Tuareg sultanate of the Aïr Mountains in north-central Niger, founded as an inter-clan mediating authority by Tuareg confederations and later a major terminus of trans-Saharan caravan trade.
Conquered by the Songhai Empire under Askia Muhammad in 1500 and ruled as a Songhai dependency until regaining independence after Songhai's 1591 collapse; came under French colonial suzerainty in 1906, after which the sultanate persisted only as a non-sovereign traditional monarchy within colonial and then independent Niger.
Classic historical-ethnographic study of the Aïr Tuareg confederations, covering the founding and inter-clan organization of the Sultanate of Agadez, based on 1920s fieldwork in the Aïr.