Musa I of Mali

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Musa I of Mali
Musa depicted holding a gold nugget from the 1375 Catalan Atlas.
Mansa of Mali
Reign c. 1312 – 1337 (25 years)
Predecessor Abubakari II
Successor Maghan Musa
Spouse Inari Kunate
Issue
Maghan Musa
House Keita Dynasty
Father Kankou Musa
Born 1280's
Mali
Died c. 1337
Unknown
Religion Islam

Musa I (c. 1280 – c. 1337), was the tenth Mansa, which translates as "King of Kings" or "Emperor", of the wealthy Malian Empire. At the time of Mansa Musa's rise to the throne, the Malian Empire consisted of territory formerly belonging to the Ghana Empire and Melle (Mali) and immediate surrounding areas, and Musa held many titles, including: Emir of Melle, Lord of the Mines of Wangara, and Conqueror of Ghanata, Futa-Jallon, and at least another dozen.[1]

Nomenclature

Musa was referred to and is most commonly found as Mansa Musa in Western manuscripts and literature. His name also appears as Kankou Musa, Kankan Musa or Kanku Musa which means "Musa, son of Kankou", where Kankou is the name of his mother. Other alternatives go on as Mali-koy Kankan Musa, Gonga Musa, and the Lion of Mali.[2][3]

Lineage and accession to the throne

What is known about the kings of the Malian Empire is taken from the writings of Arab scholars, including Al-Umari, Abu-sa'id Uthman ad-Dukkali, Ibn Khaldun, and Ibn Battuta. According to Ibn-Khaldun's comprehensive history of the Malian kings, Mansa Musa's grandfather was Abu-Bakr (the Arabic equivalent to Bakari or Bogari, original name unknown – not the sahabiyy Abu Bakr), a brother of Sundiata Keita, the founder of the Malian Empire as recorded through oral histories. Abu-Bakr did not ascend the throne, and his son, Musa's father, Faga Laye, has no significance in the History of Mali.[4]

Mansa Musa came to the throne through a practice of appointing a deputy when a king goes on his pilgrimage to Mecca or some other endeavor, and later naming the deputy as heir. According to primary sources, Musa was appointed deputy of the king before him, who had reportedly embarked on an expedition to explore the limits of the Atlantic Ocean, and never returned. The Arab-Egyptian scholar Al-Umari quotes Mansa Musa as follows:

The ruler who preceded me did not believe that it was impossible to reach the extremity of the ocean that encircles the earth (the Atlantic Ocean). He wanted to reach that (end) and was determined to pursue his plan. So he equipped two hundred boats full of men, and many others full of gold, water and provisions sufficient for several years. He ordered the captain not to return until they had reached the other end of the ocean, or until he had exhausted the provisions and water. So they set out on their journey. They were absent for a long period, and, at last just one boat returned. When questioned the captain replied: 'O Prince, we navigated for a long period, until we saw in the midst of the ocean a great river which flowing massively. My boat was the last one; others were ahead of me, and they were drowned in the great whirlpool and never came out again. I sailed back to escape this current.' But the Sultan would not believe him. He ordered two thousand boats to be equipped for him and his men, and one thousand more for water and provisions. Then he conferred the regency on me for the term of his absence, and departed with his men, never to return nor to give a sign of life.
—Mansa Musa[5]

Musa's son and successor, Mansa Magha, was also appointed deputy during Musa's pilgrimage.[6]

Islam and pilgrimage to Mecca

From the far reaches of the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus River, the faithful approached the city of Mecca. All had the same objective to worship together at the most sacred shrine of Islam, the Kaaba in Mecca. One such traveler was Mansa Musa, Sultan of Mali in Western Africa. Mansa Musa had prepared carefully for the long journey he and his attendants would take. He was determined to travel not only for his own religious fulfillment, but also for recruiting teachers and leaders, so that his realms could learn more of the Prophet's teachings.

Mahmud Kati, Chronicle of the Seeker

Musa was a devout Muslim and his pilgrimage to Mecca, a command ordained by Allah according to core teachings of Islam, made him well-known across northern Africa and the Middle East. To Musa, Islam was "an entry into the cultured world of the Eastern Mediterranean".[7] He would spend much time fostering the growth of Islam in his empire.

Musa made his pilgrimage in 1324, his procession reported to include 60,000 men, 12,000 slaves who each carried 4-lb. gold bars, heralds dressed in silks who bore gold staffs, organized horses and handled bags. Musa provided all necessities for the procession, feeding the entire company of men and animals.[8] Also in the train were 80 camels, which varying reports claim carried between 50 and 300 pounds of gold dust each. He gave away the gold to the poor he met along his route. Musa not only gave to the cities he passed on the way to Mecca, including Cairo and Medina, but also traded gold for souvenirs. Furthermore, it has been recorded that he built a mosque each and every Friday.

Musa's journey was documented by several eyewitnesses along his route, who were in awe of his wealth and extensive procession, and records exist in a variety of sources, including journals, oral accounts and histories. Musa is known to have visited with the Mamluk sultan Al-Nasir Muhammad of Egypt in July 1324.[9]

Musa's generous actions, however, inadvertently devastated the economy of the region. In the cities of Cairo, Medina and Mecca, the sudden influx of gold devalued the metal for the next decade. Prices on goods and wares super inflated. To rectify the gold market, Musa borrowed all the gold he could carry from money-lenders in Cairo, at high interest. This is the only time recorded in history that one man directly controlled the price of gold in the Mediterranean.[10]

Later reign

Whenever a hero adds to the list of his exploits from conquest, Mansa Musa gives them a pair of wide trousers...The greater the number of a Dogari's exploits, the bigger the size of his trousers.

Al-Dukhari, observation of the court of Mansa Musa in Timbuktu[11]

During his long return journey from Mecca in 1325, Musa heard news that his army had recaptured Gao. Sagmandia, one of his generals, led the endeavor. The city of Gao had been within the empire since before Sakura's reign and was an important, though often rebellious, trading center. Musa made a detour and visited the city where he received, as hostages, the two sons of the Gao king, Ali Kolon and Suleiman Nar. He returned to Niani with the two boys and later educated them at his court. When Mansa Musa returned, he brought back many Arabian scholars and architects.

Construction in Mali

Musa embarked on a large building program, raising mosques and madrasas in Timbuktu and Gao. Most famously the ancient center of learning Sankore Madrasah or University of Sankore was constructed during his reign. In Niani, he built the Hall of Audience, a building communicated by an interior door to the royal palace. It was "an admirable Monument" surmounted by a dome, adorned with arabesques of striking colours. The windows of an upper floor were plated with wood and framed in silver foil, those of a lower floor were plated with wood, framed in gold. Like the Great Mosque, a contemporaneous and grandiose structure in Timbuktu, the Hall was built of cut stone.

During this period, there was an advanced level of urban living in the major centers of the Mali. Sergio Domian, an Italian art and architecture scholar, wrote the following about this period: "Thus was laid the foundation of an urban civilization. At the height of its power, Mali had at least 400 cities, and the interior of the Niger Delta was very densely populated."[12]

Influence in Timbuktu

It is recorded that Mansa Musa traveled through the cities of Timbuktu and Gao on his way to Mecca, and made them a part of his empire when he returned around 1325. He brought architects from Andalusia, a region in Spain, and Cairo to build his grand palace in Timbuktu and the great Djinguereber Mosque that still stands today.[13]

Timbuktu soon became a center of trade, culture, and Islam; markets brought in merchants from Hausaland, Egypt, and other African kingdoms, a university was founded in the city (as well as in the Malian cities of Djenné and Ségou), and Islam was spread through the markets and university, making Timbuktu a new area for Islamic scholarship.[14] News of the Malian empire’s city of wealth even traveled across the Mediterranean to southern Europe, where traders from Venice, Granada, and Genoa soon added Timbuktu to their maps to trade manufactured goods for gold.[15]

The University of Sankore in Timbuktu was restaffed under Musa's reign, with jurists, astronomers, and mathematicians.[16] The university became a center of learning and culture, drawing Muslim scholars from around Africa and the Middle East to Timbuktu.

In 1330, the kingdom of Mossi invaded and conquered the city of Timbuktu. Gao had already been captured by Musa's general, and Musa quickly regained Timbuktu and built a rampart and stone fort, and placed a standing army, to protect the city from future invaders.[17]

While Musa’s palace has since vanished, the university and mosque still stand in Timbuktu today.

Death

The death of Mansa Musa is highly debated among modern historians and the Arab scholars who recorded history of Mali. When compared to the reigns of his successors, son Mansa Maghan (recorded rule from 1332 to 1336) and older brother Mansa Suleyman (recorded rule from 1336 to 1360), and Musa’s recorded 25 years of rule, the calculated date of death is 1332.[18] Other records declare Musa planned to abdicate the throne to his son Maghan, but he died soon after he returned from Mecca in 1325.[19] Further, according to an account by Ibn-Khaldun, Mansa Musa was alive when the city of Tlemcen in Algeria was conquered in 1337, as he sent a representative to Algeria to congratulate the conquerors on their victory.[20][21]

Legacy

Mansa Musa's building program caused an intellectual and economic expansion that would continue into the later Middle Ages, by strengthening Mali's economic power and establishing it as an important intellectual centre, attracting students from far and wide. Mansa Musa is also credited with assisting the birth of Sudano-Sahelian architecture and the spread of Islam in western Africa. His military campaigns allowed Mali to become the most powerful military on the continent rivaled only by Morocco and Egypt. [citation needed] His most notable legacy, was the hajj which not only caused an economic inflation in Mediterranean but may have indirectly supplied financial support for the Italian renaissance.[22]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Goodwin 1957, p. 109
  2. ↑ Hunwick 1999, p. 9
  3. ↑ Bell 1972, pp. 224–225
  4. ↑ Levtzion 1963, pp. 341–347
  5. ↑ Abbas Hamdani 1994
  6. ↑ Levtzion 1963, p. 347
  7. ↑ Goodwin 1957, p. 110
  8. ↑ Goodwin 1957, p. 110
  9. ↑ Bell 1972, pp. 224
  10. ↑ Goodwin 1957, p. 110
  11. ↑ Mendoza, Ruben G. "Academia.edu | West African Empires, Dates: 400–1591 C.E. | Ruben G Mendoza". Csumb.academia.edu. Retrieved 17 October 2012. 
  12. ↑ Mansa Musa, African History Restored, 2008, retrieved 2008-09-29 
  13. ↑ De Villiers, Marq and Hirtle, Sheila, Pp. 70.
  14. ↑ De Villiers, Marq and Hirtle, Sheila, pp. 74.
  15. ↑ De Villiers, Marq and Hirtle, Sheila, pp. 87–88.
  16. ↑ Goodwin 1957, p. 111
  17. ↑ De Villiers, Marq and Hirtle, Sheila, pp. 80–81.
  18. ↑ Levtzion 1963, pp. 349–350
  19. ↑ Bell 1972, p. 224
  20. ↑ Levtzion 1963, pp. 349–350
  21. ↑ Bell 1972, pp. 224–225
  22. ↑ http://www.ruperthopkins.com/pdf/Kingdom_of_Mali.pdf

Bibliography

  • Bell, Nawal Morcos (1972), "The age of Mansa Musa of Mali: Problems in succession and chronology", International Journal of African Historical Studies 5: 221–234, JSTOR 217515 .
  • De Villiers, Marq and Hirtle, Sheila. Timbuktu: Sahara’s Fabled City of Gold. Walker and Company: New York. 2007.
  • Goodwin, A.J.H. (1957), "The Medieval Empire of Ghana", South African Archaeological Bulletin 12: 108–112, JSTOR 3886971 .
  • Hunwick, John O. (1999), Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Sadi's Tarikh al-Sudan down to 1613 and other contemporary documents, Leiden: Brill, ISBN 90-04-11207-3 .
  • Levtzion, Nehemia (1963), "The thirteenth- and fourteenth-century kings of Mali", Journal of African History 4: 341–353, JSTOR 180027 .
  • Levtzion, Nehemia (1973), Ancient Ghana and Mali, London: Methuen, ISBN 0-8419-0431-6 .
  • Levtzion, Nehemia; Hopkins, John F.P., eds. (2000), Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West Africa, New York, NY: Marcus Weiner Press, ISBN 1-55876-241-8 . First published in 1981.

External links

Preceded by
Abubakari II		 Mansa of the Mali Empire
1312–1337 		Succeeded by
Maghan
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