At a glance
Era 7- Dates
- Ruled c. 1312-c. 1337 CE
- Who
- Ruler of Mali whose Hajj of 1324 made his name known across the world
- Era
- West Africa
ProfileMansa Musa
Musa became mansa, king, of Mali in 1312, and under him the empire reached its height. It held the goldfields and the trade routes of West Africa, and he took Gao and Timbuktu firmly under his rule.
In 1324 he set out on the Hajj with a vast caravan. In Cairo he and his followers gave and spent so much gold that its value fell for years afterwards. He met the Mamluk sultan, went on to Makkah and Madinah, and gave generously there too.
He came home with scholars and builders, among them the Andalusian poet and architect Abu Ishaq al-Sahili, who designed the Djinguereber Mosque in Timbuktu. Musa paid for mosques, schools and libraries, and sent students to study in Fes. A map drawn in Majorca in 1375 shows him on a throne holding a golden orb. He died in about 1337.
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