ¹

Dawud was one of the many sons of Askia Muhammad Ture. He and his brothers received a good Islamic education under their father, whose project — as the Arabic article puts it — was a Muslim society built on trade, education and literacy. After his father's deposition in 1528 the empire passed through a series of short reigns and succession disputes until his brother Askia Ishaq I was peacefully elected in 1539. Dawud served as Kurmina-fari, ruler of the western half of the empire. When Ishaq I lay dying in 1549, allies summoned Dawud from Tindirma, and he succeeded without opposition. ^{1 2}

He reorganised the army and led at least twenty campaigns, most of them successful: against the Mossi in 1549 and 1561-1562, Borgu in 1558-1559 and 1563, and the Mali Empire in 1550 and 1558, the latter concluded by a marriage to the Mansa's daughter. At home he placed his sons in office, set up provincial branches of the treasury, used strategic marriages to bind vassal chiefs, religious leaders and merchants to the throne, and maintained vast slave-worked plantations. In 1556-1557 Moroccan troops seized the Taghaza salt mines and withdrew; when Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur demanded the mines' revenues after his accession in 1578, Dawud answered with a huge gift of gold, which bought peace but signalled weakness. ¹

Dawud was renowned for his devotion to Islam: he was well-versed in Islamic law and had memorised the Qur'an, and he respected and gave generously to the scholars of Timbuktu. He refurbished the three mosques of the University of Timbuktu and established public libraries to promote literacy and Islamic education. No source read for this record names a school of law or theology for him personally. ¹

He died a natural death at Tondibi, on one of his estates, in 1582, and his body was brought downriver to Gao for burial. The succession disputes among his sons that followed severely weakened the empire in the decade before the Moroccan conquest of 1591. ¹