Mali Empire

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The Mali Empire was an Islamic Empire of the Mandinka, a Mandé people in West Africa, dating from the 14th to 16th centuries. The empire was founded by the king Sundiata Keita, and was famous for the generosity and wealth of one of his successors, Mansa Kankan Musa I, and for the fabled wealth of the city of Timbuktu.

1 Sundiata
2 Sundiata's successors
3 Height of glory
4 Decline and fall
5 Partial list of mansas of the Mali Empire
6 External links

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Sundiata

The Malinke Kingdom of Mali had already existed for several centuries as a small state just to the South of the Ghana Empire. After the Ghana Empire had been weakened by the Almoravides, the Sosso Kingdom filled the power vacuum, and conquered many surrounding peoples, including the Mandinka, in the late 12th century.

When the Mandinka were conquered, the Sosso king, Sumanguru Kante, executed his brother, the Mandinka king, and eleven of his twelve sons. Sumanguru spared the twelfth son, Sundiata Keita, because he either took pity on the boy's fragile health, or thought it likely he would die anyway. Sundiata eventually overcame his physical obstacles, and grew into a strong young man. He led a Mandinka revolt against Sosso rule, and his forces routed Sumanguru at the Battle of Kirina (c. 1240 AD). Sundiata converted to Islam as gesture of goodwill to Islamic traders, after the defeat of Sumanguru. The Epic of Sundiata is part of the oral tradition of the Mandinka and is still told today.

Following this victory, Sundiata expanded his Empire to include most of the important parts of West Africa, including the towns of Walata, Tadmekka, and Gao at the southern end of the desert trade routes. The Mali Empire was made up of 3 allied states and 12 tributaries. The three states were Mali (which held the capital of the Empire, Niani), Mema, and Wagadou, the former Ghana Empire. The 12 tributaries were referred to as the 12 doors of Mali to which only the Mansa (emperor) holds the key. They were Djebeda, Tabon, Negueboria, Kankigne, Togom, Sili, Krina, Koulikoro, Diaghan, Kita, Ka-ba, and Do.

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Sundiata's successors

Sundiata's son, Sonia, succeeded him to the throne following his death (c. 1255). Mansa Wali Keita undertook the Hajj, expanded the empire's borders and significantly increased agricultural production, but his brothers Ouati Keita (r. 1270 - 1274) and Khalifa Keita (r. 1274 - 1275) were weak kings and accomplished little. They were followed by Abu Bakr and former general Sakura.

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Height of glory

Sundiata's grandnephew, Mansa Kankan Musa I or Musa I, ruled over the Mali Empire while it was the source of almost half the Old World's gold. Musa was a devoted Muslim and Islamic scholarship flourished under his rule. With Musa as a benefactor, Sankore University in Timbuktu reached its height. Craftsmen and Islamic scholars came from all over the Muslim world to receive a free education at Sankore's guilds and madrasas. Musa is most famous for his hajj in 1324. On his pilgrimage to Mecca, Musa gave gold away generously. When he passed through Cairo, he gave out so much gold that the value of the commodity didn't recover for at least 12 years. Musa was so generous that he ran out of money and had to take out a loan to be able to afford the journey home. Musa's hajj, and especially his gold, caught the attention of both the Islamic and Christian worlds. Consequently, the name of Mali and Timbuktu appeared on 14th century world maps.

The famous Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta visited the Mali Empire in the years 1352 and 1353, and his detailed account is an important first-hand written description of this empire.

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Decline and fall

Not long after Musa's reign, the Empire of Mali went into decline. A civil war followed the 1360 death of Musa's brother Suleyman and the nine-month reign of his son Kassa. Musa's grandson, Mari Diata II, is remembered by Tunisian historian Ibn Khaldun as a debauched, unpopular tyrant, and even the administrative skills of his son Musa II failed to halt the decline.

The Mossi of present-day Burkina Faso began to make inroads into Malian territory in the south, while the Tuaregs advanced from the Sahara to the north. With an increasing lack of central control, a number of vassal states declared their independence, most notably the Songhai of Gao. This new state rapidly expanded into an empire starting around 1460, claiming much of the territory of the crumbling Mali Empire and marking its effective end.

Mali continued to exist and exert some control over its heartland into the latter half of the 16th century. They asked the Portuguese for military assistance in hope of saving their empire but to no avail. The city of Niani finally fell to Songhai forces in 1546.

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