Mansa Sakura

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Mansa Sakura
Mansa of Mali
PredecessorAbu Bakr
SuccessorQu
Diedc. 1300
Tajura, Ifriqiya
IssueSogolon Nyuman
ReligionIslam

Sakura (Arabic: ساكورة‎, romanized: Sākūra[a]; French: Sakoura; fl. 13th–14th century) was a mansa of the Mali Empire who reigned during the late 13th century, known primarily from an account given by Ibn Khaldun in his Kitāb al-ʻIbar. A former slave of the royal court, Sakura usurped the throne from the ruling Keita dynasty following a period of political instability and led Mali to considerable territorial expansion. During his reign, trade between the Mali Empire and the rest of the Muslim world increased. He was killed in the early 1300s while returning from the hajj and the Keita dynasty was restored to power.

Biography[]

Sakura is said to have been a slave (Arabic: مولى‎, romanized: mawlā; Maninka: jonni) of the royal court.[1][3] It is possible that Sakura was not literally a slave, but that the term referred to his belonging to one of the groups known as bla or tontajontaniworo.[4]

According to oral tradition, Sakura had a daughter, Sogolon Nyuman.[3]

Reign[]

During the late 13th century, the leadership of the Mali Empire involved ongoing palace intruiges, with a power struggle between the gbara or Grand Council and the donson ton or hunter guilds.[5] The historian Nehemia Levtzion speculated that Sakura may have been involved in a previous coup, in which Mansa Khalifa had been overthrown and replaced by Sunjata's grandson or nephew Abu Bakr.[6] Eventually, Sakura seized the throne himself. The French colonial administrator and ethnographer Maurice Delafosse estimated his accession to have occurred in 1285.[7]

Sakura was evidently able to stabilize his control of the Mali Empire, as he proceeded to launch a series of military campaigns which expanded the borders of the Mali Empire considerably.[5] According to Ibn Khaldun, in his reign Malian rule extended west to the ocean and east to Takrur, by which Ibn Khaldun meant a land east of Gao and west of Kanem, not Takrur along the Senegal River.[1] Trade between the Mali Empire and the rest of the Muslim world also began to flourish.

Ibn Khaldun credits Sakura with the conquest of Gao, but subsequently gives a conflicting account that Gao was conquered during the reign of Mansa Musa. The Tarikh al-Sudan agrees with the second account in crediting the conquest of Gao to Musa. It is possible that Sakura had indeed conquered Gao, but that ʿAlī Kulun, founder of the Sunni Dynasty, liberated it only for Musa to reassert control over Gao decades later.[5]

According to Ibn Khaldun, Sakura performed the hajj. He was the first mansa to do so since Wali.[1] Sakura may have sought to strengthen ties with the rest of the Muslim world and display Mali's power during his hajj.[5] Oral tradition does not record Sakura as having performed the hajj.[2]

Sakura's death most likely occurred in the early 1300s.[b] In Ibn Khaldun's account, Sakura was killed while returning from the hajj in the town of Tajura, 12 miles east of Tripoli,[c], whereas oral tradition says that Kon Mamadi (Qu), a grandson of Sunjata, killed him himself with the help of Sakura's daughter.[3] After Sakura's death, Qu succeeded him as mansa.

Legacy[]

Ibn Khaldun regarded Sakura as a mighty ruler and describes his reign in greater detail than his predecessors.[5] Sakura has been credited with saving the Mali Empire from political crisis.[9] By contrast, there are few recorded oral histories that mention him, and what little mention he receives in them focuses on his status as an usurper. The historian Djibril Tamsir Niane suggested that this may be a deliberate exclusion on the part of oral historians,[10] and it is possible that the few accounts of Sakura recorded in oral tradition are later additions based on the account given by Ibn Khaldun.[2]

The historian Michael A. Gomez has expressed skepticism of Sakura's reign, suggesting that aspects of Musa's reign were attributed to Sakura to allow for indirect criticism of Musa.[5]

Footnotes[]

  1. ^ Ibn Khaldun spells Sakura three different ways: صاكوره Ṣākūrah, ساكورة Sākūra, and سبكرة Sabkara. The last of these he says is the pronunciation used by the people of Ghana.[1] Recorded oral traditions spell his name Sekura or Sekure.[2][3]
  2. ^ The date of Sakura's hajj and subsequent death can be estimated by Ibn Khaldun's statement that he performed the hajj during the reign of al-Nasir Muhammad. Al-Nasir Muhammad reigned on three separate occasions; his first reign was brief and his third reign largely corresponded to the reign of Mansa Musa, so Sakura's hajj most likely took place during his second reign (1298–1308).[6] Delafosse estimated his death to have occurred in 1300.[7]
  3. ^ Delafosse believed that Sakura's assassination took place in Tadjoura, modern Djibouti,[7] but Tadjoura is far from any likely route between Mali and Mecca, so Tajura is more likely.[8] Delafosse also provided a detailed account that specified that Sakura was killed by Danakil robbers, and that his body was brought to Bornu, whose ruler ensured the body was returned to Mali for a royal burial, but he provided no sources for any of those claims, all of which seem to have been speculation on his part.

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History. Markus Wiener Publishers. ISBN 978-1-55876-241-1.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c Austen, Ralph A.; Jansen, Jan (1996). "History, oral transmission and structure in Ibn Khaldun's chronology of Mali rulers". History in Africa. 23: 17–28. JSTOR 3171932.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Sunjata: Roem duurt langer dan een leven (in Dutch). 2017. ISBN 978-90-5448-164-5.
  4. ^ Conrad, David C. (1992). "Searching for history in the Sunjata epic: the case of Fakoli". History in Africa. 19: 147–200. JSTOR 3171998.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Gomez, Michael A. (2018). African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691196824.
  6. ^ Jump up to: a b Levtzion, N. (1963). "The thirteenth- and fourteenth-century kings of Mali". The Journal of African History. 4 (3): 341–353. JSTOR 180027.
  7. ^ Jump up to: a b c Delafosse, Maurice (1912). Haut-Sénégal-Niger (in French).
  8. ^ Beckingham, C. F. (1953). "The pilgrimage and death of Sākūra, king of Mali". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. 15 (2): 391–392. JSTOR 608557.
  9. ^ Niane, D. T., ed. (1984). General History of Africa IV: Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century. ISBN 92-3-101-710-1.
  10. ^ Niane, Djibril Tamsir (1959). Recherches sur l'Empire du Mali au Moyen Age (in French).
Preceded by
Abu Bakr 		Mansa of the Mali Empire
1285–1300 		Succeeded by
Gao
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