the title of usurper had been, Mohammed Abu Bekr evidently felt that, as he lacked the right of inheritance by birth, religious sanctions would set him more securely on his throne. So while he was in Cairo on his pilgrimage he resigned his possessions and dignities into the hands of the caliph of Egypt, remained without them for three days, and then received them back from the caliph in formal investiture.
On his return to the Sudan in 1497 the Askia, being then well over fifty years of age, set himself once more to administrative work. Besides the friends gained on his pilgrimage, he had round him a group of men whose minds had expanded with his own; foremost among them was Ali Foden, who became to Mohammed Askia what he himself had been to Sonni Ali.
At heart he was a man of peace. An old Arab writer says of him, “God made use of his service in order to save the true believers in Negroland from their sufferings and calamities.” Yet he was incessantly driven to war with the pagan kingdom of Mossi; with the kingdom of Melle, which he finally subdued and settled; with the Fulani, with Borgu and with the Hausa states. In order to establish friendly relations, the conqueror frequently took to wife a woman of the
