Askia Ishaq II was ruler of the Songhai Empire

Songhai Empire

The Songhai Empire, also known as the Songhay Empire, was a state located in western Africa. From the early 15th to the late 16th century, Songhai was one of the largest Islamic empires in history. This empire bore the same name as its leading ethnic group, the Songhai. Its capital was the city...

 from 1588 to 1591.

Ishaq came to power in a long dynastic struggle following the death of the long-ruling Askia Daoud

Askia Daoud

Askia Daoud was ruler of the Songhai Empire from 1549 to 1582. Daoud came to power unopposed following the death of his brother Askia Ishaq I in 1549. The Empire continued to expand under Daoud's rule, and saw little internal strife.He organised a series of military campaigns against tributary...

. Sensing the Empire's weakness, Moroccan

Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

 Sultan

Sultan

Sultan is a title with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", and "dictatorship", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who...

 Ahmad I al-Mansur Saadi

Ahmad I al-Mansur Saadi

Ahmad I al-Mansur was Sultan of the Saadi dynasty from 1578 to his death in 1603, the sixth and most famous of all rulers of the Saadis. He was the fifth son of Mohammed ash-Sheikh who was the first Saadi sultan of Morocco...

 dispatched a 4,000-man force under the Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

icized Spaniard

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 Judar Pasha

Judar Pasha

Judar Pasha was a military leader of Morocco's Saadi Dynasty and the conqueror of the Songhai Empire.Born a Spaniard, Judar had been captured as a baby. As a young boy he joined the service of Moroccan Sultan Ahmad I al-Mansur Saadi...

 across the Sahara desert in October 1590. Though Ishaq assembled more than 40,000 soldiers to meet the Moroccans, his army fled the enemy's gunpowder

Gunpowder

Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...

 weapons at the decisive Battle of Tondibi

Battle of Tondibi

The Battle of Tondibi was the decisive confrontation in Morocco's 16th-century invasion of the Songhai Empire. Though vastly outnumbered, the Moroccan forces under Judar Pasha defeated the Songhai Askia Ishaq II, guaranteeing the Empire's downfall....

 in March 1591; Judar soon seized and looted the Songhai capital of Gao

Gao

Gao is a town in eastern Mali on the River Niger lying ESE of Timbuktu. Situated on the left bank of the river at the junction with the Tilemsi valley, it is the capital of the Gao Region and had a population of 86,663 in 2009....

 as well as the trading centers of Timbuktu

Timbuktu

Timbuktu , formerly also spelled Timbuctoo, is a town in the West African nation of Mali situated north of the River Niger on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. The town is the capital of the Timbuktu Region, one of the eight administrative regions of Mali...

 and Djenné

Djenné

Djenné is an Urban Commune and town in the Inland Niger Delta region of central Mali. In the 2009 census the commune had a population of 32,944. Administratively it is part of the Mopti Region....

, ensuring the Empire's destruction.