The presence of Islam in the Niger Bend goes back to the early ninth century when Gao became a meeting point for Muslim merchants from Egypt and North Africa. A small state grew up there with rulers related to those of Kukiya and by the late tenth century they were at least nominal Muslims. The Almoravid conquest of Ghana in 1076 engendered a disruption of the Awdaghast-Sijilm5sa trade axis and ai revitalisation of the route to North Africa through Gao. An attempt to control this route led some Sanhaja to establish a petty state at Gao, as evidenced by the epitaphs of Sang. With the Almoravid collapse in North Africa comes the apparent extinction of the dynasty at Gao in the mid twelfth century, but by c. 1200 the Z9 rulers of the local right-bank state established themselves on the left bank. By the late thirteenth century Mall dominated the Niger Bend; soon after the Z51dynasty gave way to the Sunnis, based however, at Kukiya. In the fourteenth century Jenne and Timbuktu emerged as centres for trade in gold brought up from the Ashanti forests and the consequent prosperity attracted Muslim scholars to those cities