Decline of the Ghana Empire

Timeline

1. 1080–1085Awdaghast · SahelAlmoravid forces pushed south to seize Ghana's border trading posts, cutting the western stretch of the salt–gold route; Ghana's ability to collect taxes and provide military protection to vassal city-states dropped sharply, and northern tributaries wavered one after another.
2. 1085–1089Kumbi Saleh · SahelSoninke nobles and vassal kingdoms successively declared independence or defected to emerging powers; Kumbi Saleh lost population and its markets slumped. Drought worsened the difficulties of the pastoral-agricultural economy, the Ghana emperor's authority became nominal, and the imperial framework tended toward disintegration by the late 1080s.