African+Kingdoms,+The+Mali+Empire

The Mali Empire was one of the three great empires in West Africa during the middle ages. The empire rose about 800-1200 A.D and fell about 1600 A.D. It was a very important trading center and also a highly developed society. Mali is now one of the poorest countries in the world, which makes its history of wealth and power very interesting. Therefore, I have decided to focus on what made the empire so magnificent and special. The big differences between the Mali Empire and present-day Mali are also the reason why I chose to write about this particular empire instead of any of the others. When reading this text it’s important to keep in mind that the Mali Empire is not the same as the present country Mali. Mali is nowadays one country in the West of Africa, while the Mali Empire consisted of several countries:
 * Introduction **

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The three empires existed during approximately the same time, but the Ghana Empire was the first one to rise and when it fell, the Mali Empire developed to be an even greater empire. The history was repeated when the Mali Empire collapsed, because then rose the Songhai Empire and it outgrew its predecessor, just like the Mali Empire had done.

Here you can see all the empires and how they grew out of each other: [|Map with all the empires] ** Mali **** Empire ** The founder of the Mali Empire was Sundiata Kieta and he developed the empire from the state of Kangaba, which was an important state for the gold trade in the Ghana Empire. It was the Malinke inhabitants, also called Mandinka, who lived in Kangaba and they called the area Manden. They were tired of Sumanguru’s ineffective rule. This led to a revolt in which Sundiata, in the year 1230, won over Sumanguru and therefore became the new king of Kangaba. He changed the name of the state to Mali and started building what would become an empire greater than the Ghana Empire. Sundiata founded a central government that kept order and peace throughout the whole kingdom. By conquering the areas where gold was traded, the Mali Empire got monopoly on this market. Mali also became one of the wealthiest farming regions in West Africa thanks to Sundiata, who introduced cultivation to the people. The weaving of cotton was another thing he introduced, along with Islam. Since he was a strongly believing Muslim he established relations with the Muslims in North Africa and the Middle East.
 * The founding of the Mali Empire **

The leader of the Mali Empire, the king, was called “mansa”. Mansa Musa is probably, along with the founder Sundiata, the most famous king of the Mali Empire. This is due to his pilgrimages to Mecca, which spread the knowledge of the wealthy kingdom Mali to other places of the earth. Along with him on his travel to Mecca, on which he also visited Cairo, he had a caravan of 60.000 men, including 12.000 personal slaves, and 80 camels carrying more than 130 kilos of gold each. Everyone in his caravan wore Persian silk, of course, and the 500 slaves who walked in front of the king himself all held a gold-adorned staff. The king’s magnificent appearance impressed the population of Cairo so much that they were still singing his praises twelve years after his visit, according to a historian who visited Cairo at that time. Another thing that still remained twelve years later was the bad economy of Cairo. Mansa Musa had been so generous and showered the market of Cairo with gold and that made a recession in the value, which broke down the market for a long time forth. Mansa Musa’s journey via Cairo to Mecca was also an attempt to advertise Mali and himself in places beyond the African borders and even in this quest he was very successful since it opened the eyes of both the Islamic and Christian worlds for the wealth and strength of the empire. A confirmation of his success is the fact that 14th century world maps contained both Mali and Timbuktu, an important trading center in the empire. One of his generals conquered Gao, the Songhai capital, during one of their journeys and Mansa Musa gave an architect from Granada the mission to build mosques, of which he built one in Gao. This was the first building in West Africa to be built of burnt bricks. Thanks to this king, Timbuktu became a very important commercial city, which had connections with every important trade center in North Africa, such as Egypt.
 * Mansa Musa **

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It can’t be said enough how important the Mali Empire was as trading center. From the south, people brought slaves, gold and ivory to Mali to trade it with the Middle East and Europe for weapons, jewelry and salt. Salt was an important part of the diet for people in the south, but it was very uncommon there and therefore it was even more valuable than gold in this region. During the reign of Mansa Musa, Mali also got hold of a salt producing area in the north, which made the empire even more powerful. The government taxed every bit of gold and salt that came within the boarders of the empire and that was a very important source of income.
 * Trading **

Both Sundiata Kieta and Mansa Musa introduced and spread Islam within the empire and this led to, among other things, the establishment of universities, world religions, state systems and military forces. Islam was integrated with indigenous religions and rituals and this is probably the reason why the empire could remain so united; the government listened to people and accepted their way of living and ruling, even though this could differ between villages. The mansas didn’t force their religion onto the inhabitants; they lived side by side respecting each other.
 * Religion **

One of the keys to why the Mali Empire was so strong and successful is the political structure of it. In spite of its great size, it was a very united empire where the mansa could control all of it to assure that the laws were obeyed and the taxes were paid and this is thanks to how the power and leadership were divided. A village-master, a dougou-tigui, was the administrator at the local level, which includes a village, a town or a city, and at the county level, there was the county-master, a kafo-tigui, who was the leader. There was also a province-master and he was the only one who was overseen by the mansa. The mansa had to give his approval when a new province-master was selected. The imperial powers were situated in Djenne, Timbuktu and Gao because of their commercial importance. As you can see, it was a much decentralized administration and even though the mansa was the main leader, the villages had much freedom considering their leadership and administration as long as they followed the laws of the empire. Still, the different towns and provinces didn’t revolt. The Mali Empire also had a very strong military force for defense. Every tribe had to be able to offer a group of men suitable for fighting when it was necessary. Due to from which tribe the fighters came from they had different fighting equipment; some had bows and poisoned or flaming arrows and some wore large reed or animal shields together with stabbing spears. The cavalry had swords or lances. The languages, customs and laws of the Mali Empire could spread along the Niger River and the empire had much cultural influence on West Africa. The empire was very large; larger than Western Europe. It contained a big amount of vassal kingdoms and provinces and during its greatest time it ruled over 400 cities, towns and villages and consisted of millions of people with many different cultures and religions.
 * Political and military structure **

Mahmuud IV was the last ruler of the Mali Empire. Though, at this time, the empire had been reduced to the much smaller province from where it originated; Manden. This is due to that the empire outgrew its own military and political strength, which led to the revolts of cities and made it easier for other kingdoms, like the rising Songhai Empire, and provinces to conquer important areas of the empire. When Mahmuud IV died, about 1610, his three sons fought over who would rule what was left of the Mali Empire, but since they couldn’t get along there was no new leader of the empire and this is probably one of the most important reasons to why the empire fell. Instead, the empire was divided into three parts, the Kangaba area, the Joma area and the Hamana area, with a mansa in every area, who all controlled his own region without cooperating with the others. There were many wars between these three regions, but they usually stopped when other tribes attacked them. When the Bamana of Djenné declared a holy war against all Muslim powers, Manden was attcked and Bamana took much of its territory. After this there was no longer a hope that the three regions of the former Mali Empire would ever work together to free their land. The great empire that had once been the wealthiest and most powerful empire throughout the history of West Africa and that had controlled the trading in this region by building a highly developed political and military structure, conquering the most important cities of those days, had now collapsed because of internal disputes and invaders.
 * The fall of the Mali Empire **

Islam was introduced to the Mali Empire by its first mansas and many people are still Muslims in this part of Africa so that is a very evident heritage from the empire. The Mali Empire was one of the first states south of Sahara where this religion was introduced. The country Mali still exists, but, because of imperialism, it doesn’t have the same boarders as the Mali Empire had. Much of the empire, like its wealth and political and military structure, was torn down when Europeans started colonizing Africa and this is the reason to why there is so much fighting in this region nowadays. People who had been living together in harmony, in spite of their different religions and cultures, were suddenly divided into different countries. But the stories and myths about the magnificent Mali Empire are still alive, leaving a dream that the unification that predominated in the empire will be possible to create once more and that these, nowadays very poor, countries of which the former empire consisted will flourish again. There are also some physical remains of the Mali Empire, like terra-cotta statues and mosques. People are also still speaking the language people spoke in the area where the Mali Empire originated from and this language have spread along all of West Africa because of emigration.
 * Remains of the empire **

The most important things to know about the Mali Empire is what made it so special during the middle ages; it controlled the trading in West Africa by consisting of all the important trading centers and it had a highly developed political and military system. That it was the first region south of the Sahara where Islam was practiced is also a thing to remember along with the fact that religious and cultural differences never were a problem in the empire. People lived in peace in spite of their differences in culture and ruling traditions and I think that is very impressive considering that we have so much war nowadays because of that kind of problems. Of course, it’s difficult for us to completely understand how people where doing and how they were thinking in the Mali Empire since we’re not from Africa nor the middle ages, but I think having knowledge about this empire can give us a better picture and understanding of the problems countries like Mali are facing today. Even though Mali is an extremely poor country today, it hasn’t always been that way. This means we can’t just ignore the problem of poverty by saying “it has always been that way in those countries”, because clearly it hasn’t. It also means those countries have a chance to flourish again, maybe not as much as during the time of the empires, but still. You should also keep in mind that since the Mali Empire traded a lot with Europe, it probably helped Europeans building the great economy we have today. There is a risk, though, that the stories about the magnificent empire are a bit exaggerated since we humans have a tendency to do that when it comes to our history and ancestors, but I would say the main features are true.
 * Conclusion **

I have used many sources from Internet to confirm that the information is correct and these sources are independent of each other, which makes them more trustworthy. Wikipedia is a site where everyone can write and change the information, which makes it more unreliable, but, as I said, I have used a lot of sources for comparing.

If you want to read more about the Mali Empire, here are some good links:

[|The Mali Empire, wikipedia] [|The Mali Empire, more information]

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