Mansa Musa and the Mali Empire: From Tarikh al-Sudan

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There is no doubt that Mansa Musa I was the best known medieval Sub-Saharan African king. His name became fairly well known to Europeans at a time when almost no Europeans had any first-hand knowledge of the African interior.

Mansa Musa’s real name was Kankan Musa or Musa Keita. “Mansa” was just a title that meant “emperor” in the local Mande language. His given name, Musa, means Moses in Arabic. Nevertheless, it was under the name “Mansa Musa” that he is best known. The source of Mansa Musa’s fame was his pilgrimage to Mecca. The king caused a sensation, traveling with a massive entourage and giving away large amounts of gold. His fame spread from the Arab world to medieval Christian Europe, where his likeness appears on the 1375 Catalan Atlas, holding a gold nugget.

The wealth of Mansa Musa and his Mali or Malinke kingdom was derived from the gold trade. Gold was abundant in West Africa, and African kingdoms like Ghana , Mali , and Songhai derived great wealth by selling gold from further south to Arab and Berber traders from the north. West African gold, sold by Arab traders, provided most of Christian Europe’s gold supply before the conquest of the gold-rich New World after 1492.

This lucrative trans-Saharan trade helped to fund the growth of a series of large and wealthy kingdoms in West Africa. The largest of these were the kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. The oldest of the three was the ancient kingdom of Ghana, which should not be confused with the modern-day republic of Ghana.

After the decline of Ghana, a new kingdom emerged, that of Mali or Malinke. The Mali Empire, at its height, ruled much of what is now the Republic of Mali. The empire was founded by the celebrated Sundiata Keita. Mansa Musa, and other Malinke rulers, were members of the dynasty founded by Sundiata. After the decline of the Mali Empire, the Songhai Empire emerged, ruling much of the region until it was defeated by invading Moroccans at the Battle of Tondibi in 1591.

The trans-Saharan trade brought influences from the Mediterranean to West Africa, including the Muslim faith and literacy. Timbuktu became a center for Muslim scholars who produced a large number of texts, often written in the Arabic language.

Two of the texts written by Timbuktu scholars have become major source of information about the history of the Mali and Songhay kingdoms- the Tarikh al-fattash and Tarikh al-Sudan , both written in the 17th century. The author of the Tarikh al-Sudan was Abd al-Sadi , a bureaucrat who worked for the Arma rulers of the cities of Djenne and Timbuktu.

The Arma, who ruled Timbuktu in al-Sadi’s time, were descended from the Moroccan invaders who had conquered the region from Songhai in 1591. Direct rule of the region by the Moroccan sultan quickly collapsed after 1591, but the invading soldiers remained in the region and intermarried with local women, giving rise to the Arma ethnic group, who ruled Timbuktu, and the surrounding region, for several decades. Al-Sadi’s original Arabic text was translated around 1900 by the French scholar Octave Victor Houdas . This is an excerpt from Houdas’ translation of al-Sadi’s chronicle.