Mūsā I of Mali

Mūsā I of Mali (died 1332/37?) was the mansa (emperor) of the West African empire of Mali from 1307 (or 1312), during its height in the early 14th century. His reign strengthened Mali’s position within trans-Saharan trade networks and helped establish Timbuktu as a major center of commerce and Islamic learning. Widely considered to be the wealthiest person in history, Mansa Mūsā left a realm notable for its extent and riches. He built the Great Mosque at Timbuktu and is best remembered in the Middle East and Europe for the splendor of his pilgrimage to Mecca (1324).

Pilgrimage to Mecca

Mansa Mūsā, either the grandson or the grandnephew of Sundiata, the founder of his dynasty, came to the throne in 1307. In the 17th year of his reign (1324), he set out on his famous pilgrimage to Mecca. It was this pilgrimage that awakened the world to the stupendous wealth of Mali, much of which came from its control of major gold-producing regions and trans-Saharan trade routes. Cairo and Mecca received this royal personage, whose glittering procession, in the superlatives employed by Arab chroniclers, almost put Africa’s sun to shame. He traveled from his capital of Niani on the upper Niger River to Walata (Oualâta, Mauritania) and on to Tuat (now in Algeria) before making his way to Cairo. According to Arab chroniclers of the time, Mansa Mūsā was accompanied by an impressive caravan consisting of 60,000 men including a personal retinue of 12,000 enslaved persons, all clad in brocade and Persian silk. The emperor himself was said to have ridden on horseback and was directly preceded by 500 enslaved persons, each carrying a gold-adorned staff. In addition, Mansa Mūsā reportedly had a baggage train of 80 camels, each carrying 300 pounds of gold.

Chroniclers at the time noted Mansa Mūsā’s prodigious generosity and piety, as well as the fine clothes and exemplary behavior of his followers, which did not fail to create a most favorable impression. The Cairo that Mansa Mūsā visited was ruled by one of the greatest of the Mamlūk sultans, Al-Malik al-Nāṣir. The emperor’s great civility notwithstanding, the meeting between the two rulers might have ended in a serious diplomatic incident, for so absorbed was Mansa Mūsā in his religious observances that he was only with difficulty persuaded to pay a formal visit to the sultan. The historian al-ʿUmarī, who visited Cairo 12 years after the emperor’s visit, found the inhabitants of this city, with a population estimated at one million, still singing the praises of Mansa Mūsā. So lavish was the emperor in his spending that he flooded the Cairo market with gold, thereby causing such a decline in its value that the market some 12 years later had still not fully recovered.

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Rulers of West African states had made pilgrimages to Mecca before Mansa Mūsā, but the effect of his flamboyant journey was to make both Mali and Mansa Mūsā widely known well beyond the African continent. It also stimulated interest among the Muslim kingdoms of North Africa, and among many European nations as well, in reaching the source of this incredible wealth.

Conquest of Songhai kingdom

Mansa Mūsā, whose empire was one of the largest in the world at that time, is reported to have observed that it would take a year to travel from one end of his empire to the other. While this was probably an exaggeration, it is known that during his pilgrimage to Mecca one of his generals, Sagmandia (Sagaman-dir), extended the empire by capturing the Songhai capital of Gao. The Songhai kingdom measured several hundreds of miles across, so that the conquest meant the acquisition of a vast territory. The 14th-century traveler Ibn Battuta noted that it took about four months to travel from the northern borders of the Mali empire to Niani in the south.

The emperor was so overjoyed by the new acquisition that he decided to delay his return to Niani and to visit Gao instead, there to receive the personal submission of the Songhai king and take the king’s two sons as hostages. At Timbuktu, a Songhai city almost rivaling Gao in importance, Mansa Mūsā reportedly commissioned Abū Isḥāq al-Sāḥilī, a Granada poet and architect who had traveled with him from Mecca, to build a mosque and a palace; he also built a domed audience hall for Mansa Mūsā back in Niani.

Under Mansa Mūsā, Timbuktu grew to be a very important commercial city having caravan connections with Egypt and with all other important trade centers in North Africa. Side by side with the encouragement of trade and commerce, learning and the arts received royal patronage. Scholars who were mainly interested in history, Qurʾānic theology, and law were to make the mosque of Sankore in Timbuktu a teaching center. Mansa Mūsā probably died in 1332.

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Legacy

The organization and administration of the Mali empire, the founding of the Sankore mosque and its renowned center of Islamic learning, the expansion of trade in Timbuktu, the architectural innovations in Timbuktu, Niani, and, indeed, throughout the whole of Mali and in the subsequent Songhai empire reflect the importance of Mansa Mūsā’s administration and patronage. In addition, the religious institutions and traditions that he supported also continued after his death.