ABSTRACT
Sunni Ali ruled the Songhay Empire in fifteenth-century Africa. Reputed never to have lost a battle, he extended his realm throughout the western Sudan and captured the famous city of Timbuktu on the edge of the Sahara Desert. The territorial empire that Sunni Ali created dominated northwestern Africa in later years and influenced the development of global trade. Sunni Ali's charismatic status as a warrior and sorcerer survived his death and served subsequent rulers with an important royal legacy. This was assured even by his son Sunni Baro, who had Sunni Ali's body disemboweled and his intestines preserved in honey for posterity. By consolidating a powerful state in the Sudan, Sunni Ali also made a great impact upon trading relations during the fifteenth century and later. Prior to the expansion of Portuguese trading routes along the west coast of Africa by Henry The Navigator, the Sudan had, been the center of trade between Africans, Arabs, and Europeans.
