c. 1280-1337

Malian Emperor

Mansa Musa, emperor of Mali in West Africa, was the first African ruler to become widely known throughout Europe and the Middle East. In particular, he was celebrated for his pilgrimage to the Muslim holy city of Mecca, during which he lavished so much gold on his hosts in Cairo that he nearly wrecked the Egyptian economy.

The modern nation called Mali is poor and landlocked, but the medieval empire by that name, located to the southwest of present-day Mali, enjoyed considerable wealth, as well as access to the Atlantic. The source of Mali's wealth, like that of Ghana, an earlier kingdom in the region, was gold. The kings of Ghana had exerted tight control over the gold supply, and Mali's ruling dynasty, established c. 1235 by Sundiata Keita, was equally strong.

Mansa Musa—or rather, Musa, since "Mansa" was a title equivalent...