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Great Events from History: The Middle Ages

Great Events from History: The Middle Ages
Mansa Musa Makes a Pilgrimage to Mecca

Mansa Mūsā was the greatest of the West African emperors whose rule saw the rise of a highly expanded, efficiently administered and prosperous empire of Mali. His reign is rightly characterized as the "Golden Age of Mali." The large entourage that accompanied him during his famous pilgrimage to Mecca and the lavish wealth he distributed along the way left a lasting impact all over North Africa and the Mediterranean world. Mansa Mūsā's achievements made Mali's name renowned and firmly placed it on the map of the medieval world.

Locale: Western Sudan
Category: Government and politics

Key Figures
Mansa Mūsā I (Kankan Mūsā, c. 1280-1337), the most noted of the
Mali emperors who made the famous pilgrimage to Mecca, r. 1312-1337
Sumanguru Kante, founder of the Sosso empire, r. 1200-1235
Sundiata (c. 1215-c. 1255), founder of the empire of Mali, r. 1230-1255
Mansa Uli, son and successor of Sundiata, r. 1260-1277
Mansa Maghan I, Mansa Mūsā's son and successor, r. 1337
Mansa Sulaymān, the last of the great emperors of Mali, r. 1337-1358
Ibn Battūtah (1304-1377), a Moroccan traveler and writer who visited Mali

Summary of Event
The collapse of the West African kingdom of Ghana in the eleventh century led to rivalry among its former vassal states who vied for control of the upper Niger valley and its connections with the lucrative trans-Saharan trade. By 1200 the Sosso warrior, Sumanguru Kante, had subdued various small chiefdoms and had welded together the Sosso kingdom, which included much of the area once controlled by Ghana.

Sumanguru's hegemony was challenged by Sundiata, a chief of the Mande-speaking people who led a successful rebellion. After killing Sumanguru at the battle of Kirina in 1235, Sundiata united the Sosso with other chieftaincies and forged the Mandinka state, which now is better known as the Empire of Mali. Sundiata established his capital city at Niani and declared himself overall mansa (Malinke for "king of kings" or emperor). Royal authority was vested in the Keita clan, which established itself as the ruling dynasty of the burgeoning empire. Sundiata's companions and generals constituted the provincial governing elite.

Sundiata was succeeded by Mansa Uli, who continued his father's conquests and incorporated considerable areas of the Sahel region. However, the most famous of the Keita rulers was Mansa Mūsā, who carried out further campaigns of imperial expansion and consolidation. During his reign, Mali's realm extended in the north to the salt deposits of Taghaza on the fringes of the Sahara, and in the south to the gold country on the southern fringes of the savannah, while to the west it reached as far as the Gambia and the lower Senegal valley, and to the east it controlled the copper mines and caravan center of Takedda. The Songhai capital of Gao on the middle Niger and Timbuktu upstream were also incorporated into the empire. Mali controlled many sources of copper, salt, and gold, as well as the caravan trails between. Complex networks of caravan routes crisscrossed the whole of the Sudan and the numerous cities that grew all along the routes flourished into important centers of commerce, religion and learning.

The empire of Mali consisted of provinces and vassal kingdoms. The mansa controlled important provinces and major towns through directly appointed governors. At the time of Mansa Mūsā's reign, the empire had twelve provinces, each with a number of subdivisions mostly based on clan units.

With its many gold mines, Mali was the largest producer of precious metals in the medieval world. The mansa had an exclusive right to gold nuggets. In addition, valuable imports such as horses and metals were the monopoly of the mansa. The mansa's commercial agents were found in all the major trading centers including the southern termini of the Saharan trade routes. They levied duties on imports of salt, copper and other merchandise. Command over such enormous resource enabled Mali to maintain effective security over an area of the size of Western Europe. Mansa Mūsā's army was said to number over a hundred thousand.

Mansa Mūsā is better known for the famous hajj he made to Mecca in 1324-1325. In preparation for the pilgrimage, the emperor levied special contributions from every trading town and every province. According to contemporary Arab writers, Mansa Mūsā traveled with an immense entourage consisting of 60,000 porters, preceded by 500 slaves, each carrying a staff of gold weighing 6 pounds. Each of the one hundred baggage camels carried about 300 pounds of gold. Mansa Mūsā is said to have built a new mosque every Friday on his way to Egypt. His visit was long remembered in Cairo as one of the major events of the city. His gifts of gold in Cairo were so lavish that their infusion into the economy depressed the value of gold in Egypt for several years.

The splendor exhibited by Mansa Mūsā's traveling party awakened the world to the riches of Mali and the greatness of its emperor. As early as 1375, European cartographers depicted the Sudan with a portrait of Mansa Mūsā holding a gold nugget. North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, including the Italian city-states, took an increasing interest in Mali and its gold. The trans-Saharan trade reached a new dimension with the European and North African demand for Mali's resources. Commercial and cultural interaction between Mali and the wider world around it was greatly stimulated as a result of Mansa Mūsā's visit to the Middle East.

After his visit, Mansa Mūsā pursued a vigorous policy to Islamize Mali. He brought back with him many books and religious scholars and encouraged Islamic learning by opening madrasas (Islamic schools) throughout the empire. Timbuktu in particular developed into one of the foremost centers of Islamic learning, attracting scholars from all over the Muslim world. The architects Mansa Mūsā brought from the Middle East built splendid palaces and mosques and introduced a new architectural style in the Western Sudan.

Mansa Mūsā was succeeded by his son Maghan I, whom he had already appointed as a deputy during his pilgrimage to Mecca. However, Maghan was soon overthrown by Mansa Mūsā's brother, Sulaymān, who as the eldest male in the family contested the succession. From the accounts of Ibn Battūtah, the Moroccan traveler who visited Mali during this time, it appears that Sulaymān maintained the empire in all its splendor. Ibn Battūtah wrote admiringly of the prosperity, security and justice that prevailed throughout the empire. The period after Sulaymān's reign was, however, marked by a slow decline of the empire of Mali.

Significance
At the peak of its power, the empire of Mali under Mansa Mūsā extended from the Atlantic coast in the west to Hausaland in the east. An orderly system of law and government was established throughout this immensely diverse empire. Its highly developed metropolitan cities such as Timbuktu, Walata, Gao, and Jenne gave birth to a sophisticated urban society that actively promoted trade and crafts as well as learning and high culture. Mansa Mūsā's impressive pilgrimage to Mecca boosted Mali's international fame and prestige and further stimulated the empire's political, cultural, and economic development. Mali's legacy continued to influence succeeding West African states such as Songhai.

Shumet Sishagne

Further Reading
Davidson, Basil. Africa in History: Themes and Outlines. New York: Macmillan, 1991. A general introduction to the history of Africa by a well-known authority on African history.

Hamdun, Said, and Noel King, trans. and eds. Ibn Battuta in Black Africa. Princeton: Markus Wiener, 1994. A selection of the writings by Ibn Battūtah, the fourteenth century Moroccan traveler who has left a fascinating firsthand account of Mali.

Hunwick, J. O. "The Mid-fourteenth Century Capital of Mali." Journal of African History 14, no. 2 (1973). An outline of research on the location of the capital of the empire of Mali.

Innes, G., ed. Sunjata: Three Mandinka Versions. London: School of African and Oriental Studies, 1974. A collection of Mandinka oral versions of the Sundiata epic, gathered in the Senegamba locale.

Insoll, Timothy. "Trade and Empire: the Road to Timbuktu." Archaeology 53, no. 6 (2000). Valuable information on the trans-Saharan trade routes, camel caravans, and the rise of commerce in medieval Mali.

Lange, Dierk. "From Mande to Songhay: Towards a Political and Ethnic History of Medieval Gao." Journal of African History 35 (1994). Although its focus is on the Mande group who occupied Gao, this essay provides an excellent survey of the overall ethnic identity of the West African region and explores the common features of the medieval West African kingdoms.

Levtzion, Nehemia. Ancient Ghana and Mali. New York: African Publishing, 1980. A standard work on the evolution of the Empire of Mali. Particulary useful for the early phase of the history of Mali.

_______. "The Western Maghrib and Sudan." In The Cambridge History of Africa. Vol. 3. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1977. Provides a well-organized outline of the history of the West African region from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries.

Niane, D. T. "Mali and the Second Mandingo Expansion." In General History of Africa. Vol. 4. New York: UNESCO, 1984. A well-researched history of the rise of the empire of Mali.

_______. Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali. Translated by G. D. Pickett. 1965. Reprint. Harlow, England: Longman, 1994. An account of the rise of Sundiata, the founder of the Mali empire, based on local oral tradition.

Thobhani, Akbarali. Mansa Mūsā: The Golden King of Ancient Mali. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 1998. A simplified account of the life and times of Mansa Mūsā, particularly suitable for juvenile readers.

See Also
1010, Gao Converts to Islam; c. 1100, Founding of Timbuktu; 1230's-1260, Reign of Sundiata of Mali; 1322, First Dated Coins in Africa; 1340, Al-Umari Writes a History of Africa.

Related Articles in Great Lives from History: The Middle Ages, 477-1453: Abd al-Malik; Ibn Battūtah; Ibn Khaldūn; al-Idrīsī; Damia al-Kāhina; Lalibela; Sundiata; Tāriq ibn-Ziyād.