Talk:Mansa Musa

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[edit] Musa's death

Many sources* indicate that Mansa Musa died in 1337. Can someone confirm the 1341 death? Or did he not die then, just that's when the throne became stable again?

*For instance, do a Google search for "Mansa Musa" 1337.LizardWizard 08:11, May 27, 2005 (UTC)

I just removed the word 'fuck' from the death paragraph someone had put up... ````

[edit] Image request?

could someone make a window for that image of him?

Which image do you mean? --Dvyost 05:11, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

the one I put by the name


[edit] Sources for 12/20 years

I notice that this article keeps flipping back and forth between the claim that Egypt's economy took 12 years to recover, and that it took 20. Can we have a centralized discussion here about this? al-Umari seems to say, "at least 12," which could still mean either one. What sources do y'all have on this? --Dvyost 17:54, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I have never seen it say that it took 20 years to regain economic stability, everywher I have read, it says it took 12 years for Cairo, Egypt to gain control.
Also, Mansa Musa wasn't really the grandson of Sundiata, was he? I have read that he was the grandson of Sundiata's sister. This would mean that Sundiata is Mansa Musa's great-uncle....what do u think?
Truthxsaber 15:56, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
Sounds plausible to me, but what we really need to do is find some sources (WP:CITE). If you have any good ones, plug 'em in! --Dvyost 16:05, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I suspect that I am the source of the "20 years" statement (I made an edit to 1324, where I added this event & that number of years). I thought I had taken this from Ross E. Dunn, The Adventures of Ibn Batutta (Berkeley: U of California Press, 1986), but Dunn does not say exactly how long Manse Musa's free-spending ways warped the price of gold in Cairo; instead he writes: "The Egyptian chroniclers wrote about the event, and its disturbing short-term effects on the Cairene gold market well into the next century. in the history of mnedieval West Africa no single event has been more celebrated" (p.290). So if al-Umari says 12 years, then as an eye-witness he should be given primacy -- & cited as the source, of course. (Providing figures as if taken from thin air only encourages other people to actually use the same source.) -- llywrch 18:14, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mother claim

Just removed this sentence pending citation: "He went on hajj because he accidentally killed his mother by dropping a knife on her leg."

This seems possible but could easily be a legend; I think we need a little more citation (see WP:CITE) about whether historians believe this story, and where it comes from. Sound ok? --Dvyost 16:09, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

At this point, you're wikipedia's foremost expert on Mansa Musa, so, OK :P Siyavash 19:56, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
If I'm Wikipedia's foremost expert on Musa, then he's in quite a lot of trouble. =) Nah, I'm just falling back on good ol' WP:CITE--my code for "I don't know if this is correct or not and don't really have time to look it up myself." --Dvyost 06:16, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Fictional references

Every Famous leader in various ages of civilization have a "Fictional references" section, or something to that effect. I would have to completely disagree with the editor who chose to do away with that. Clearly, they haven't been using wikipedia all that much, or they're on some sanctimonious crusade to do away with the fictional references section of every famous world figure in history. Siyavash 22:22, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

While I originally had similar concerns, I must respectfully disagree with you statement. I inquired of the user who made those edits and his response here was well reasoned and allivated my concerns about his actions, which were in progress at that time. -JCarriker 22:49, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
Well I'm going to have to in turn respectfully disagree with your change of heart. It's not even all that well reasoned, and all that it contains are a few buzzwords. The following articles contain text pertaining to fictional references of a historical figure. Some may or may not have anything to do with aforementioned game:

I think it's even more silly to be so hung up on a passing computer game reference to go on deleting crusade. Does this mean we're going to get rid of all "... in Popular Culture", " ... in media" and "... in fiction" sections for all the world leaders? Or are we merely getting rid of anything having to do with a computer game? I really don't buy that they're solely being removed because they are the only fictional reference on the list. We have to start somewhere.

How would such a list of fictional references for historical figures even take off if someone comes along and deletes everything? Anyway, I'm not going to edit anything more on these matters. I don't even play Civilization IV anymore, so calling me in particular a "fanboy" is sort of oddm so if everyone concurs that they no longer want these references in multiple historical figure articles and do not want any information about their fictional portrayals, I wont get involved.

Siyavash 01:08, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

First off, I had no change of heart, Sandstein's response simply verified that he was not going to stumble across, Hatshepsut (largely my work) and find that there was not only a reference to Civ IV, but also a pic, and an entire section and begin hacking away at it. In his response he made it clear that he was not going to damage the In popular culture section at Hatshepsut, which was my primary concern. I believe that similar sections are valuable in any article that seeks to pursue holistic coverage. As such I found him well reasoned as in his posyion was reasonable because he wasn't out to anhialate every reference to Civ IV outside of computer articles. If you disagree with his actions or are offended by something he said then you should take it to his talk page, it's not likely he'll see it here. -JCarriker 05:20, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Visited New World?

Some (I think?) believe Mansa Musa traveled to the Americas...is this just a modern Afrocentric myth or does it have any basis in reality?

There's very sparse evidence that his predecessor Abubakari II may have tried (see article), but nothing conclusive; never heard that Musa himself did, though. --Dvyost 07:06, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Visit to Cairo

I've removed the exacting figures on how many slaves he had, how much gold he had and how long it took the economy to recover, and rounded it off to generic terms. If someone wants to quote an authoritative primary source for the figures that would be OK, although I think it's better for an encyclopedia not to get into a debate on numbers since probably no one really knows, and it's really a bit of trivia that's not that significant. The important thing is, he had a lot of gold which caught peoples attention. -- Stbalbach 11:45, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but I think the exact amount of gold would be great if this was known. I think people would find it very interesting to see just how rich this man was. However, I do see your point on why it shouldn't be there.

Fredtastic 01:01, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Kennedy ClanlKennedy Clan According to a book entitled 'Into Africa' by Marq de Villiers & Sheila Hirtle, it was Mansa Musa's predecessor, Abu Bakari II, who made that trip. He was called the Voyager King because of it. Supposedly Mansa Musa confided this to the son of the sultan of Cairo while on his historic hajj to Mecca. It was published in 1340 by the encyclopaedist Al-Omari. His trip allegedly occured sometime around 1310-12. Sorry for any errors I might have made in posting this but it is my first time.```  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kennedy Clan (talk • contribs) 21:06, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] King before birth?

The first paragraph says he was born in 1300-1315, but also says he became king in 1312.

How could that be possible? 72.152.10.70 (talk) 00:16, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't know where those birth years are coming from. Mandinka culture doesn't consider someone to be in the majority to get married (let alone become emperor of the wealthiest nation in the world) until about 20. Musa was regent of the Mali Empire in 1311 and became emperor in 1312. Logic dictates he could not have been born any later than 1292 (1295 at the latest!). Sundjata Keita is reputed to have been only 18 when he became Mali's first emperor, but that was an extraordinary circumstance. His son siezed the throne at about the same age (the records say Mansa Wali wasn't old enough to become emperor either).Scott Free (talk) 04:41, 14 May 2008 (UTC)