A line in a Western news item read: “… the Muslim emperor, Kankan Moussa (Musa) ruined the world market for gold by giving away so much of it during a trip to Makkah.” This certainly gives the impression of senseless, extravagant spending by the king for his own pleasure and enjoyment. The truth, however, is something rather different.
“Mansa (meaning King) Musa, the most legendary of the Malian kings, was a devout Muslim. Rulers of West African states had made pilgrimages to Makkah before him but his Haj journey in 1324 AH was different from that of others,” Prof. Dr. Sano Koutoub Moustafa, director, international relations and promotions, Office of the Rector, International Islamic University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, told Arab News.
“Musa was gentle and humble. He built houses for the needy in Makkah and Madinah. He also built awqaf in Makkah and Madinah and even today, some of his descendants benefit from the income of these awqaf. I visited Madinah and was told that those with connections to him receive something every year,” Moustafa said.
On his way to Makkah, Musa spent time in Cairo. The Sultan, Al-Malik Al-Nasir, received him as a fellow Muslim with great respect. Musa donated substantial sums of money to the poor in Cairo and because of his distributing so much gold, the price fell and affected the economy for almost 20 years,” said Moustafa, who has written a paper on the king’s journey to Makkah and its presenting a favorable image of African Muslims.
The historian Al-’Umari, who visited Cairo 12 years after Musa found the inhabitants of the city still singing his praises. His caravan included 60,000 people and 80 camels carrying more than two tons of gold. Of the 12,000 servants with the caravan, 500 carried staffs of pure gold.
“Musa did not take a single ounce of gold back with him. In fact, he had to borrow money for his return journey,” Moustafa said. “His pilgrimage made people aware of Mali and the kingdom began to appear on maps. In 1375 AH a map showed Mansa Musa holding a large gold nugget in the area south of the Sahara. Trade between Egypt and Mali also flourished.”
Musa’s empire was allegedly one of the largest in the world at the time and the 14th century traveler, Ibn Battuta, noted that it took some four months to travel from the northern borders of the empire to the southern ones.
Moustafa said that when in Makkah, Musa met scholars and thinkers and took some of them with him.
One was Abu Ishaq Al-Sahili, a Granadan poet and an architect. He built the great mosque at Gao, the Djingareyber Mosque at Timbuktu and a royal palace. The Djingareyber Mosque immediately became the central mosque of the city, and it dominates Timbuktu to this day. It consists of nine rows of square pillars and can accommodate 2,000 worshippers. He introduced the use of burnt brick and mud to the region as a building material. The first Islamic university in the world was in Timbuktu. “Unfortunately it is in a state of disrepair and no attention is paid to it. There was, however, an attempt by the OIC to do something,” Moustafa explained.
The Djingareyber Mosque’s mud construction established a 660-year- old tradition that still persists; each year before the summer’s torrential rains, Timbuktu’s residents re-plaster the mosque’s high walls and flat roof with mud. It is said that Al-Saheli’s style influenced architecture in the Sudan where, in the absence of stone, beaten earth is often reinforced with wood.
After returning from Makkah, Musa built mosques, vast libraries and madrasas throughout his kingdom.”
His journey had quite an impact. Upon his return, almost the whole kingdom became Muslim. He spread material and spiritual knowledge and riches, strengthened Islam and promoted education, trade, and commerce in Mali,” Moustafa added.
Mansa Musa ruled for 25 years, bringing prosperity, stability, and good government, spreading its fame abroad and making it truly “remarkable both for its extent and for its wealth and a striking example of political organization.”
During Musa’s reign Timbuktu thrived as a commercial center and flourished as a hub of Islamic learning. Even after the empire fell in the fifteenth century, Timbuktu remained the major Islamic center in sub- Saharan Africa.
Side by side with the encouragement of trade and commerce, royal patronage was also extended to learning and the arts. The organization and smooth administration of a purely African empire, the founding of universities, the expansion of trade in Timbuktu, the architectural innovations in Gao, Timbuktu, Niani, and indeed, throughout the whole of Mali are all testimony to Mansa Musa’s superior gifts. In addition, the moral and religious principles he taught his subj ects endured long after his death and their influences are felt today.
