Mansa Musa I: Kankan Moussa: From Niani to Mecca

"This is a very important and remarkable book. It recounts vividly, in an intense and almost cinematic manner, an unique story of which only some elements are known with certainty. From 1312 to 1337, a young African ruler, the King of Mali ruled over a massive territory, stretching across two thousand miles, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to Lake Chad. His state prospered and it is estimated that he was the wealthiest man in the world, even by today's standards. In 1324-1325, he undertook a pilgrimage to Mecca with a mas-sive retinue of twelve thousand men. The voyage, at that time, was without precedent--crossing the deserts of the Sahara all the way to Arabia, a distance of some four thousand kilo-metres. His intent was to bring the very best of the Arabic world, scholars, government bureaucrats, architects, educators, commercial knowhow, poets, artisans to his massive kingdom. Effectively, he was to transform his kingdom so as to become a leading force in the world at that time. He succeeded, indeed, and his pilgrimage brought his Malian kingdom to the attention of Europe. For the next two centuries, Italian, German and Spanish cartographers produced new maps of the world showing the vital routes which connected Africa to Arabia. Jean-Louis Roy recreates this astonishing voyage. It is an ambitious but genuine travelogue and details for us the available knowledge of the world at that time, both sacred and profane. Through this narrative, the author fills in a large void in our understanding of the history of Africa and the Arab world in the fourteenth century."--