Once you have poison arrows on your archers, the Camel Lancers will really struggle against that.

In any given game, Sofas with imported armor would be awesome. But you're facing Camel Lancers, and Camel Lancers will just absolutely massacre the Sofas.

Having enough production buildings to mass Donso is what you need to keep Ayyubid camel lancers at bay.

Those Manjaniqs are frankly a win condition. Malians really don't have a unit that can answer them except a heavy frontline of cavalry like Sofa.

Ayyubid gets hit by a brick wall when they run out of food, especially without a farm transition. It's really tough to claw into a long game against Malians once the tempo is lost.