Page 119 - Empires of Medieval West Africa

E m p i r E s o f m E d i E v a l w E s t a f r i c a

In TheIr Own wOrds

Making a Quick Call from Jenne

like any busy administrator, 500 years ago in 1646, al-sadi got a job as a secretary
in the songhay Empire the mansa of Jenne in the government of timbuktu. while
wanted the fastest kind of communication there, he wrote his history of the songhay
available. according to the writer, abd al- Empire, Ta’rikh al-sudan. He said the
rahman al-sadi (b. 1594), this is how it was territory of Jenne contained more than
done. 7,000 villages that were within shouting
[I]f the [mansa] wants to summon to distance of each other. they extended
Jenne someone living near Lake Debo, hundreds of miles from one end of the
his messenger goes to a gate in the country to the other.
wall and calls the name of the person in
question. People pass on the message (source: Hunwick, John. Timbuktu & the Songhay
from village to village, and it reaches the Empire: Al-Sa di’s ta’rikh al-sudan Down to
person immediately, and he comes and 1613 & Other Contemporary Documents.
presents himself. Boston: Brill, 1999.)

The kurmina-fari was the highest-ranking officer in the govern-
ment, second only to the Askia. The Timbuktu historians claim that
title was created by Askia Muhammad, who first gave it to his brother
Umar Komadiakha in 1497. The city of Tindirma in the lakes region of
the Niger Delta was the kurmina-fari’s seat of authority. This officer
had the special privilege of wearing his hat when throwing dust on his
head to greet the Askia. Beginning in 1579, the kurmina-fari was put in
charge of all the western provinces of the empire.
The office of kurmina-fari could be very dangerous for the man who
held it. When Ishaq I came to power, the kurmina-fari was Hammad
Aryu, whom Askia Ishaq had put to death. Ishaq appointed Ali Kusira as
the next kurmina-fari, but Ali Kusira was arrogant and a tyrant.
The historian al-Sadi relates a story in which a Muslim scholar
asked the kurmina-fari why he sold men into slavery. He asked him if
he was not afraid that one day he would, himself, be sold. Ali Kusira
was astonished and angry at such a suggestion, but this is exactly what
eventually happened to him.
On one occasion when Askia Ishaq paid a visit to Timbuktu, he was
getting into a boat at the port of Kabara. At that moment, Ali Kusira

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