Judar Pasha

Judar Pasha (Arabic: جؤذر باشا‎) was a Spanish-Moroccan military leader and the conqueror of the Songhai Empire.

Judar Pasha
BornCuevas del Almanzora, Crown of Castile
Died1606
Marrakesh
AllegianceMorocco
Battles/warsBattle of Tondibi

Born as Diego de Guevara in Cuevas del Almanzora[1] (Crown of Castile), Judar[2] had been captured by Muslim slave-raiders as a young boy. His captors castrated him. As a young boy, he joined the service of Moroccan Sultan Ahmad I al-Mansur Saadi, who had many other eunuch officers. Judar was often described by reference to his blue eyes.[3]

Battles

In 1590, Ahmad I made Judar a pasha and appointed him the head of an invasion force against the Songhai Empire of what is now Mali. In October of that year, Judar set out from Marrakesh with a force of 1,500 light cavalry and 2,500 arquebusiers and light infantry. Some of these men were Spaniards from Andalusia and some were "Renegats" (probably Christians from Southern Europe). He also carried eight English cannons in his supply train, and assembled eighty Christian bodyguards for his personal detail.

After an arduous crossing of the Sahara desert, Judar razed the desert salt mines of Taghaza and advanced on the Songhai capital of Gao.

Meanwhile, Songhai ruler Askia Ishaq II assembled a force of more than 40,000 men and moved north against the Moroccans; the two armies met at Tondibi in March 1591. Despite their far inferior numbers, the Moroccan gunpowder weapons easily carried the day, resulting in a rout of the Songhai troops. Ishaq offered slaves and gold if Judar would retreat; Judar refused the offer.

Judar sacked Gao and then moved on to the trading centers of Djenné and Timbuktu.[4] He reached Timbuktu in April 1591, carrying a letter from the Sultan al-Mansur demanding their cooperation.

Aftermath

According to Martin Meredith, "To quell resistance in Timbuktu, the Moroccans sent leading scholars to Marrakesh in chains. The wealth of Timbuktu, Gao, and Jenne was also stripped. Huge quantities of gold dust were shipped across the desert. When Judar Pasha returned to Morocco in 1599, his caravan included thirty camel-loads of gold valued by an English merchant at £600,000."[5]

Judar was demoted to governor because he advocated for making Timbuktu the new capital, rather than Gao, as Sultan al-Mansur's wished.

Despite Judar's gains, sporadic battles continued with the Songhai army, leading to his replacement several years after his victory.

Death

Judar was executed in December 1606 on the orders of Mulay Abd Allah, son of Mullay al-Shaykh, in the course of struggles over the Moroccan throne. This was mainly set up by the Battle of Tondibi.[6]

Notes
  1. Fernández Manzano, Diadie Haidara & Fernández Manzano 2012, p. 323
  2. While Judar is the common spelling, this is based on an assumed pronunciation by French translators of the Arabic texts Tarikh al-Sudan and Tarikh al-fattash which do not give the vowels. The name is pronounced Jawdar in the Tadhkirat an-Nisian and in the most recent English translation of the Tarikh al-Sudan by J. O. Hunwick (cited below).
  3. Bovill, E. W. (1958). The Golden Trade of the Moors. Oxford University Press. p. 167.
  4. John Coleman DeGraft-Johnson, African Glory: The Story of Vanished Negro Civilizations, Black Classic Press, London, 1954, ISBN 0933121-03-2, pp. 113-116
  5. Meredith, Martin (2014). The Fortunes of Africa. New York: PublicAffairs. p. 156. ISBN 9781610396356.
  6. Hunwick 1999, p. 234

References
  • Bovill, E. W. (1958), The Golden Trade of the Moors, Oxford University Press, p. 167
  • Davidson, Basil (1995), Africa in History: themes and outlines, New York: Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0-02-042791-3.
  • Hale, Thomas A. (1990), Scribe, Griot, and Novelist: Narrative Interpreters of the Songhay Empire, Gainesville: University of Florida Press, pp. 117–118
  • Hunwick, John O. (1999), Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Sadi's Tarikh al-Sudan down to 1613 and other contemporary documents, Leiden: Brill, ISBN 90-04-11207-3.
  • Fernández Manzano, Reynaldo; Diadie Haidara, Ismaïl; Fernández Manzano, Azucena (2012), "La música de los "arma", andalusí, de la curva del Níger", Música Oral del Sur (in Spanish), Junta de Andalucía: Centro de Documentación Musical (9): 321–337, ISSN 1138-8579
  • Saad, Elias N. (1983), Social History of Timbuktu: The Role of Muslim Scholars and Notables, 1400-1900, New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 171, 175, 186

See also
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