Mansa Musa 1) http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/wtc:@field(NUMBER+@band(wtc+4a02883))

2) http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?pp/matpc:@field(NUMBER+@band(matpc+04657))

3) http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mali/mali-exhibit.html

4) http://www.loc.gov/rr/amed/guide/afr-encounters.html

5) http://www.loc.gov/rr/amed/guide/afr-encounters.html

6) http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mali/mali-exhibit.html

#1

Mecca. Close-up of the Kaaba

#2

Sayyid Ahmad ibn Amar al-Raqadi al-Tumbukti al-Kunti. Shifa' al-Asqam al-Aridah fi al-Zahir wa-al-Batin min al-Ajsam (Curing Diseases and Defects both Apparent and Hidden). Loaned by the Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library, Timbuktu, Mali

#3

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#5

Life in a Box- Mansa Musa Note on the Map of Africa: This map shows the region of western Africa where the Mali empire flourished. The notation “Aethiopia” is a Latin term used in the 18th century to refer to West Africa, not to the present day country of Ethiopia.

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#1

Around the World in the 1890's: Photographs from the World's Transportation Commission, 1894-1896

A camel train on the desert - Sinai (?).

Jackson, William Henry, 1843-1942, photographer.

CREATED/PUBLISHED[1894]

NOTES Egypt (?).

Gift; William P. Meeker; 1971.

Forms part of: Jackson, William Henry, 1843-1942. World's Transportation Commission photograph collection (Library of Congress).

SUBJECTS Camels. Caravans. Lantern slides--Hand colored. Egypt.

MEDIUM1 slide : lantern, hand colored ; 3.25 x 4 in.

CALL NUMBERLC-W7- 141

SPECIAL TERMS OF USE No known restrictions on publication.

PART OF Jackson, William Henry, 1843-1942. World's Transportation Commission photograph collection (Library of Congress)

REPOSITORY Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20450 USA

PREVIOUS NEXT NEW SEARCH

DIGITAL ID (intermediary roll film) wtc 4a02883 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/wtc.4a02883

#2

TITLE: Mecca, ca. 1910. Close-up of the Kaaba.

CALL NUMBER: LC-M32- 13773[P&P]

REPRODUCTION NUMBER: LC-DIG-matpc-04657 (b&w digital file from original glass negative) No known restrictions on publication.

MEDIUM: 1 negative : glass, dry plate ; 5 x 7 in.

CREATED/PUBLISHED: ca. 1910.

CREATOR: American Colony (Jerusalem). Photo Dept., photographer.

NOTES:

Title from: list, Matson Collection negative numbers 12961-13944.

Caption continues from catalog: copy neg.

On negative sleeve: 4/90.

Gift; Episcopal Home; 1978.

SUBJECTS:Saudi Arabia--Mecca.

FORMAT:Dry plate negatives.

PART OF: G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection

REPOSITORY: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

DIGITAL ID: (b&w digital file from original glass negative) matpc 04657 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/matpc.04657

CARD #: mpc2004003593/PP

NEW

SEARCH HELP ABOUT COLLECTION

#3

Recto

Disease and Cure in Timbuktu

This compilation of cures instructs the reader about methods of diagnosing and medicating the sick. The author also explains the use of animal, plant, and mineral substances as medications. Prayers and Koranic verses that are helpful against illness are included. Displayed are instructions for writing prayers, helpful to the sick, for use in amulets.

Sayyid Ahmad ibn Amar al-Raqadi al-Tumbukti al-Kunti. Shifa' al-Asqam al-Aridah fi al-Zahir wa-al-Batin min al-Ajsam

(Curing Diseases and Defects both Apparent and Hidden). Loaned by the Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library,

Timbuktu, Mali (16) Verso

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mali/mali-exhibit.html

African Peoples' Encounters With Others #4

Throughout the centuries, peoples born in the area known as sub- Saharan Africa have interacted on many levels with peoples from elsewhere. The Library of Congress Africana collections are rich in primary documents, facsimiles, and secondary sources in a variety of languages and formats that describe these experiences. Texts, maps, visual images, artifacts, and recordings document the observations of non-Africans as they traveled to parts of the continent and of Africans who encountered them willingly or under coercion. These materials also describe the resistance and adaptation of Africans to the cultural and political onslaught of non-Africans. Diverse resources are available to study the development of commercial and diplomatic relations; the creation and dissolution of colonial governments; and the reestablishment of sovereign nations.

This map shows the trip to Mecca made in A.D. 1324 by the fabulously wealthy king Mansa Musa (reigned, 1312?-37) of the Mali Empire. With the map is an explanation of some of the symbols it uses. This facsimile of the Catalan Atlas,

probably by Abraham Crèsques (d. 1387), edited and with commentary by Georges Grosjean, was published as Mapamundi, the Catalan Atlas of the Year 1375 (Dietikon-Zurich: Urs Graf; sole distributor in the United States and

Canada: Abaris Books, 1978). (Copyright © 1978 by Urs Graf, Publisher, GmbH, 1978. Used by permission of Abaris Books.)

(Geography and Map Division)

Some of the earliest writings mentioning African peoples describe the relations between the peoples of the Horn of Africa and peoples living in Egypt, on the Arabian peninsula, or in India, where an active trading network across the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean was already well established in ancient times. In West Africa, kingdoms such as Ghana, Mali, and Songhai engaged in trans- Saharan trade with North Africa as early as A.D. 300, flourishing particularly in the Middle Ages. The Library has many accounts of these historic encounters in the original languages -- Chinese, Arabic, and others -- of the observers as well as in various translations.

http://www.loc.gov/rr/amed/guide/afr-encounters.html

#5

To Timbuktu by Sea

This map from the eighteenth century shows clearly the change in trade and travel that had occurred by 1743. Rather than being viewed as part of the larger continent, West Africa is presented with a focus on the sea routes that had

replaced the land caravan routes to the area.

Guinea propia, nec non Nigritiae vel Terrae Nigororum maxima pars: geographis hodiemis dicta utraque Aethiopia inferior, & hujus quidem pars australis

(Guinea Proper, Not Including the Whole of Africa, but Only that Part Known to the Geographers as Lower Ethiopia).

Nuremberg: Homannianorum Heredum, 1743. [Enlarged]

Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress (25) http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mali/mali-exhibit.html

Mansa Moussa: Pilgrimage of Gold #6 In 1312 Mansa Moussa, the most legendary of the Malian kings, came to the throne. Mansa Moussa was a devout Muslim who built magnificent mosques throughout his empire in order to spread the influences of Islam. During his reign, Timbuktu became one of the major cultural centers of not only Africa but of the entire Islamic world. When Mansa Moussa came to power, the Mali Empire already had firm control of the trade routes to the southern lands of gold and the northern lands of salt. Under Moussa's reign, the gold-salt trade across the Sahara came to focus ever more closely on Timbuktu. The city's wealth, like that of many towns involved in the trans-Saharan trade route, was based largely on the trade of gold, salt, ivory, kola nuts, and slaves. Mansa Moussa expanded Mali's influence across Africa by bringing more lands under the empire's control, including the city of Timbuktu, and by enclosing a large portion of the western Sudan within a single system of trade and law. This was a huge political feat that made Moussa one of the greatest statesmen in the history of Africa. Under Moussa's patronage, the city of Timbuktu grew in wealth and prestige, and became a meeting place of the finest poets, scholars, and artists of Africa and the Middle East.

Mansa Moussa brought the Mali Empire to the attention of the rest of the Muslim world with his famous pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324. He arrived in Cairo at the head of a huge caravan, which included 60,000 people and 80 camels carrying more than two tons of gold to be distributed among the poor. Of the 12,000 servants who accompanied the caravan, 500 carried staffs of pure gold. Moussa spent lavishly in Egypt, giving away so many gold gifts—and making gold so plentiful—that its value fell in Cairo and did not recover for a number of years! In Cairo, the Sultan of Egypt received Moussa with great respect, as a fellow Muslim. The splendor of his caravan caused a sensation and brought Mansa Moussa and the Mali Empire fame throughout the Arab world. Mali had become so famous by the fourteenth century that it began to draw the attention of European mapmakers. In one map, produced in 1375, Moussa is shown seated on a throne in the center of West Africa, holding a nugget of gold in his right hand.

Photo Credits: (top to bottom) 1. E. Condominas/UNESCO 2. Nik Wheeler/CORBIS 3. C. & J. Lenars/CORBIS

After visiting the holy cities of Mecca and Medina on his pilgrimage, Moussa set out to build great mosques, vast libraries, and madrasas (Islamic universities) throughout his kingdom. Many Arab scholars, including the poet and architect, Abu-Ishaq Ibrahim-es-Saheli, who helped turn Timbuktu into a famous city of Islamic scholarship, returned with him. Moussa had always encouraged the development of learning and the expansion of Islam. In the early years of his reign, Moussa had sent Sudanese scholars to study at Moroccan universities. By the end of his reign, Sudanese scholars were setting up their own centers of learning in Timbuktu. He commissioned Abu-Ishaq Ibrahim-es-Saheli to construct his royal palace and a great mosque, the Djingareyber Mosque, at Timbuktu. Still standing today, the Djingareyber Mosque consists of nine rows of square pillars and provides prayer space for 2,000 people. Es-Saheli introduced the use of burnt brick and mud as a building material to this region. The Djingareyber's mud construction established a 660-year-old tradition that still persists: each year before the torrential rains fall in the summer, Timbuktu's residents replaster the mosque's high walls and flat roof with mud. The Djingareyber Mosque immediately became the central mosque of the city, and it dominates Timbuktu to this day. During Moussa's reign Timbuktu thrived as a commercial center and flourished into a hub of Islamic learning. Even after the Mali Empire lost control over the region in the fifteenth century, Timbuktu remained the major Islamic center of sub-Saharan Africa.