Mansa Musa

West Africa Civilizations 1000-1500 CEChapter 15 Section 2 Pages 413-419

Create a Key for the map on the leftYour Assignment GhanaWest African Kingdom established in the 700s. The Kingdom grew rich from taxing the goods that traders carried through their territory MaliWest African Kingdom established by 1235 CE. Like Ghana the Kingdom grew rich from gold and taxing people who traded in their territory. Rulers of this country were Sundiata and Mansa Musa.SundiataThe griots of West Africa still tell the 700 year old story of a sickly boy named Sundiata, who grew up to become a great warrior, expelled a brutal warrior, and united the Mandinka people. Samanguru was a tyrant who ruled the small state of Kaniaga, but he managed to conquer a great deal of West Africa. Samanguru was hostile to the Mandinka people who lived in the region. His taxes were high, he felt it was his privilege to carry off Mandinka women, and he failed to maintain law and order along the trade routes that once prospered in ancient Ghana. Sundiata was one of twelve brothers who were the children of a Mandinka warrior. Samanguru killed eleven of the brothers, but spared Sundiata because he believed the boy would soon die anyway. That mistake would lead to Samangurus downfall. The ill child boy recovered and eventually assembled an army to confront Samanguru. Sundiatas forces killed Samanguru and destroyed his forces in the Battle of Kirina in 1235. Sundiata then became mansa, or king, of a new empire that we know today as Mali. Mali means where the king resides. Sundiata proved himself a great warrior, but he was less interested in power than in once again making West Africa a safe place to travel and trade. He converted to Islam, but only as a gesture of goodwill to the merchants and traders. To his own people, Sundiata presented himself as a champion of traditional West African religion.

Mansa MusaRuler of Mali between 1312 and 1332. He was the grandnephew of Sundiata. He was the tenth mansa or emperor of the Mali Empire during its height. Musa is most noted for his 1324 hajj to Mecca and his role as a benefactor of Islamic scholarship. Mali became very wealthy under him and Islam became the dominant religion.Ibn Battuta (February 25, 1304 1368 or 1369) was a Moroccan Berber scholar and traveller who is known for the account of his travels and excursions called the Rihla (Voyage). His journeys lasted for a period of nearly thirty years and covered almost the entirety of the known Islamic world and beyond, extending from North Africa, West Africa, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe in the West, to the Middle East, Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and China in the East, a distance readily surpassing that of his predecessors and his near-contemporary Marco Polo.

Link to Ibn Battuta's life

Songhaialso known as the Songhay Empire, was an African state of west Africa. From the early 15th to the late 16th century, Songhai was one of the largest African empires in history. This empire bore the same name as its leading ethnic group, the Songhai. Its capital was the city of Gao, where a small Songhai state had existed since the 11th century. Its base of power was on the bend of the Niger River in present day Niger and Burkina Faso.Its time toOwn Your Vocabulary!

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Sundiata

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