death_place death_date birth_place allegiance battles article_title name
marrakesh 1606 cuevas del almanzora , crown of castile ahmad al-mansur , sultan of the saadi dynasty battle of tondibi judar pasha
 judar pasha
judar pasha

judar pasha -lrb- -rrb- was a moroccan military leader and the conqueror of the songhai empire .
born in cuevas del almanzora -lrb- crown of castile -rrb- , judar had been captured by muslim slave-raiders as a baby .
as a young boy he joined the service of moroccan sultan ahmad i al-mansur saadi .
like many of ahmad 's officers , judar was a eunuch , having been castrated as a boy by his owners .
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 .
he also carried eight english cannon 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 inferior numbers , the moroccan gunpowder weapons easily carried the day , resulting in a rout of the songhai troops .
judar sacked gao and then moved on to the trading centers of djenné and timbuktu .
despite judar 's gains , sporadic battles continued with the songhai army , leading to his replacement several years after his victory .
judar was subsequently put to death 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 .
