Their words

“No, on the contrary, I want its prosperity. All those men you have just seen fall would have made life hard for us in Songhay had they stayed among us. We could not have dealt with them ourselves as they have now been dealt with; that is why I brought them here, so that they should be thinned out and we be rid of them. I knew well that here they could not escape death.”

As reported by al-Sa'di · al-Sa'di, Tarikh es-Soudan (c. 1655), traduit de l'arabe par O. Houdas, Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1900, p. 125 — the French of that edition is the text published here

Context During the Berko campaign, around 1505, his brother Amar Komzagho wept at the death of Songhay's best warriors and cried out that he wanted the ruin of Songhay; al-Sa'di records the Askia's reply.

Askia Muhammad IMali · c. 1443–1538

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