Sunni Ali Conquers Timbuktu Permanently

1468

The Songhai warrior-king seized Timbuktu decisively from Tuareg control for the final time, entering the city with his cavalry and, according to the hostile accounts of the scholarly class, massacring intellectuals and clerics who had opposed his authority or collaborated with his Tuareg enemies. The Sankore mosque's scholars hid their most precious manuscripts in desert caches and underground cellars. Songhai's military state and Timbuktu's scholarly culture would remain in permanent and productive tension.