June 23, 2018 • 22 mins
Today's episode revisits a Sarah and Deblina episode that revisits a tale of incredible wealth. When emperor Mansa Musa went on a pilgramage from Timbuktu to Mecca, he gave away so much gold that he crashed the gold market in Cairo.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Happy Saturday, everybody. Today's episode is from two back when
Sarah and Debilina were hosts of the show. It is
about Musa, the first of Molly, also known as Mansa Musa,
and he continues to be one of our most popular
listener requests when folks right in to ask about African history.
We do have a little update on this episode. Sarah
(00:24):
and Deblina talk about UNESCO World Heritage sites in Timbuctoo
that were threatened by desert, encroachment and a lack of upkeep.
In the Spring of these sites were further threatened by
several militant and extremist Islamist groups, which began destroying some
of them on the grounds that they were examples of idolatry.
The French military intervened and unrest has continued in the
(00:46):
years since then. Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History
Class from House Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm delayed a
chalk reboarding and today we're going to be talking about
(01:07):
a city of gold. But this one existed long before
anybody had heard about El Dorado, with its mythical streets
paved in gold. There was this city in Molly, and
that's this great West African empire that was supposedly so
rich that slaves could carry staffs that were dusted in gold,
(01:27):
and even the most common objects like everyday things around
your house would be made out of this precious metal
that was so rare in most of the world. Yeah.
But the interesting thing is for most of the Middle Ages,
Europe and even paid much attention to Africa beyond its
northern trading cities at all. But this gold really changed things. Yeah,
(01:47):
especially when according to the British historian Dr Basil Davidson,
the rulers of Molly were quote rumored to have been
the wealthiest men on the face of the earth. So
I would say would be worth checking out, even going
across the desert for perhaps, I'd say so. And the
most illustrious ruler of this empire was Mansa Musa, and
(02:10):
he expanded territories, developed great cities, and most famously displayed
his land's wealth in a procession of thousands across Africa.
And he didn't do this to fight a battle. He
did it to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. So, okay,
we're gonna be talking about this city of gold, and
we're going to be talking about this ruler who made
this famous pilgrimage. So who was Mansa Musa and where
(02:34):
did he come from? He came from the Sahel, which
is this band of land that separates the Sahara from
the forests of southern Africa. And it's always been an important,
banned important part of the world because of the trade
that crosses it. And that really started in about seven
fifty a d. And lasted until the sixteenth and seventeenth
(02:56):
centuries when finally ships replaced over and caravans of camels.
You could do your trading a lot easier by boats. Yes,
And the first great kingdom of this area was that
of Ghana, and that's different from the modern nation of
Ghana that we know today. Yeah, it's not even really
in the same spot nearby, but not exactly the same.
(03:19):
But while this kingdom splintered apart, Islamic proselytizing converted much
of the region to Islam, including ruling families. Yeah, and
one of these families, the Kaita, started up a new
kingdom that replaced this empire of Ghana. That was the
Kingdom of Molly and it's first major leader, the leader
who brought the family to great power with Sindiata. And
(03:42):
there's kind of a fun story about this guy from
the oral tradition. Supposedly he was a really strong child,
but kind of clumsy on his feet. But there was
a rule, kind of like a king Arthur and the
Stone sort of story. But there was a challenge. Whoever
could knock down a fruit from this special tree in
(04:02):
town and then swallow the pit of that fruit would
become king. And so this strong, that clumsy boy gave
it a shot. And most people would try to knock
down the fruit by throwing rocks or some sort of
object at it, and it wouldn't work. Cyndiata picked up
a man and threw him at the fruit, knocked it down,
swallowed the fruit hole, and for good measure, he plucked
(04:26):
the tree out of the ground and replanted it in
his mother's yard so other people couldn't steal the fruit. Wow,
that's a hard story to beat about becoming king. Yeah,
I mean I would make him king. Yeah, it's worth it.
So the Empire of Molly thrived because of its placement
near the Niger River. This kingdom had a lock on
(04:47):
all the gold that traveled north. But it wasn't just gold.
There was also trade in copper, slaves, and salt. Yeah.
So imagine mostly gold and slaves coming from the south
and salt coming from the desert, and all of it
going through this kingdom where they can tax the merchants
heavily and make a big profit. Um. But we shouldn't
(05:08):
think of it as two cohesive an empire because it
had really distinct regions where different people live, they spoke
different languages. Um. It's not an empire how you might
think of an empire today. Um. And according to Timba,
to the Sahara's fabled City of Gold, which was a
Book I reference for this episode, after Cindiata's death, there
(05:31):
were there was kind of turmoil. There was a series
of emperors. One was insane and murdered by his courtiers.
That's never good. Um. And power has kind of juggled
around until somehow it falls on this man of the
servant class named Sakura, and power changed hands a few
times again after him, and settled on Abu Bakir the second,
the immediate predecessor of Mansa Musa. Yeah, and Mansa Musa
(05:55):
I mean we're gonna be talking about him more at
length later. But he proved to be a very able administrator.
He expanded the territory a lot. It's reputation, but he
wasn't a shoe in for becoming king, and at least
the timing of his ascension is kind of a fluke.
As he later told the Son of the Sultan and Cairo,
(06:18):
the only reason he earned his throne was because Albubaqure
refused to believe that the ocean was infinite. So basically,
this guy was obsessed with what was across the Atlantic,
stare out at the ocean, just dying that there might
be lands over there that he was not the emperor
of right. So he finally launched an expedition of four
(06:39):
hundred ships into this unknown Atlantic ocean, and only one
came back. But the men spoke of a river on
the ocean, so that must have been enough for him.
He was intrigued of a river being in the ocean,
which I don't know if that's like a current or something.
Perhaps he was interested, and so he ordered two thousand
(06:59):
new ships, a thousand with men, a thousand with supplies,
And this time he led the fleet out and told
Mansa Musa here in charge until I come back. Unsurprising
famous last words. Yeah, he never came back. And um,
if you want to compare this to some other transatlantic travel,
this is thirteen ten or thirteen twelve, So it's kind
(07:22):
of fascinating to imagine what if he did make it.
I think you have like a good comic book or
something possibility of Um. Fortunately from Mansa Musa he's a
lot more content with what he has and expanding the
territory and land, not sailing off into the great unknown ocean. Yes.
So his empire became one of the world's largest at
(07:45):
the time. A lot of people said it supposedly took
a year to travel from one end to the other,
but that was probably a bit of an exaggeration. Actually,
fourteenth century traveler Ibben Batuta said that it took him
about four months to travel from northern Molly to Nani
in the south. So still a very sizeable empire. Um.
(08:05):
And in the seventeenth year of his reign, Montsa Musa
embarked on the most famous journey of his lifetime. What
is the reason why we're talking about him today on
the podcast. Probably that's his pilgrimage to Mecca, and basically
this pilgrimage let the whole world knew how wealthy his
kingdom was and what was beyond the desert. And he
(08:28):
traveled from his capital of Nanni to Wallata, to Tuat
to Cairo, and from there he went on to Mecca.
And he had a caravan of sixty thousand men, twelve
thousand slaves dressed in brocade and the finest Persian silk,
one wife. He brought his senior wife with him her
(08:49):
retinue of five hundred slaves, and then he himself rode
on horseback with five hundred gold staff slaves that we
mentioned in the beginning riding in front of him and
his traje's baggage was carried by eighty camels, and they
each carried three pounds of gold. So, I mean, just
imagine something like this passing through your tiny little desert town.
(09:11):
I know, that's a lot of baggage. Would be unbelievable,
especially considering he only brought one wife. Yeah, So along
his way he gave generously, and he spent lavishly, and
his party was noted for their good behavior, and he
was noted for his own piousness in Cairo. It took
a major convincing to make monts AMusA pay a formal
(09:32):
visit to the mom Luke Sultan, since he didn't wish
to break away from his religious observances. Yeah, it basically
took someone saying, you really have to go meet with
the Sultan or you're going to be in trouble. And
according to the chronicler all Umari, he said, I came
for the pilgrimage and nothing else. I do not wish
to mix anything else with my pilgrimage. But probably the
(09:53):
most amazing detail of this pilgrimage is that twelve years
later all Umari found people still talking about the visit
in Cairo. And apparently, although this is kind of a
disputed fact, apparently he flooded the Cairo market with so
much gold, just giving to every official he could find
(10:13):
and spending buying everything he could find. He infused so
much gold into the market that it basically crashed and
remained deflated for years. I mean twelve years later, that's unbelievable.
That's a long time. So the pilgrimage with all of
(10:37):
its gold and all of these slaves and camels and
other people attending the pilgrimage with him. That's really impressive
in itself, but the truly amazing thing is the impression
it leaves on all of the people who see him,
and how quickly the word spreads, not just through Africa
and through the Middle East, but all the way into
(10:59):
Southern Europe yep. And he's not just spreading the word
about himself and his wealth, but he's spreading the word
about his home to other West African rulers had made
pilgridges before, but Mansa Musa's really advertised Molly Muslim kingdoms
in North Africa and European kingdoms. They all wanted to
see the place that this wealth was coming from the
area that that it originated. Yeah, and Venetian and Genoye
(11:22):
trading firms that were based in Alexandria of course heard
about this great king that was over in Cairo, and
they started to spread the word around Southern Europe. And
by thirteen seventy five, which is you know, it's a
long time later, but this is still of note, Mansa
Musa had made it on to Charles the fifth of
(11:42):
France's newly commissioned Atlas. And if you look up Mansa
Musa the picture you got of him is going to
be from this atlas. He's drawn holding a ball of gold,
he's wearing a crown, and there's the caption, so abundant
is the gold which is found in his country, that
he is the richest and most noble king in all
the land, and three cities in his empire listed on
(12:06):
this atlas. So clearly he's made a big, big impression
on people very far away from him. He had a
big name for his homeland. Even though he's a high roller.
His riches aren't inexhaustible, though unfortunately it would be a
better story if they were. It would be Um. He
over spends himself, as you so often do when you're traveling.
(12:27):
You overspend yourself and then you have to get home
and raise some money quickly, and so during the trip
home he had to borrow at really high rates due
to all that spending in Cairo and Mecca. Fortunately, though,
while he was on his pilgrimage, one of his generals,
like Mandia, had expanded his empire's territory, so he had
(12:49):
a lot of new prospective sources of income. Um, since
he had just incorporated to very wealthy, very prominent city
state scow in Timbuctoo. Um So, yeah, it's it's looking
like all the borrowing isn't going to be too bad
looking up. So on the way home, Mansa Musa stops
(13:11):
by Cairo not just to borrow money, but also to
collect artisans Mason's iron workers and the poet and architect
AbuI shok Sahli all twadjen al Granada before swinging through
his newly claimed city states and taking a couple of
princes as hostages on the way make sure the city
states knew who were bought Who's boss um so in
(13:33):
exchange for these really extravagant payments like hundreds of pounds
of gold and slaves and food and riverland. The architect
with the very long name builds a lot of great
monuments to Mansa Musa. He builds a palace and a
mosque and go and a now lost palace in Timbuctoo
and one of one in Nanni. And most famously he
(13:55):
builds a great mosque in Timbuctwo and um A, and
if you google Timbucto, this is probably the mosque you're
going to see. It's the most famous landmark, i'd say,
of the city. And it looks a lot like it
did in thirteen thirty. It's a UNASCO site. It's very
threatened by the desert and um just being neglected in
(14:18):
terms of upkeep um. But it's a pretty impressive structure.
And the rich building projects that Mansa Musa essentially kicks
off start a trend because all the wealthy merchants in
Timbuctwo want to sort of look like what the king
is doing. And yeah, they start bringing in their own
Egyptian workers and making their own elaborate homes, and we
(14:42):
have guilds of masons formed and iron workers formed, and
Timbuctoo becomes this really cosmopolitan city and their people from
all these different cultures. In the fourteenth century, there are
as many as fifteen thousand people, which maybe it doesn't
sound like a whole lot nowadays, but let's compare that
to London's population at the same time, which was only
(15:05):
twenty thousands, so pretty close. It's interesting. It's a it's
a huge city with a lot going on, and Timbucto
kept this sort of position as a cosmopolitan city even
after Manson Musa died in thirty two, and gradually the
states of the Empire of Molly began to break off
after that, but Timbuctoo went on to become a major
(15:25):
cultural and religious center of the world. And you know,
it had been it had been a pretty major trading
city before Monsa Musa took it under his wing. Um,
long long ago. It had been this little crossroads town.
And I love the story of its naming. It was
a place where a tiregg woman named Buck two ran
(15:46):
a rest stop on the edge of the desert near
a Niger River tributary and tin buk two means well
of Buck two, So there you go, wow Um. But
you know it had developed a lot since then, but
it was under Mansa Lusa that it started. The great
libraries developed, the schools developed, and it became the meeting
(16:08):
place for some of the best poets and scholars and
artists in Africa in the Middle East. And I'd just
like to give a little rundown of some of the
stuff that people were working on at this time, just
because it it seems, um so much earlier than you
would think, Yeah, than you would think. In the fifteenth century,
(16:28):
mathematicians and Timbuctoo knew about the rotation of the planets
and the details of the eclipse, which were things that
Galileo and Copernicus calculated a lot later, and we've talked
about both of them in recent episodes, so it's interesting
to get a little pre Galileo Copernicus background on astronomy here. Yeah, definitely.
(16:49):
They also kind of tooled around a bit with some
ideas from India, including creating Arabic numerals. Yeah, and their
physicians wrote about medicinal plants and nutrition and performed early
operations on the human eye, which sounds kind of uncomfortable,
but I guess you gotta start somewhere. And ethesis debated
polygamy and tobacco. So I mean, just a very small
(17:13):
slice of all of the ideas that were floating around
in Timbuctoo, and of course a lot of ideas on
Islam too. It became a great center of Islamic study. Um.
So finally, you know, the city did reach a decline
at some point, even though it was long after the
Empire of Molly fell, And that came when a Morok
(17:35):
consultan invaded and killed the scholars, and that ended the
um educational reputation of Timbuctoo somewhat, and its commercial success
ended not too long after that when the ocean trade
routes opened up and nobody had any reason to go
all the way to Timbuctoo anymore. But luckily none of
it didn't all go away. There are many thousands of
(17:58):
books that were stashed away and were hidden in caves
and storage rooms, were buried in trunks, and in that
way they were sort of protected from invaders, if not
from the elements necessarily. And today there's a major effort
to save these ancient books, which many of which were
handwritten in classic Arabic on linen based paper, inks and
(18:19):
dyes that were from desert plants, and they had covers
that were the skins of goats and sheep. Yeah, and
YASCO has been working on protecting a lot of these texts,
all of since Molly's independence in the nineteen sixties. And
there are numerous libraries that have been established in timbuc To,
supported by not only NASCO, but the Ford Foundation or
(18:41):
the professor Henry Lewis Gates Jr. Who has promoted the
libraries and the text of timbuc To. A lot um
people are really focusing on, for one thing, finding them,
rounding them up, getting them out of the trunks they're
buried in in the desert and getting the dust off
of them, but also digital using the library so that
(19:01):
they can be used around the world. You don't have
to go to Timbec to to look at this important manuscript, right,
And I think you've mentioned that some of them are
in pretty bad shape. Yeah, a lot of them are
rotten at this point. It's um obviously a dry climate,
but dryness isn't always good for books, and there's a
rainy season, so you end up with insects and mold
(19:23):
and mildew. Um. So a lot of them. It's amazing
that they're they've survived this long um. According to Tell Tamari,
who's a historian at the National Center for Scientific Research
in Paris, what's in the books is likely going to
shock the world if it's ever all compiled. Um. Tell
(19:44):
Tamari was quoted as saying, these discoveries are going to
revolutionize what one thinks about West Africa. So there's really
a rush to to get this onto computers or at
least preserved before they disintegrate. Yeah. It sounds like a
real challenging effort, but a good one. If you want
(20:09):
to learn a little bit more about the preservation effort
in Timbucto. There's a really good Smithsonian article by Joshua
Hammer just on how these libraries were formed, um and
what people are doing to try to save all these
old manuscripts. Yep. And it would be good for them
to do that too, because it's not that easy to
visit Timbuctoo anymore, is it. No, it's not. The U. S.
(20:32):
State Department cautions against all travel in northern Mali, including Timbucto,
because of threats from the terrorists group a q i
Am and tire unrest and banditry um. So yeah, Unfortunately,
going from here to Timbucto really is like an impossibility
now unless you're seriously willing to um risk some major
(20:56):
personal danger um. And that's unfortunate because it seems like
there's so much they are still and of course the
city is also being threatened by the desert itself there.
I think they're trying to keep it at bay and
protect the mosques and the monuments from just being swallowed
up by the sand again. So I guess that's about
all we have to say about tim Buck two and
(21:18):
Monsa Musa today. But it was really interesting to learn
about this king who, um, I mean, I had never
really heard about him before. He's been suggested a few times, um,
but it's it's interesting to learn about how the whole
continent is partly opened up to another part of the world,
and about Tim Buck two, which I think has almost
taken on kind of a mythical persona Tim Buck two.
(21:40):
You say it when you're talking. You want to say,
like something that's the farthest place you can imagine. It's
just a catchphrase. I think probably a lot of people
don't even realize it's a real city, let alone that. Um.
That catchphrase would have been so wrong for most of
its history, right like the center of things. Thank you
(22:05):
so much for joining us for this Saturday classic. Since
this is out of the archive, if you heard an
email address or a Facebook U r L or something
similar during the course of the show, that may be
obsolete now. So here is our current contact information. We
are at History Podcast at how Stuff Works dot com,
and then we're at Missed in the History. All over
(22:26):
social media that is our name on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest,
and Instagram. Thanks again for listening. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com,
Happy Saturday, everybody. Today's episode is from two back when
Sarah and Debilina were hosts of the show. It is
about Musa, the first of Molly, also known as Mansa Musa,
and he continues to be one of our most popular
listener requests when folks right in to ask about African history.
We do have a little update on this episode. Sarah
(00:24):
and Deblina talk about UNESCO World Heritage sites in Timbuctoo
that were threatened by desert, encroachment and a lack of upkeep.
In the Spring of these sites were further threatened by
several militant and extremist Islamist groups, which began destroying some
of them on the grounds that they were examples of idolatry.
The French military intervened and unrest has continued in the
(00:46):
years since then. Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History
Class from House Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm delayed a
chalk reboarding and today we're going to be talking about
(01:07):
a city of gold. But this one existed long before
anybody had heard about El Dorado, with its mythical streets
paved in gold. There was this city in Molly, and
that's this great West African empire that was supposedly so
rich that slaves could carry staffs that were dusted in gold,
(01:27):
and even the most common objects like everyday things around
your house would be made out of this precious metal
that was so rare in most of the world. Yeah.
But the interesting thing is for most of the Middle Ages,
Europe and even paid much attention to Africa beyond its
northern trading cities at all. But this gold really changed things. Yeah,
(01:47):
especially when according to the British historian Dr Basil Davidson,
the rulers of Molly were quote rumored to have been
the wealthiest men on the face of the earth. So
I would say would be worth checking out, even going
across the desert for perhaps, I'd say so. And the
most illustrious ruler of this empire was Mansa Musa, and
(02:10):
he expanded territories, developed great cities, and most famously displayed
his land's wealth in a procession of thousands across Africa.
And he didn't do this to fight a battle. He
did it to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. So, okay,
we're gonna be talking about this city of gold, and
we're going to be talking about this ruler who made
this famous pilgrimage. So who was Mansa Musa and where
(02:34):
did he come from? He came from the Sahel, which
is this band of land that separates the Sahara from
the forests of southern Africa. And it's always been an important,
banned important part of the world because of the trade
that crosses it. And that really started in about seven
fifty a d. And lasted until the sixteenth and seventeenth
(02:56):
centuries when finally ships replaced over and caravans of camels.
You could do your trading a lot easier by boats. Yes,
And the first great kingdom of this area was that
of Ghana, and that's different from the modern nation of
Ghana that we know today. Yeah, it's not even really
in the same spot nearby, but not exactly the same.
(03:19):
But while this kingdom splintered apart, Islamic proselytizing converted much
of the region to Islam, including ruling families. Yeah, and
one of these families, the Kaita, started up a new
kingdom that replaced this empire of Ghana. That was the
Kingdom of Molly and it's first major leader, the leader
who brought the family to great power with Sindiata. And
(03:42):
there's kind of a fun story about this guy from
the oral tradition. Supposedly he was a really strong child,
but kind of clumsy on his feet. But there was
a rule, kind of like a king Arthur and the
Stone sort of story. But there was a challenge. Whoever
could knock down a fruit from this special tree in
(04:02):
town and then swallow the pit of that fruit would
become king. And so this strong, that clumsy boy gave
it a shot. And most people would try to knock
down the fruit by throwing rocks or some sort of
object at it, and it wouldn't work. Cyndiata picked up
a man and threw him at the fruit, knocked it down,
swallowed the fruit hole, and for good measure, he plucked
(04:26):
the tree out of the ground and replanted it in
his mother's yard so other people couldn't steal the fruit. Wow,
that's a hard story to beat about becoming king. Yeah,
I mean I would make him king. Yeah, it's worth it.
So the Empire of Molly thrived because of its placement
near the Niger River. This kingdom had a lock on
(04:47):
all the gold that traveled north. But it wasn't just gold.
There was also trade in copper, slaves, and salt. Yeah.
So imagine mostly gold and slaves coming from the south
and salt coming from the desert, and all of it
going through this kingdom where they can tax the merchants
heavily and make a big profit. Um. But we shouldn't
(05:08):
think of it as two cohesive an empire because it
had really distinct regions where different people live, they spoke
different languages. Um. It's not an empire how you might
think of an empire today. Um. And according to Timba,
to the Sahara's fabled City of Gold, which was a
Book I reference for this episode, after Cindiata's death, there
(05:31):
were there was kind of turmoil. There was a series
of emperors. One was insane and murdered by his courtiers.
That's never good. Um. And power has kind of juggled
around until somehow it falls on this man of the
servant class named Sakura, and power changed hands a few
times again after him, and settled on Abu Bakir the second,
the immediate predecessor of Mansa Musa. Yeah, and Mansa Musa
(05:55):
I mean we're gonna be talking about him more at
length later. But he proved to be a very able administrator.
He expanded the territory a lot. It's reputation, but he
wasn't a shoe in for becoming king, and at least
the timing of his ascension is kind of a fluke.
As he later told the Son of the Sultan and Cairo,
(06:18):
the only reason he earned his throne was because Albubaqure
refused to believe that the ocean was infinite. So basically,
this guy was obsessed with what was across the Atlantic,
stare out at the ocean, just dying that there might
be lands over there that he was not the emperor
of right. So he finally launched an expedition of four
(06:39):
hundred ships into this unknown Atlantic ocean, and only one
came back. But the men spoke of a river on
the ocean, so that must have been enough for him.
He was intrigued of a river being in the ocean,
which I don't know if that's like a current or something.
Perhaps he was interested, and so he ordered two thousand
(06:59):
new ships, a thousand with men, a thousand with supplies,
And this time he led the fleet out and told
Mansa Musa here in charge until I come back. Unsurprising
famous last words. Yeah, he never came back. And um,
if you want to compare this to some other transatlantic travel,
this is thirteen ten or thirteen twelve, So it's kind
(07:22):
of fascinating to imagine what if he did make it.
I think you have like a good comic book or
something possibility of Um. Fortunately from Mansa Musa he's a
lot more content with what he has and expanding the
territory and land, not sailing off into the great unknown ocean. Yes.
So his empire became one of the world's largest at
(07:45):
the time. A lot of people said it supposedly took
a year to travel from one end to the other,
but that was probably a bit of an exaggeration. Actually,
fourteenth century traveler Ibben Batuta said that it took him
about four months to travel from northern Molly to Nani
in the south. So still a very sizeable empire. Um.
(08:05):
And in the seventeenth year of his reign, Montsa Musa
embarked on the most famous journey of his lifetime. What
is the reason why we're talking about him today on
the podcast. Probably that's his pilgrimage to Mecca, and basically
this pilgrimage let the whole world knew how wealthy his
kingdom was and what was beyond the desert. And he
(08:28):
traveled from his capital of Nanni to Wallata, to Tuat
to Cairo, and from there he went on to Mecca.
And he had a caravan of sixty thousand men, twelve
thousand slaves dressed in brocade and the finest Persian silk,
one wife. He brought his senior wife with him her
(08:49):
retinue of five hundred slaves, and then he himself rode
on horseback with five hundred gold staff slaves that we
mentioned in the beginning riding in front of him and
his traje's baggage was carried by eighty camels, and they
each carried three pounds of gold. So, I mean, just
imagine something like this passing through your tiny little desert town.
(09:11):
I know, that's a lot of baggage. Would be unbelievable,
especially considering he only brought one wife. Yeah, So along
his way he gave generously, and he spent lavishly, and
his party was noted for their good behavior, and he
was noted for his own piousness in Cairo. It took
a major convincing to make monts AMusA pay a formal
(09:32):
visit to the mom Luke Sultan, since he didn't wish
to break away from his religious observances. Yeah, it basically
took someone saying, you really have to go meet with
the Sultan or you're going to be in trouble. And
according to the chronicler all Umari, he said, I came
for the pilgrimage and nothing else. I do not wish
to mix anything else with my pilgrimage. But probably the
(09:53):
most amazing detail of this pilgrimage is that twelve years
later all Umari found people still talking about the visit
in Cairo. And apparently, although this is kind of a
disputed fact, apparently he flooded the Cairo market with so
much gold, just giving to every official he could find
(10:13):
and spending buying everything he could find. He infused so
much gold into the market that it basically crashed and
remained deflated for years. I mean twelve years later, that's unbelievable.
That's a long time. So the pilgrimage with all of
(10:37):
its gold and all of these slaves and camels and
other people attending the pilgrimage with him. That's really impressive
in itself, but the truly amazing thing is the impression
it leaves on all of the people who see him,
and how quickly the word spreads, not just through Africa
and through the Middle East, but all the way into
(10:59):
Southern Europe yep. And he's not just spreading the word
about himself and his wealth, but he's spreading the word
about his home to other West African rulers had made
pilgridges before, but Mansa Musa's really advertised Molly Muslim kingdoms
in North Africa and European kingdoms. They all wanted to
see the place that this wealth was coming from the
area that that it originated. Yeah, and Venetian and Genoye
(11:22):
trading firms that were based in Alexandria of course heard
about this great king that was over in Cairo, and
they started to spread the word around Southern Europe. And
by thirteen seventy five, which is you know, it's a
long time later, but this is still of note, Mansa
Musa had made it on to Charles the fifth of
(11:42):
France's newly commissioned Atlas. And if you look up Mansa
Musa the picture you got of him is going to
be from this atlas. He's drawn holding a ball of gold,
he's wearing a crown, and there's the caption, so abundant
is the gold which is found in his country, that
he is the richest and most noble king in all
the land, and three cities in his empire listed on
(12:06):
this atlas. So clearly he's made a big, big impression
on people very far away from him. He had a
big name for his homeland. Even though he's a high roller.
His riches aren't inexhaustible, though unfortunately it would be a
better story if they were. It would be Um. He
over spends himself, as you so often do when you're traveling.
(12:27):
You overspend yourself and then you have to get home
and raise some money quickly, and so during the trip
home he had to borrow at really high rates due
to all that spending in Cairo and Mecca. Fortunately, though,
while he was on his pilgrimage, one of his generals,
like Mandia, had expanded his empire's territory, so he had
(12:49):
a lot of new prospective sources of income. Um, since
he had just incorporated to very wealthy, very prominent city
state scow in Timbuctoo. Um So, yeah, it's it's looking
like all the borrowing isn't going to be too bad
looking up. So on the way home, Mansa Musa stops
(13:11):
by Cairo not just to borrow money, but also to
collect artisans Mason's iron workers and the poet and architect
AbuI shok Sahli all twadjen al Granada before swinging through
his newly claimed city states and taking a couple of
princes as hostages on the way make sure the city
states knew who were bought Who's boss um so in
(13:33):
exchange for these really extravagant payments like hundreds of pounds
of gold and slaves and food and riverland. The architect
with the very long name builds a lot of great
monuments to Mansa Musa. He builds a palace and a
mosque and go and a now lost palace in Timbuctoo
and one of one in Nanni. And most famously he
(13:55):
builds a great mosque in Timbuctwo and um A, and
if you google Timbucto, this is probably the mosque you're
going to see. It's the most famous landmark, i'd say,
of the city. And it looks a lot like it
did in thirteen thirty. It's a UNASCO site. It's very
threatened by the desert and um just being neglected in
(14:18):
terms of upkeep um. But it's a pretty impressive structure.
And the rich building projects that Mansa Musa essentially kicks
off start a trend because all the wealthy merchants in
Timbuctwo want to sort of look like what the king
is doing. And yeah, they start bringing in their own
Egyptian workers and making their own elaborate homes, and we
(14:42):
have guilds of masons formed and iron workers formed, and
Timbuctoo becomes this really cosmopolitan city and their people from
all these different cultures. In the fourteenth century, there are
as many as fifteen thousand people, which maybe it doesn't
sound like a whole lot nowadays, but let's compare that
to London's population at the same time, which was only
(15:05):
twenty thousands, so pretty close. It's interesting. It's a it's
a huge city with a lot going on, and Timbucto
kept this sort of position as a cosmopolitan city even
after Manson Musa died in thirty two, and gradually the
states of the Empire of Molly began to break off
after that, but Timbuctoo went on to become a major
(15:25):
cultural and religious center of the world. And you know,
it had been it had been a pretty major trading
city before Monsa Musa took it under his wing. Um,
long long ago. It had been this little crossroads town.
And I love the story of its naming. It was
a place where a tiregg woman named Buck two ran
(15:46):
a rest stop on the edge of the desert near
a Niger River tributary and tin buk two means well
of Buck two, So there you go, wow Um. But
you know it had developed a lot since then, but
it was under Mansa Lusa that it started. The great
libraries developed, the schools developed, and it became the meeting
(16:08):
place for some of the best poets and scholars and
artists in Africa in the Middle East. And I'd just
like to give a little rundown of some of the
stuff that people were working on at this time, just
because it it seems, um so much earlier than you
would think, Yeah, than you would think. In the fifteenth century,
(16:28):
mathematicians and Timbuctoo knew about the rotation of the planets
and the details of the eclipse, which were things that
Galileo and Copernicus calculated a lot later, and we've talked
about both of them in recent episodes, so it's interesting
to get a little pre Galileo Copernicus background on astronomy here. Yeah, definitely.
(16:49):
They also kind of tooled around a bit with some
ideas from India, including creating Arabic numerals. Yeah, and their
physicians wrote about medicinal plants and nutrition and performed early
operations on the human eye, which sounds kind of uncomfortable,
but I guess you gotta start somewhere. And ethesis debated
polygamy and tobacco. So I mean, just a very small
(17:13):
slice of all of the ideas that were floating around
in Timbuctoo, and of course a lot of ideas on
Islam too. It became a great center of Islamic study. Um.
So finally, you know, the city did reach a decline
at some point, even though it was long after the
Empire of Molly fell, And that came when a Morok
(17:35):
consultan invaded and killed the scholars, and that ended the
um educational reputation of Timbuctoo somewhat, and its commercial success
ended not too long after that when the ocean trade
routes opened up and nobody had any reason to go
all the way to Timbuctoo anymore. But luckily none of
it didn't all go away. There are many thousands of
(17:58):
books that were stashed away and were hidden in caves
and storage rooms, were buried in trunks, and in that
way they were sort of protected from invaders, if not
from the elements necessarily. And today there's a major effort
to save these ancient books, which many of which were
handwritten in classic Arabic on linen based paper, inks and
(18:19):
dyes that were from desert plants, and they had covers
that were the skins of goats and sheep. Yeah, and
YASCO has been working on protecting a lot of these texts,
all of since Molly's independence in the nineteen sixties. And
there are numerous libraries that have been established in timbuc To,
supported by not only NASCO, but the Ford Foundation or
(18:41):
the professor Henry Lewis Gates Jr. Who has promoted the
libraries and the text of timbuc To. A lot um
people are really focusing on, for one thing, finding them,
rounding them up, getting them out of the trunks they're
buried in in the desert and getting the dust off
of them, but also digital using the library so that
(19:01):
they can be used around the world. You don't have
to go to Timbec to to look at this important manuscript, right,
And I think you've mentioned that some of them are
in pretty bad shape. Yeah, a lot of them are
rotten at this point. It's um obviously a dry climate,
but dryness isn't always good for books, and there's a
rainy season, so you end up with insects and mold
(19:23):
and mildew. Um. So a lot of them. It's amazing
that they're they've survived this long um. According to Tell Tamari,
who's a historian at the National Center for Scientific Research
in Paris, what's in the books is likely going to
shock the world if it's ever all compiled. Um. Tell
(19:44):
Tamari was quoted as saying, these discoveries are going to
revolutionize what one thinks about West Africa. So there's really
a rush to to get this onto computers or at
least preserved before they disintegrate. Yeah. It sounds like a
real challenging effort, but a good one. If you want
(20:09):
to learn a little bit more about the preservation effort
in Timbucto. There's a really good Smithsonian article by Joshua
Hammer just on how these libraries were formed, um and
what people are doing to try to save all these
old manuscripts. Yep. And it would be good for them
to do that too, because it's not that easy to
visit Timbuctoo anymore, is it. No, it's not. The U. S.
(20:32):
State Department cautions against all travel in northern Mali, including Timbucto,
because of threats from the terrorists group a q i
Am and tire unrest and banditry um. So yeah, Unfortunately,
going from here to Timbucto really is like an impossibility
now unless you're seriously willing to um risk some major
(20:56):
personal danger um. And that's unfortunate because it seems like
there's so much they are still and of course the
city is also being threatened by the desert itself there.
I think they're trying to keep it at bay and
protect the mosques and the monuments from just being swallowed
up by the sand again. So I guess that's about
all we have to say about tim Buck two and
(21:18):
Monsa Musa today. But it was really interesting to learn
about this king who, um, I mean, I had never
really heard about him before. He's been suggested a few times, um,
but it's it's interesting to learn about how the whole
continent is partly opened up to another part of the world,
and about Tim Buck two, which I think has almost
taken on kind of a mythical persona Tim Buck two.
(21:40):
You say it when you're talking. You want to say,
like something that's the farthest place you can imagine. It's
just a catchphrase. I think probably a lot of people
don't even realize it's a real city, let alone that. Um.
That catchphrase would have been so wrong for most of
its history, right like the center of things. Thank you
(22:05):
so much for joining us for this Saturday classic. Since
this is out of the archive, if you heard an
email address or a Facebook U r L or something
similar during the course of the show, that may be
obsolete now. So here is our current contact information. We
are at History Podcast at how Stuff Works dot com,
and then we're at Missed in the History. All over
(22:26):
social media that is our name on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest,
and Instagram. Thanks again for listening. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com,
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com