From the Mali Empire to the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) Foreseen by Cheikh Anta Diop

By Nicholas Jones

“The historical mission of West Africa to a large extent consists in taking advantage of the facilities history has given it; to lose no time in becoming a powerful federated state, capable of freeing the rest of the continent by force if need be, rather than continuing indefinitely in weakness, divisiveness and with the declamatory promises of opportunistic patriots” 

-Cheikh Anta Diop – Black Africa

The region of West Africa, holds within its bounds, one of the richest histories of human civilization the world has ever known, and yet today, it is largely ignored in public school history lessons, hidden in the colonial museums of Europe and distorted in the global public eye by the western dis-information media apparatus and the sensualist entertainment industries. 

But times can change and truth has a way of revealing itself through certain individuals or political organisations and via the events that take place around them. Sovereignty is the word for our time.

We are currently living out a seriously dramatic period of historical events, where every civilization the world ever produced is being challenged on their authority over their region and their people. Cultural loyalty, tested like never before and it will likely decide the new balance between all nations on Earth. New alliances forged, new international organisations to lean on and new confederations seeking continental unity. The story unfolds in a four part series starting with the glorious past of West Africa.

The Past but not forgotten Glory – The Ghana, Mali and Songhei Empires 

The Ghana Empire

The Ghana Empire (Wagadu) has been first recorded in history as far back as the 4th century A.D.

Already by the 8th century, this vast empire had come into contact with the also newly born Islamic and Arabic world, which was living through a Golden Renaissance at the time and witnessed a plethora of traders caravanning from the Arabian desert to the Sahara. It and the other Empires that preceded and absorbed it, are all historically recorded in the writings of the great Persian mathematician, Al-Khwarizmi, the legendary Arab-Andalusian geographer from Huelva, Spain, Al-Bakri (1040–1094), the equally immortal Tunisian historian, Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) and the dynamic Songhai duo of Abd al-Rahman al-Sa’di (1594-1655) and Mahmoud Al-Kati (1498-1593) in their Ta’rikh Al-Sudan and Ta’rikh Al Fattash writings.

They were all pivotal in describing and immortalising the ancient civilisations in writing and all three were born somewhere within the Golden Islamic Renaissance as either Persian, Arab or Andalusian scholars writing on history, geography and many other subjects. While Al-Bakri is renowned for compiling geographical knowledge and firsthand experiences of the Maghreb and West Africa, Ibn Khaldun revolutionized historiography by introducing sociological and economic analysis (social cohesion or Asabiyya) to understand the rise and fall of civilizations. He analyzed the Ghana Empire within this frame and his book – Kitab al-Ibar (Book of Lessons) is a thorough description on having achieved a vast and highly developed civilization and the essential source for much of Cheikh Anta Diop’s timeless book titled ‘Pre-colonial Black Africa’

“The capital (Of Ghana) was already a cosmopolitan and international city; it had its own Arab quarter where Islam existed alongside the traditional cult, before the conversion of the royal dynasty and the people; in Bakri’s time the city already boasted a dozen mosques located in the Arab sector, with their imam, muezzins, and salaried “lectors.” It had a large number of jurists and scholars. Ten thousand meals, cooked over a thousand bundles of wood, were served daily. The Emperor himself attended these feasts to which he treated the populace outside his palace.”

“The Empire first opened itself to the world at large through commerce; it already enjoyed international repute, which would be inherited and extended by the future empires of Mali and Songhai. But domestic slavery at this time was rife in African society: one could sell his fellow man to another citizen or foreigner. Which explains why Berber and Arab merchants, grown rich since settling at Aoudaghast, though still vassals of the Black Sovereign, could acquire Black slaves on the open market. Some individuals in the city owned as many as a thousand slaves.

“This shows the peaceful means by which the white world could possess slaves. It was not through conquest, as has often been asserted. These empires, defended when necessary by hundreds of thousands of warriors, and having their central political and administrative organisation, were much too powerful for a single traveler, thousands of miles away from home, to try any sort of violence against them.”

  – Cheikh Anta Diop, Pre-colonial Black Africa

Trade, commerce, military, art, education, transportation and so on were all actively developing and the population; estimated to have numbered anywhere between 2-3 million residents at its peak, while the empire covered over 250,000 square miles (650,000 km²), were already living at a higher standard than their counterparts in Europe. Europeans during the same period of history were living through what was termed as the Dark Ages or the Middle ages and had a dispersed continental population of some 30-40 million that after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, had little central authority until the reign of Charlemagne. The capital of the Ghana Empire, Kumbi Saleh is said to have reached a peak population of around 50,000 people, while during the same time period, London, had some 15,000 inhabitants. 

“The Empire of Ghana, according to Bakri, was defended by two hundred thousand warriors, forty thousand of them archers. Its power and reputation, renowned as far as Baghdad in the East, were no mere legend: it was actually a phenomenon attested to by the fact that for 1250 years a succession of Black emperors occupied the throne of a country as vast as all of Europe, with no enemy from without nor any internal tensions able to dismember it.”

– Cheikh Anta Diop, Precolonial Black Africa

The Ghana Empire needed such an Army, for after a long period of relative peace in the region; external conflicts with foreign powers and regional vassals, began to increase in number and veracity. The empire would survive numerous attacks, such as the ten year long war, committed by the Almoravides that started in 1076, and ended in 1087. But after the death of the Almoravides long time leader and famous founder of the city of Marrakesh, Abu Bakr ibn Umar, that war dramatically ended. Thereafter more attacks came in the form of the empire’s Sosso vassals, but it wasn’t until the emergence of the legendary Sundiata Keita (The founder of the Mali empire and also the great-uncle of the legendary Malian ruler Mansa Musa), that the Ghana Empire’s capital was finally laid siege to in 1240, and was thereafter absorbed into the newly founded Mali Empire.

“Immediately following the occupation of North Africa, the first Umayyads sent an army to attempt the conquest of the Empire of Ghana. It was defeated, but its survivors were not executed; they were allowed to settle on the land and live there in the same conditions as others.” 

– Cheikh Anta Diop, Precolonial Black Africa

The Mali Empire

The Mali Empire stretched far across West Africa; from Gao (Kaoga) on the Niger river, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, and from the Sahara to the southern tropical forests, in what is today known as the coastal states of Ghana and the Ivory Coast. (Ghana of course, received its modern name from the leading pan-african president – Kwame Nkrumah, for the sake of its ancient roots to a glorious past.) 

Mali was similar to its former empire in many ways; from its Pharaonic nomes based political organisation to the general cosmopolitan aspects of its cities and people. Foreigners were welcomed from any part of the world given that their intentions carried humanist tendencies, Arab and Andalusian quarters were present in its cities and a variety of languages would have been heard in the many markets that flowed with salt and gold.  

“The Emperor, Mansa Kankan Musa, made a celebrated pilgrimage to Mecca (1324-1325). He exchanged embassies with Morocco, maintaining commercial and diplomatic ties with Egypt, Portugal, and Bornu. (Kanem-Bornu).”

 – Cheick Anta Diop

“Mansa Mussa was a powerful sovereign whose authority extended as far as the desert near Uargla”

 – Ibn Khaldun

Mansa Musa is the most renowned Emperor of this empire and has made the rounds on the internet in recent years due to his sheer wealth and some of the stories that accompany his legend. His pilgrimage to Mecca, noted above, carried so much wealth in gold that legend says it devalued the Egyptian currency and caused a massive increase in the price of goods.

Of course, the good emperor gave much gold to the poor and his intentions were honest but the effects were chaotic; the slump in economy is said to have lasted some 12 years in Cairo and even though attempts to salvage the situation were made on his return to Mali, it simply signifies the sheer scale of wealth that this empire held within its bounds. Mansa Musa is also claimed to have been the richest individual ever in history and this accompanies the fact that at the time, the Mali empire produced an enormous two thirds or more of the world’s entire gold production; hence it is not hard to believe this legend of a story and man. 

Such was the power of the empire that even the great writer, Ibn Khaldun called on his friend and emperor, Mansa Musa, for military aid when fighting with the Arabo-Berber tribes of Uargla, a region in the North Sahara desert. The Sultan of Morocco is another very impressed dignitary in the region when asked to comment on the scale of Moroccan embassy in Mali;

The Magreban sultan even had prepared a selection of the finest products of his realm and entrusted to Ali Ibn-Ghanem, Emir of the Mâkil, the task of transporting this truly royal gift to the sultan of the Blacks. A deputation made up of the highest-ranking individuals in the empire accompanied Ibn-Ghanem.

            – Ibn Khaldun

Mansa Musa is probably most famously known for his great voyage to the Americas. In an article written in 1968 by the late Professor Mohammed Hamidullah, we have a most fascinating report to indulge in.

The most interesting report is the following recorded by Ibn Fadlullah al-Umari (d. 1348), whose encyclopaedia Masalik Al-Absar is only partly edited as yet; its French translation by Gaudefroy-Demombynes says: 

“In the North of Mali there live white Berbers under their ruler. Their tribes are Antasar, Yantar’aras, Meddusa and Lemtuna … I asked their ruler Sultan Musa Ibn Amir Hajib (the Arabic name for Mansa Musa):

“How had you become ruler?” 

He replied: “We belong to a family where the son succeeds the father in power.

The ruler who preceded me did not believe that it was impossible to reach the extremity of the ocean that encircles the earth (meaning Atlantic), and wanted to reach to that (end) and obstinately persisted in the design. So he equipped two hundred boats full of men, as many others full of gold, water and victuals sufficient enough for several years. He ordered the chief (admiral) not to return until they had reached the extremity of the ocean, or if they had exhausted the provisions and the water. 

They set out. Their absence extended over a long period, and, at last, only one boat returned. On our questioning, the captain said: 

‘Prince, we have navigated for a long time, until we saw in the midst of the ocean as if a big river was flowing violently. My boat was the last one; others were ahead of me. As soon as any of them reached this place, it drowned in the whirlpool and never came out. I sailed backwards to escape this current.’ But the Sultan would not believe him. He ordered two thousand boats to be equipped for him and for his men, and one thousand more for water and victuals. Then he conferred on me the regency during his absence, and departed with his men on the ocean trip, never to return nor to give a sign of life.”

A possible explanation of this behaviour: apparently the ruler probably did not want the news of the discovery of America to reach his rivals. So he caused the captain to tell discouraging things in public, and real facts in private. And for this reason, he prepared a military expedition of several thousand men, and most probably settled in the place he captured.

The river in the ocean where the boats sank may have been the Amazon. In this case, the black soldiers and some of the white Berbers of the first and the second expedition must be the ancestors of the black population which Columbus encountered in his voyage and recorded in his journal. He says he saw there tribes of black skin and of red skin fighting with each other. Most probably they (the Berbers) reached Brazil, the nearest point from West Africa.

Another significant fact is what the son of Christopher Columbus records. He says that his father learned in Genoa from Muslim shipmen that visited that place that it was possible to reach India by sailing west of the European continent as by sailing eastwards.

Philologists have discovered in Red-Indian languages words of Arabic origin, from pre-Columbian days. Columbus found on the coast of Cuba dogs that do not bark. This is a West-African race of dogs. 

– “Muslim Discovery of America before Columbus”, Journal of the Muslim Students’ Association of the United States and Canada vol. 4, issue 2, Winter 1968, pp. 7-9. – Professor Mohammed Hamidullah 

The above text explicitly describes the extraordinary vision of Mansa Musa and it is of significant value to the culture of the times too. The Empire of Mali was clearly a civilisation focused on new discoveries and seeking out new relationships with others in a relatively civilised manner rather than a conquistador conquering fashion. Its empire was vast and its communications stretched farther than the desert in their dialogue with other golden civilisations of the time. From India to the Americas, the influence of the Golden African Empires and the Golden Islamic Renaissance, is an essential part of universal history and represented by a sea of historical documents. 

The Songhai Empire

Finally we end this ancient tale with an empire known as the Songhai Empire. This final period of Africa’s pre-colonial civilisational journey, saw a continued elevation of the society and culture before a gradual downfall. As we move towards the late 1500’s, the division of these empires and the lack of unity in the ruling families made way for a new and particularly dark period of history, the commencement of the savage and barbaric colonisation period, known as the trans-atlantic slave trade. This historical event of astounding significance for the world, has just recently on March 25, 2026, witnessed the UN General Assembly adopt a historic resolution declaring the transatlantic trade of enslaved Africans as the “gravest crime against humanity”.

The Songhai Empire was located between the east of the Niger river and the Atlantic ocean, an area that today includes parts of Mauritania, Mali, Senegal, Algeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Guinea, Gambia and Guinea Bissau. This shows the significant scope of the area governed and had been built upon from the previous empires of Ghana and Mali.

The Songhai naturally absorbed the Mali empire as the former power began to slide into a leaderless state with political coups and instability, while former vassalized regions such as the Mossi state began to challenge the empire’s power. Timbuktu, the cultural capital at the time, was lost in a major battle to the Tuareg people, who thereafter governed the city for a considerable 34 years (1434-68) before the fast growing and developing Songhai empire arrived under its first great leader, Sunni Ali (Ali Ber). Without any conflict, Ali the great (As he was also known) simply rode into Timbuktu and saved its people from the tyrannical rule of the Tuareg who had left the city in ruin rather than having a policy of development for its inhabitants. It was in fact the Tibuktu-Koi (A kind of administrative ruler, much like a technocrat in today’s world) who had begged for Sunni Ali to invade the city to free its inhabitants. 

Reigning from the Songhai’s capital city of Kaoga on the Niger river or better known as Gao; Sunni Ali grew the empire through incorporating various vassal states under the Songhai’s rule and establishing a major army in each vassal that primarily served the interests of the great state. The state of Bara, the Senhajia-Nu Berber country governed by Queen Bikun-Kabi was conquered as well as Kuntaland and the Berber people were entirely absorbed into the Songhai empire. Each tribal chief was made into a Koi who served the ruler of the time. 

The next ruler to inherit such a vast and established empire was gifted with a wiser soul and his name was Askia Mohammed I of the Askia dynasty, he was the Lieutenant of Sunni Ali, who took power from the son of Sunni Ali – Sunni Baru or Bekr Dau, due to his lack of faith and practise in Islam was the proxy reason and yet does hold some legitimacy but in the Songhai hierarchy anyone of any class could rise to such a position. This unique aspect of African rule is most likely derived from the Kharejjite sect of Islam and its refusal to recognise any supreme authority for all Islam. There is no pope so to speak or Caliph who has unquestionable authority, in fact, any believer such as the believer prince himself – Askia Mohammed I found out, can be elevated to the role of king so long as they possess the required skills and qualities of character. The preceding king, Sonni Ali, also belonged to this sect of Islam, adding fuel to that fire. 

And so it is the great Askia Mohammed I (simply a lieutenant to Sunni Ali) who at the experienced age of 50 years, claimed the rule of the Songhai empire as Islamic law allowed and thereafter ruled for a magnificent 35 years, until he was 85 years old. The record shows that the Askia was a far wiser ruler than his predecessor in his approach to absorbing other regions and peoples and his adherence to the virtuous laws embedded in the Quran. 

Al-Sa’di, the chronicler who wrote the Tarikh al-Sudan, compared Askiya’s army to that of his predecessor as being more virtuous in general warfare:

“He distinguished between the civilian and the army unlike Sunni Ali [1464–92] when everyone was a soldier.”

On Sunni Ali – “Sunni Ali entered Timbuktu, committed gross iniquity, burned and destroyed the town, and brutally tortured many people there. When Akilu heard of the coming of Sonni Ali, he brought a thousand camels to carry the fuqaha of Sankore and went with them to Walata….. The Godless tyrant slaughtered those who remained in Timbuktu and humiliated them.“

Al-Sa’di 

While Mansa Musa of the Mali Empire was renowned for his sheer scale of wealth, Askia Mohammed I of the Songhai empire was renowned for the use of that absorbed wealth for a much greater endeavour; universal humanist development. The Askia built religious schools for education, opened mosques for faith and unity of culture and opened the court up to scholars, astronomers, poets and musicians from all parts of the Islamic world.

The Askia was surrounded by a worldly intelligentsia and this led to an increase in scientific activity such as astronomy, alongside an increase in Islam being accepted as the universal faith to follow. Though the Askia practised his faith strictly and encouraged his people to practise too, he did not force it upon them. Practice was encouraged, merely because it helped unify the people and increased modes of discipline that are useful for all kinds of social and scientific development. This structure also safeguarded the empire from falling into a feudal state with feudalist tendencies towards its people, much like Europe prior. Islam provided the bedrock for a strict administrative structure that succeeded in stopping and secessionist maneuvers from within. What came from the Askia, ended with the Askia too and his rule though compassionate was absolute across the empire. 

‘The Taikh es Sudan relates that Askia Mohammed subdued all peoples “As far as Teghezza, by fire and sword” and that he “was docilely obeyed in the various states as in his own palace”.’

Cheikh Anta Diop (Pre-colonial Black Africa)

Governors in far out regions didn’t dare act above their rank for they were instantly dismissible and yet many served out their stations for decades as their regions were well taken care of and well governed by the Askia. 

Conclusions

And so to conclude this short article for such an extraordinary history of 1250 years, we have some honest and true comparisons to draw.

First and foremost to mention, is that Sub-Saharan Black Africa has an unbroken historic chain of indigenous civilisational humanistic development right up until the 1600’s and it is there where that spiritual chain breaks; not of Africa’s fault but rather due to a world shifting forced migratory event, the likes of which the world had never seen before and this history we will further unfold in part two.

But before that some further comparisons to be made. During the same time period mentioned above, we witnessed a Europe often ruled by feudalism and showing very little progress for it, although with exceptions to be made. Between the 7th century – 9th century, Europe had been supremely successful under Carolingian and Charlemagne’s rule and had begun unifying the Gallo-Roman cultural-political elements with the vassalized barbarians of the 4th century period into a Holy Roman empire or Carolingian empire, that in fact, sparked what is known as the Carolingian renaissance. This was Europe’s first major historic example of a large humanist state seeking to lift the universal standard of living across the continent for every human soul and to reach out to others in peaceful diplomacy, such as the Abbasid-Carolingian Alliance forged with the immortal ruler of the Abbasid Caliphate, Harun Al Rashid.

But thereafter, Europe once again divided and plunged into wars, famines and general ruin for the majority of the people living there. It led to a small continent severely lacking in security and always fearful of an external attack from foreign forces, an interesting psychological aspect to note, due to its etching onto the mind of the European masses for time immemorial. Throughout the Middle Ages, Europe experienced significant events that were never witnessed in Sub-Saharan or Black Africa as Mr Diop calls it.

The Norse invasions of the 10th century from the Normans of the North, the Saracens of the South and the Magyars of the East. Due to the incessant infighting of the Grandsons, the lack of central unity after Charlemagne and his Son, Louis the Pious’s death and the constant attacks on the periphery of the empire from such forces mentioned above, the empire began to wilt and the people living in unsecured regions sought more protection from their local lords than any central governing authority or King.

This led to a situation where central authority had lost control of the periphery and had to resort to giving lords of peripheral states more power over decision making. Already the Carolingian Empire had been broken into three warring states but now those three states were breaking apart too, due to more political maneuvering by powerful landowners and lords. This led the way to decentralization of state and feudal rule filled its space out of desperation from the people suffering the attacks. It led to a survivalist philosophy, having previously been led by a humanist philosophy. 

Sub-Saharan Africa never fell into a survivalist trap such as the Europeans under feudal rule with select lords who took large amounts of land via the despoiling of their constituents. The Sahara desert, acting as a natural defensive wall for the Empires to develop in peace certainly helped.

Efforts to conquer Black Africa are accurately recorded throughout history and due to the Desert Wall of the Sahara there are not many accounts to draw from. Singular accounts that do exist are the Umayyad Caliphate incursions of the 8th century, the Moroccan invasion of the 16th century and the British invasion via the Nile in the 19th Century. There was never any Arab conquest along the eastern coast of Africa, Arabs that did arrive there became great religious leaders and settled in peacefully with the local populace. This is evident in the history along the coastland of eastern Africa, for no further forays into the deep savannah regions of central Africa were ever made by the Arab and Islamic visitors. 

The fact of the matter for feudal land ownership is that for African Kings and Queens, land was never considered a true royal possession. Land possession never came hand in hand with political power and this is because religious powers were opposed to this assumptive structure. Slave ownership was allowed and acceptable and the Sovereign was aware that they ruled over everything within the empire’s space but land ownership was never assumed to be part of that equation. 

And so we have four strong reasons as to why feudalism never arose in Africa like European feudalism arose from Europe and those are down to:

A. the religious nature and notions protecting from internal corruption and an adhering to the constitution by all the people,

B. an Islamized structure that led to strict administrative system that served both the ruler and its people and meant that when a new ruler arrived, order was maintained,

C. Lack of foreign barbarian invasions and finally

D. No assumptive landownership structure for monarchs or lords. 

It is due to this glorious history and unbroken course of civilisational development from one indigenous empire to another that has ensured that between the third and seventeenth centuries, Africa remained unconquerable. And then it all changed. 

Stay tuned for part two: From Pre-colonial Black Africa of 1600 to the Divide and Conquer of 1896

Author bio: Nicholas Jones has performed across the world as part of La Grande Ballet de Montreal, and has created a foundation in Kenya dubbed Artists Alliance for Africa devoted to extending classical dance training to youth across Africa. He is an advisor and BRI expert for The Rising Tide Foundation and writes regularly at Nkrumah’s Africa on Substack.