The moment
Under the Songhai empire of Askia Muḥammad, Timbuktu's mosques and Qur'an schools drew scholars from across the Sahara; UNESCO puts its students at some 25,000. A Moroccan army with firearms crushed Songhai at Tondibi in 1591, and the occupiers later deported the jurist Aḥmad Bābā to Marrakesh.
People: Askia Muḥammad I, Aḥmad Bābā al-Timbuktī