1. The document discusses the rise and fall of the Mali Empire in West Africa between the 13th and 15th centuries. It flourished under the rule of kings like Mansa Musa who went on a famous pilgrimage to Mecca.
2. Trade played a key role in the empire's wealth and expansion. Gold, salt, and cowrie shells were major commodities exchanged along trans-Saharan trade routes. The empire's dominance declined in the 15th century due to attacks from the Songhai and Portuguese.
3. Cities like Timbuktu and Djenne became important Islamic centers of learning and commerce during this period. They contained famous mosques and universities that attracted scholars from across Africa
2. Islam in North Africa
• Sunni
– Almohad dynasty (1121–1269)
• Shiite – 4th caliph, Ali
– Almoravid dynasty (1040–1147)
• Khajirite - anyone can become caliph
– Ibadi – moderate form (from ~720) (777-909)
Bierschenk, Thomas. "Religion and political structure: remarks on Ibadism in
Oman and the Mzab (Algeria)." Studia islamica (1988): 107-127.
4. Decline of the Ghana Empire
1076 Almoravid leader, General Abu-Bakr Ibn-
Umar captures the capital of Ghana and coverts
everyone to Islam
possible Almoravid rule to 1087
Legendary death of Wagadu-Bida
Return to paganism with possible weakening of
central control
9. Sumanguru (1200-1235)
• Considered last leader of Sosso (Susu) state
• Possibly from a clan of former slaves who
became palace guards and war chiefs
• Blacksmith-magician
• Suppression of Malinke?
18. Consequences
• Construction of mosques, schools
• Islam coexisting with native religions
• Arab economic advisors
• Commerce in gold to east
19. Mansa Sulaiman (1341-1360)
• Visit by Ibn Battuta 1352-4
• Observation and comments on both wealth
and lack of orthodoxy
20. Decline
• Obscure rulers after 1389
• 1430 Tuareg seizure of Timbuktu
Songhai becomes independent
Mali confined to S. of former empire
• 1450’s Portuguese raid the Atlantic coast
• 1545 Songhai forces raid Niani
22. Economy of the Mali Empire
• Agricultural production
– Upper Niger and floodplain very good agricultural
land
– Sahelian grasslands good for grazing
– Small villages send proportion of surplus to village
chiefs and central government
– State farms, slave labour, produced food needs for
court and army
23. Trade in the Mali Empire
• Gold trade in private hands: nuggets to king
and tax on salt imports (as with Ghana)
– Gold of Akan forest in 14th century
• Class of professional traders (Wangara or
Dyula, usually Muslim)
• From 14th century, Cowrie shells from Indian
Ocean:
– Main currency for local trade
– Gold dust & salt: currency of trans-Saharan trade
24. Traders (Dyula)
• From early 11th C.
• Manding speakers originating in Dia
• Specific clans with high status
• Transport Islam south to Ivory Coast and
Ghana (current)
25. Wealth in the Mali Empire
• Merchants 60,000 mithqals per year (1507)
• Salt merchants 10,000
• 1 mithqal = 4.25 g ($178 at current gold
prices)
• Small change
– 1,150 cowries to the mithqal
– (note: ~1,000,000 to the mithqal in the Maldives)
26. Cowries
• Cypraea moneta
– Maldives
• Cypraea annulus
– East African Coast
• Gao Saney C. moneta
• Marco Polo’s family
in cowrie import/export
– ‘porcellana’
• 1352 Ibn Batuta finds cowries used as money
in Gao
28. Timbuktu
• Founding attributed to Tuaregs in the 12th
century
• Trade in Islamic culture
– Import: Berber N. Africa
– Export: Other parts of Empire; Sudan
• Becomes intellectual center in 15th century
35. Jenne-Jeno History
Phase I 250 BCE to 50 CE use of iron; lack of
‘permanent ‘ architecture; aquatic resources
Phase II 50 – 400 CE cultivation of rice
Phase III 400 – 900 CE Population growth
Phase IV 900 – 1400 CE Decline after 1150 and
rapid decline ~1400 CE
1180 Conversion of Koi-Konboro
When a Mus- lim sage or marabout named Ismaila6 set- tled in Djenn& ,Koi Konboro, angry and suspicious, sought an excuse to kill him. A counselor hit on a scheme. Lend Is- maila gold, he suggested. I will find and steal it. You ask for it back. When Ismaila cannot produce it, you can execute him as a thief. Konboro agreed. He lent Is- maila a tobacco box filled with gold dust, which the marabout buried for safekeep- ing. The counselor, posing as a convert, grew friendly with Ismaila, who at last revealed where the gold was hidden. The counselor secretly dug it up and bore it to the king. Konboro had it thrown in the Bani River
The History of the Great Mosques of Djenné
Jean-Louis Bourgeois
African Arts, Vol. 20, No. 3 (May, 1987), pp. 54-63+90-92
