Talk:Songhai Empire

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Assessment comments

Do you know of any ancient agriculture information on Songhai? I have to do a report and I can nott find any information. please tell me of any information that you have on my question. Thanks!!!!!

Contents

[edit] Cleanup tag

I didn't really see any reason to still have the cleanup tag so I pulled it; if whoever put it up wants to note their problems, though, I could see what I can do. Cheers, --Dvyost 03:30, 15 August 2005 (UTC) what about masks and pendants. Cant forget those!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[edit] Al-Hajj

Whats the deal with him? Is he a real person, like a Askia, or is it really referring to the verse? Darth Panda 03:03, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Animism vs. Islam

Given the quote, "... but he also kept the traditional animist beliefs as well, which is a normal practise in the Islamic world."

Is this a 'normal practice' in the Muslim world? While the survival of pre-Muslim religions is common in many Muslim-majority countries persection and repression of non-Muslim, particularly non-Book religions, is also common. Maybe the phrase could be replaced by something like 'traditional animist beliefs were allowed, which was a common practice within the Islamic world'.

It would also be good to have some information on how Islam treated the Animists. Did they become 'dhimmis'? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by David Cheater (talk • contribs) 21:22, 11 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Finally

I really despise the Songhai Empire as a historian (the Mali Empire was much greater in my opinion), but this page looked pretty horrible. I went in a reorganized the king list and put a table of contents for the article. I would not wish such a disorganized article on my worst enemy, and Songhai is mportant to African history. Scott Free 09:00, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Source for Army

Can anyone source the statement about the 200,000 man army. i've never come across any reputable source that put the army above 40,000. Sahelian Armies seem to have gotten smaller as they became more centralized

 Wagadou - 200,000 man levee (40,000 of which were archers; most of the rest were spearmen, unknown number of cavalry)
 Mali - 100,000 man reserve army (10,000 of which were cavalry; 90,000 infantry with 3 archers for every 1 spearmen)
 Songhai - 40,000 man standing army (this may have been augmented by levees)
  • Wagadou didn't have a standing army and simply called up every able bodied man when needed
  • Mali had a semi-standing army with designated reserves from each tribe in the empire
  • Don't know much about how songhai operated.

holla back Scott Free 17:10, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Verification

"89% of people lived in small family owned farm houses."

Where does this come from? How is it possible that a succesion of an empire that numbered in the tens of millions had the majority of it's population living in farm houses?

=== My 2 cents ===i wet my self and i am gay plese poop on me i am gay 0 \

[edit] Improvements

Well it seems some folks want to see this article get on par with the Mali Empire page and have added a chart. I went through the chart and made some corrections. I also started pages for the different dynasties, so we don't have to jumble up this page with a king list. If some1 could go through and fix all the red links, I'd much appreciate it. I'm gonna dust off my history books and see if I can bring this article a little closer to B-class. Up, Up and AWAAAY!Scott Free 18:21, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Side note...considering that Songhai was more islamic and used muslim scholars a lot more than the Mali Empire, they didn't leave much in the way of records behind. I can barely find any info on them at all beyond the same stuff I learned in High School. Where's the luv?Scott Free 18:23, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

This article needs inline citations with references. As far as Mali being greater, I'm not sure about that, I just think it had more history written down. Songhay was the greatest and largest Empire in African history, before Morocco came in. The Empire fought off a lot of outsiders, before it actually did fall. Therefore this article needs expanding, clean-up, and more sources. Some online sources I found:

I'll try to find more. I'm concerned about the correct names being used. It was Sonni Ali, not Sunni Ali. There are others, as you'll find in the above links, I think, anyway. - Jeeny Talk 23:05, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

^Thanx Jeeny! I can use two of those most definitely.. I'm still trying to compile sources myself, and this helps a lot.Taharqa 18:05, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Coke or Pepsi

Hi, Jeeny. Yeah I'm glad someone else noticed the Sonni/sunni thing. I've made changes where I could and even started a Sonni dynasty page to go along. i'll add sources ASAP. I'd have to argue against Songhai being better or even bigger than Mali. Songhai expanded to some far out places very briefly (they were in Manden for less than a year before they got chased out). They just couldn't seem to hold onto anything very long. The Mali Empire on the other hand didn't loose any of its possessions until over 100 years after it began (starting with Songhai). It was at its greatest extent at about 1300 and stayed roughly the same size until 1375. Even after loosing the Songhai and Jolof provinces, Mali was still humongous (1 million sq ki) and pretty darn wealthy. I promise to stop yapping about Mali (i know this is the Songhai page, lol) but it also left a huge cultural influence. About half of West African countries speak some form of Mandinka today as their lingua franca. Songhai is pretty much confined to areas around the Niger bend. In short, Mali is like the black Roman Empire and Songhai seems more like their Visigoth/Ostrogoth counterparts. They conquered alot but didn't leave much behind. The Songhai did manage to conquer the Hausa (no small feat) and scare the Mossi into staying put (something Mali never managed to do). The Mandinka however would never have been conquered by Moroccans or used silly battle tactics like herds of cattle, lol.Scott Free 00:58, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll take a diet Coke. :) You are doing a great job. But wasn't it (Songnai) the greatest empire at one time, at least? I guess it doesn't count because it didn't last as long and didn't leave anything behind like the Mali, even though they beat them up for a minute there? lol. Thanks for all your work. - Jeeny Talk 01:02, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
You're very welcome. Funny u said diet coke...I'm a dietbetic, lol. Gotta give props where props is due, tho. Muhhamad Ture was the greatest conqueror in Africa since Ramses. I wonder who was the better general between him and say Sakura from the Mali Empire. In retrospect, the Songhai Empire eclipsed just about every Africa empire in history for about a decade. I think Mali was the greatest for the longest period of time. Its common people were wealthier than commoners in most parts of the world. And the constitution they made and preserved is a big plus. In the end, I think the ultimate way to figure out how great a state is (or was) is to count how many great rulers it had.
  • Mali...Sundjata, Wali, Sakura, Abubakari I, Musa I, Suleyman (6)

Maybe you or some1 else can fill us in on the great rulers of Songhai. Take care every1Scott Free 03:59, 28 July 2007 (UTC)


Hahah, Scott definitely has a Mali bias..Taharqa 17:04, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

guilty as charged, lol. Mende on my mom's side of the family.Scott Free 17:22, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


^No doubt. I've expanded on Askia's section, beginning the process of improvement. Will be back tomorrow to add more on Sonni Ali, then keep going. Be sure to edit any typos, or reword for better grammatical diction.Taharqa 06:23, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

  • good work, homie. 'preciate it.Scott Free 15:04, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sources and questionable statements

While my knowledge about prehistoric africa is clearly lacking, this article contains some statements which seem dubious and should be backed up by sources (actually there is a lack of sourcing throughout the article). E.g.:

  • "covering a kingdom that encompassed more landmass than all of western Europe" runs contrary to what the map on this article as well as Image:African-civilizations-map-pre-colonial.svg suggest. "Western Europe" is not a good term for comparison anyway, there are wastely different definitions of western europe around. Someone with knowledge of the extent should find a better comparison.
  • "Djenne and Timbuktu were on their way to becoming the greatest centers of learning in the ancient world." Were on their way to becoming? Meaning they never got there? Did they get close? Somewhat close? Ranking centers of learning seems like an impossible task anyway. I suggest the shorter "Djenne and Timbuktu became great centers of learning.". --Xeeron (talk) 15:32, 10 January 2008 (UTC)