In addition to encouraging the arts and architecture, he also funded literature and built schools, libraries and mosques. Timbuktu soon became a centre of education and people travelled from around the world to study at what would become the Sankore University.
The Songhai Empire was based in West Africa, south of the Sahara Desert and along the Niger River and Senegal River. At its peak, it stretched well over 1,000 miles covering land in nations that we know today as Niger, Senegal, Gambia, Nigeria, Mali, Guinea and Mauritania, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.