The Zā dynasty (also rendered Dya, Zuwā, Zu’a, Juwā, Jā’, Yā, Diā, and Diu’a, sometimes equated with the Zaghe) were rulers of the Gao Empire based in the towns of Kukiya and Gao on the Niger River in what is today modern Mali; and rulers of the Songhai Empire through Sunni Ali, son of Za Yasibaya (Yasiboi), who established the Sonni Dynasty.
[1] [2] Al-Sadi's seventeenth century chronicle, the Tarikh al-Sudan, provides a history of the Songhay as handed down by oral tradition and Timbuktu Manuscripts, including the Za dynasty.
The history handed down by al-Sadi portrays a single, stable dynasty that smoothly transitions from Za Yasiboi (Yasibay) to his son Sonni Ali.
The chronicle reports that the progenitor of the dynasty, Za al Yaman, the Yemenite (also called Alayaman or Dialliaman), originally came from the Yemen and settled in the town of Kukiya.
[7] The town is believed to have been near the modern village of Bentiya on the eastern bank of the Niger River, north of the Fafa rapids, 134 km south east of Gao.