The richest man in history may have been a fourteenth-century African king. Mansa Musa’s pilgrimage to Mecca put Mali on every map in Europe — and his spending spree in Cairo remains the most famous market crash ever caused by generosity.
Niani ★TimbuktuDjennéKirina Greatest extent — stylized map 1235Sundiata wins at Kirina1324Mansa Musa’s hajj1375Mali on Europe’s maps1430sTuareg take Timbuktu1670Last mansa fades Rise · zenith · fall The rise Mali was founded the way great empires often are: by a prince with a grudge and a plan. Sundiata Keita, the “Lion King” of Malinke oral epic, united the chiefdoms of the upper Niger and in 1235 defeated the Sosso tyrant Soumaoro Kanté at Kirina. The victory ended Ghana’s successor-state and installed a new order — sealed, tradition says, by the Kurukan Fuga charter, an oral constitution assigning rights and duties across the empire’s peoples.
