Mansa Musa · Politics

The Pilgrimage That Redrew the Map

In 1324 Mansa Musa crossed the Sahara to Mecca with a caravan so vast, and gave away so much gold in Cairo, that he drove down the value of gold in Egypt for years - and, almost as a by-product, fixed the Mali empire onto the maps of the wider world.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned that Musa’s 1324 hajj was at once a religious duty, a display of imperial wealth, and an act of diplomacy - and that the gold he poured into Cairo was so abundant it depressed the value of gold in Egypt (al-Umari says for a dozen years). Explain the event and its economic aftermath in your own words.

Leads to Niccolò Machiavelli.

epoché — a humanities education that remembers you.