7. The Songhai Empire - Africa's Age of Gold
Fall of Civilizations Podcast
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Civil War in West Africa
In europe, kings were terrified of dying without having produced a son. But in west africa, the problem was usually not too few sons, but too many. According to the chronicles, one songhai king named askia mohammed would have 37 sons during his reign and oral tradition places the number at closer to 500. Large families meant that any king usually had a great number of brothers who may have fancied a hand at being king themselves. And with so many potential claimants to the throne, it would have been utterly essential to have clear and universally agreed upon laws about who should be king.
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