Mansa Musa Mansa Musa was a great and very wealthy leader of Mali. He is considered to be the greatest leader that Mali has ever had. But when Mansa Musa journeyed to Mecca with 60,000 other people, was it strictly for religion, or were there other motives for his journey? Clearly, he wanted to go not just for religion. There were other motivating factors.
The Mali Empire became a site of cultural exchange because of their immense wealth. According to an article “ Mali and the world Document C: Section from the Catalan Atlas” by Abraham Cresques created in 1375, it stated, “This king is the richest and most noble lord of all of this region due to the abundance of gold
In 1312 CE Mansa Musa took the throne as sultan of Mali. Then, in 1324CE Mansa created a hajj, or pilgrimage that he would take to Islam’s holy city, Mecca. His hajj consisted of a caravan of 60,000 people, plenty of camels and pounds of gold. In the beginning of the renaissance, Mansa Musa and his hajj went on the journey to Mecca because the Qur’an obligates the creation of the hajj, Musa wanted to expand the wealth of his empire through trade and he also wanted to strengthen ties to other muslim nations. Mansa Musa and his hajj went to Mecca because it is a requirement of the Islamic religion stated in the Qur’an.
Mansa Mūsā was an emperor of the West African empire of Mali. He ruled from 1307 to 1312 and did many remarkable things during his ruling such as building The Great Mosque at Timbuktu. In the Middle East and Europe, he is best known for his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1224. Sundiata, Mansa Mūsā’s grandson or great nephew, founded his dynasty and was also a West African monarch who founded western Sudanese empire of Mali. He lead the path for Mansa Mūsā to become emperor in 1312 and also helped him with his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324.The world was awakened to the marvelous wealth of Mali due to the pilgrimage.
They found it crucial to continue their beliefs and traditions. They believed they were effective and kept them content. Some examples of these traditions were the Naming Ceremony, tribal dances, and their Dreaming Journey. Along with all this, the quote talks about telling their grandchildren the ways of their people. This is because it was one of their culture’s customs.
They also had good educations in math and reading. They also learned a lot about their religion. It also says, “every child learned new things a day. So therefore it’s inaccurate.
According to a PDF document by UC Davis created in 2014, it stated “Arab North Africans wanted to buy gold to make coins, and the West African goldfields held one of the largest supplies of gold in the Afro-Eurasian world.” This shows that gold was important to the Arab North Africans because they needed it to make gold coins. West Africa had the most gold, so they went over there to buy that gold. This provides that all the gold that Mali had made a lot of cities and other people got to Mali just for the gold, which was very good for Mali. Therefore, the Empire of Mali became a site of cultural exchange because they had what everyone wanted -
In North Africa the Berber merchants were one of the major groups that traded with Sub-Saharan West Africa through the Trans-Saharan trade routes. The Berber merchants played an essential part in dispersing the Islam and its traditions into Sub-Saharan West Africa since they frequently used the Sahara to trade. When Islam made its way into Sub-Saharan West Africa, it was absorbed into their society but unlike in other societies, Islam merged with the existing animistic culture. A majority of the Sub-Saharan West African population didn’t convert to Islam but remained animistic. The people who converted were merchants and elite rulers.
The societies of West Africa, Europe, and North America exhibited similarities and differences in their religious beliefs, values, and government systems. These contrasts and similarities were further made apparent during European expansion across the Atlantic and the subsequent new cross cultural interactions that were created. One way in which the societies of West Africa, Europe, and North America diverged was in their belief systems. Unlike Europe and North America, West Africa gradually adopted Islam in addition to its traditional religions. Islam diffused through the trans-Saharan trade with North Africa and by the 1200’s was assimilated into the Mali and Songhai Empire.
In the Mali Empire, education was a significant part of their culture. It started with Mansa Musa, the leader of the Mali empire who focused on spreading Islamic religion throughout Mali after his trip to Mecca. Whilst spreading Islam, Timbuktu
They were all taught to devalue their own people and traditions. The conditions were brutal as the children were beaten if they spoke their own language. They were not fed well, as many Native children died from malnutrition as well as disease and abuse (Hudson, Lecture 18). “Once I lost a dear classmate. I remember well how she used to mope along at my side, until one morning she could not raise her head from her pillow.
Mansa Musa, who ruled from 1312 to 1337 CE (often referred to as “the golden age of the Mali Empire”), was the tenth mansa, or king, of the Mali Empire, which was located in the Sahara Desert and “stretched across two thousand miles from the Atlantic Ocean to Lake Chad” (Alkhateeb; Tesfu). In 1324 CE, Musa, a Muslim ruler, decided to begin his pilgrimage to Mecca, called the Hajj, which is the fifth pillar of Islam. Mansa Musa’s visit to Cairo, Egypt during his Hajj to Mecca had an incredibly negative impact on the economy in Egypt for over a decade. Mahmud Kali, a native scholar and Islamic judge of Timbuktu, provided insight into Mansa Musa’s initial reason for deciding to set out on his pilgrimage to Mecca: Muhammad Quma, a scholar, had told Kali that “the Mali-koy Kankan Musa had killed his mother, Nana Kankan, by mistake. For this he felt deep regret and remorse and feared
Mansa Musa was a Medieval African emperor who ruled over Mali from 1312-1337. He is most well-known for his pilgrimage to Mecca that happened in 1324. He was the first Muslim African ruler to make the pilgrimage. Mansa Musa doesn’t have a lot of information on his childhood. I do know that he was born into the Keita Dynasty and his parents were Fage and Laye.
Mansa Musa, king of the Malian empire, in specific was a large influence on the religion of the population. Other pieces of Muslim architecture, such as the great Mosque of Djenne, are evidence of the religion’s dominance in Sub-Saharan Africa. Along the Indian Ocean trade routes, we also see Islam as a dominant religion, but there is much more of a variety. Evidence of Islam in Eastern Africa can be found in the language itself. Swahili, the dominant language of the region, is influenced heavily by Arabic.
Mansa Musa helped Islam spread by leaving to pilgrimage and introduced the empire to the Islamic World. He encouraged learning to read the Arabic language to read the Qur’an. He hired architects to build mosques as well. Another example is the Songhai empire. Songhai leaders were Muslims as well.
