In 1352 the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta arrived in Taghaza after a 25 day journey from Sijilmasa on his way across the Sahara to Oualata to visit the Mali Empire.
He orchestrated a program of expansion and consolidation which extended the empire from Taghaza in the North to the borders of Yatenga in the South; and from Air in the Northeast to Futa Tooro in Senegambia.