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Secondary sourceBook1526 (published 1550)

Description of Africa

Leo Africanus · 1526 (published 1550)

A 16th-century account by Leo Africanus describing Timbuktu and the Songhay realm shortly after Sonni Ali's reign.

Describes the Songhay realm and Timbuktu in the decades after Sonni Ali's conquests, giving context for his empire's reach.

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Front cover of a bound book with a dark reddish-brown leather spine and a black-and-cream marbled paper board. A white library barcode label reads University of Toronto with a number beneath it.
Leo Africanus, Description of Africa, 1526 (published 1550).

About this source

What it is

Description of Africa was written by Leo Africanus, a traveler who visited West Africa, with the text completed around 1526 and published in 1550. It describes the geography, people, and rulers of Africa, including Timbuktu and the Songhay state.

Why it matters

Although written after Sonni Ali's death, this is one of the earliest outside accounts of the empire he built, describing the kingdom and city of Timbuktu that came under Songhay control. It offers a window into how the Songhay Empire appeared to visitors not long after Sonni Ali's rule, giving context for the scale of what he had created.

Look closer

  • Why might an outsider's description of a place differ from accounts written by people who lived there?
  • What does it tell us that a European traveler's book became one of the main sources about this region?
  • What might this account leave out about daily life or political conflict within the empire?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Sunni Ali on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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Open manuscript on a display, pages covered in brown-ink Arabic script on aged, yellowed paper. The left page is written in handwriting across most of its lines, and the right page has a decorated heading at the top followed by dense Arabic text. The leather-bound spine is visible at the left edge.Book

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