But anyway, Im looking at some of the footage from the recent malien conflict.. rebels are destroying parts of the ancient mosques.

And these buildings actually don't look like they are entirely made of mud to me..... These structures are actually much more impressive than i thought.

So this can be a thread to celebrate Anicent malis accomplishments, as well as the bad sides also, i'm open to both.

....any further information would be appreciated.

.

Note Pleep...That The South(West Africa) was much more advanced than North(Northwest). I'm just stating this, because Eurocentrics always like for us to believe that North Africa was advanced...When it wasn't. Many info is coming out that West Africa was more advanced. I know this has nothing to do with what you are saying, but it is still important. I am thinking about making a thread on this.

Anyways heres a video on the great Ahmed Baba. One of my favorite videos...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vhx5OHfekk&list=FLOi5yL1B9aLEWSTjyIwcWLw

^^^Note at 1:23 those were mostly Africans(Arma people) who attacked and invaded Songhai.

One of the reasons for the Moroccan invasion was partly because of an earlier invasion on Moroccan territory by the Songhay.

In the early 14th century the rulers of Mali managed to maintain some control over the routes leading these mines from the south. By the end of the following century, the askias of Songhay, which had superceded superceded Mali as the dominant power in Western Africa, extended their rule even further in the desert and appointed a governor in Taghaza. However, in 1544, Sultan Muhammad al-Mahdi, the founder of Sa'did power in Morocco, demanded the ruler of Songhay, askia Ishaq I, to give him the mines. Askia Ishaq naturally refused to do it, and a war broke out. The Moroccans sent an army to occupy Taghaza, but the army was destroyed in the desert. As response to this, a Songhay army consisting of Tuaregs, attacked northwards and sacked the southern parts of Morocco, forcing Sultan Muhammad to flee from Marrakesh.
The above was referenced from both Markellion and Rastlivewire
http://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-egyptian-hercules/the-so-called-arab-conquest-of-africa-is-a-mythology/

P. 40 quote from Yaqut

"The king of Zafun is stronger than the veiled people of the Maghreb and more versed in the art of kingship. The veiled people acknowledge his superiority over them, obey him and resort to him in all important matters of government One year the king, on his way to the pilgrimage, came to the Maghreb to pay a visit to the commander of the Muslims, the veiled king of the Maghreb, of the tribe of Lamtuna. The Commander of the Muslims met him on foot, wheras the king of Zafun did not dismount for him."

page 44

From Ibn Sa'id

"This sultan has authority there over kingdoms such as those of the Tajuwa, Kawar, and Fazzan God has assisted him and he has many descendants and armies. His clothes are brought to him from the capital of Tunish. He has scholars around him

The region where Zaghawa wander is to the east of Manan. They are for the most part Muslims owing obedience to the sultan of Kanim to the north of Manan are the terrirory of the Kanim the Akawwar wander. Their well-known towns are in the Second Clime and they are Muslims owing obedience to the sultan of Kanim"

page 45

"There is no town worthy of mention in this section (second climate) except for Awdaghust. A mixture of Muslim Berbers inhabits it, but authority rests with the Sanhaja. There is an account of this town and its ruler in al-Bakri. It is on the line of the Second Clime in longitude 22 degrees. In the same latitude is Zafun, which belongs to pagan Sudan and whose ruler enjoys a good reputation among (other) kings of the Sudan"

Page 99 from Ibn Khaldun

"Sultan Abul-Hasan was well known for his ostentatious ways and his presumption to vie with the mightiest monarchs and adopt their customs in exchanging gifts with their peers and counterparts and dispatching emissaries to distant kings and far frontiers. In his time the king of Mali was the greatest of the kings of the Sudan and the nearest to his kingdom in the Maghrib. Mali was 100 stages distant from the southern frontiers of his realms"

Also Mansa Musa paid tribute to no one and merely brought gifts. In fact, there is an anecdote about Musa concerning his encounters in Egypt with the Mamluk Sultan, whereby Musa refused to pay homage to him by kneeling and kissing his shoe, claiming (and I'm paraphrasing) that he kneels before no one but god, after which the Sultan a[b]ccepted him as his equal and offered him a seat.[/b]

In addition, the Malians themselves were shrewd tradesmen. It is reported that Musa's entourage went wild in Egypt, buying everything in sight but quickly went broke because the Egyptians took advantage of their excitement by overpricing all of the market products and the Malians had to sell back everything they'd bought at half price and borrow just to get home. When they got home, the Malians remembered the greed of the Egyptians and nobody paid back the creditors except Musa himself (who only partially compensated his creditor) and after that, Mali switched the priority of their trade allegiances to Morocco, leaving Egypt to deal with a recession.

Mansa was certainly no 'Coon'.

pleep: ... rebels are destroying parts of the ancient mosques.

www.nairaland.com/attachments/1082622_mali_jpg172476bb75575f0e6b1b8ca5433e12a4

musa was blinded by religion and was earger to learn from other muslims who are not eager to learn from him.

them rebels who are muslims btw, do not give a shyte about islam but only want one thing... otor

so the ancient mosque gats to go... no time!

ezotik:



musa was blinded by religion and was earger to learn from other muslims who are not eager to learn from him.

Everyone throughout history was 'blinded' by religion. So I don't understand how this is exclusive to Mansa. At least Mansa wasn't doing no witch hunts like the Europeans, which even lasted in the Americas. Unlike the Europeans of those days he didn't kill anyone who was a 'non believers' like most European kings did.

And Mansa wasn't eager to learn from other muslims. OTHER MUSLIMS WERE EAGERED TO LEARN FROM HIM! Since at that time Timbuktu had the most advanced universities in the Islam world!

ezotik:



musa was blinded by religion and was earger to learn from other muslims who are not eager to learn from him.

Everyone throughout history was blinded by religion...Your point? At least Mansa Musa was not doing any witch hunts like the Europeans, which even lasted in the Americas. At least he didn't destroy civilizations like Aztec which the Europeans thought of as 'unholy'. At least Mansa unlike European kings, didn't kill anyone who was a 'non believer'. That's what I call blinded by religion.

And you got it backs. Mansa was not eagered to learn from OTHER Muslims. Other Muslims were eagered to LEARN FROM HIM! Since Timbuktu at that time had the most advanced universities in the Islam world!

pleep: You say that is age may have tempered his war like spirit, but did that stop him from waging war on Gao and other smal muslim African states? like so many black people he was a lion to his own people and a house cat to other races.

You're viewing this primarily from a modern racial perspective which may not have existed for him though. Your priorities are a little different than his own.

To this you might respond that this difference in perspective was due to "religious brainwashing" that made him see all fellow Muslims as brothers before seeing all other black people as brothers and sisters but that is probably not the best explanation for this sort of behavior.

Racial solidarity movements and mindsets probably only arise as a response to some actual or perceived threat, conflict, competition, etc. with another racial group. Without that, it's doubtful that they can ever arise on their own, naturally.

The only solidarity that is usually natural to a person would be solidarity with one's immediate and extended family, then solidarity with one's larger ethnic group against rival ethnic groups when in competition for resources for survival, and then finally, at a lower, tertiary level, solidarity with one's politically defined community, nation or kingdom. This is a more natural arrangement than one which involves race.

Ethnic and political solidarity would have been the kinds of solidarity that would have been natural to Mansa Musa's environment, not racial solidarity. He was a black African surrounded by other black Africans and those North Africans were just some paler people who often came to buy what his merchants and government were selling and brought interesting and valuable items from far off lands to his empire (either directly or by sending them there from their homelands), and who occasionally lived as merchants in the cities of his kingdom if they were more sedentary types. And these paler people with the fancy goods, interesting books, etc. would no doubt have paid respect and obeisance to him and would have been very polite and gracious to him whenever they met him face to face anywhere in his capital city or elsewhere in the state.

These paler skinned North Africans, and the larger racial group to which they belonged, did not and could not have automatically appeared as a threat, a dangerous competitor for resources, a fierce rival, hostile enemy, etc. in the recesses of his mind, merely because of their difference in skin color, hair, facial features, and possibly their mannerisms/general tendencies.

Now had he been born a slave, or a free but poor or middle class black commoner in an Arab or North African Muslim city, and grown up in such an environment, he might have gauged the degree of hostility and contempt towards his racial group (black people) that these paler skinned Arabs and North Africans really had, and based on the degree of this hostility or contempt in that particular area - or his awareness of it - and his personal resilience of mind, "spirit", mental toughness, etc., he would have decided, unconsciously or instinctively, whether he was going to

a) accept that the hostility and contempt was legitimate, normal or even deserved and become a self-hating and self-deprecating "coon" who walked around timidly, shucked and jived for Arabs at the local bazaar every other night, and sulked around the town full of self-loathing

or

b) pretend that all the racially based antagonism and hostility wasn't really there, or that all this stuff was there but wasn't really significant so he could try to ignore it and attempt to live his life from a non-racialized perspective

or

c) become a "race conscious" person with notions of strong racial solidarity and a feeling of much greater closeness to any members of his race and much greater distance from any members of other races, who views every action of members of outside races with added suspicion and secretly or openly desires for his race to outdo those other races in any and everything that is good or noble


But none of that happened. Mansa Musa didn't grow up in the Maghreb or the Middle East so this race consciousness and solidarity stuff would probably have been alien to his mental constitution and his priorities, and besides, as mentioned before, any of these paler skinned people that visited his country or lived there would have been paying him great respect, honor and praise any time that he encountered them - just like his other subjects who were of the same race as him.


As for Gao, it was a direct and more obvious threat from the perspective of ethnic and political solidarity. Gao's resurgence would obviously have been an obstacle to Mali securing its local dominance in the region, and would have decreased Mali's wealth and its survival capability. It would have decreased the ability of the Malian state to survive politically, because there would be a dangerous rival carrying on unchecked right next to it, and also it might have affected their ability to physically survive, for the economic and military threat that it posed.

Also, that local dominance (which required the subjugation of Gao) of Mali would have been necessary before they could even start to contemplate international and intercontinental dominance.

pleep: What im basically getting from this is that [s]the most praised, and perhaps most note-worthy man in African history[/s], was an average intelligence, average ambitioned buffoon.

Who probably would have been better off as a cleric than a ruler.

Mali was by definition an empire, and that neccesitates a tradition of war and conquest. Musa was simply not able enough to extend this to spheres outside is immidiate vincinity.

This was probably caused by a mix of the instant slave mentality a foreign religion brings and Musas own unintelligence and lack of creativity.

This is the core of the problem!

Musa was able to transport "60,000 men, 12,000 slaves who each carried 4-lb. gold bars, heralds dressed in silks who bore gold staffs, organized horses and handled bags. Musa provided all necessities for the procession, feeding the entire company of men and animals.[8] Also in the train were 80 camels, which varying reports claim carried between 50 and 300 pounds of gold dust each."
Across the sahara desert and provide food and supplies for them for several years. T[b]his is a number of men larger than the greek force at Gaugemala, larger than the Hanibals force at cannae and larger than Napolons force at the battle of the pyramids[/b]

And they were almost all fighting age males!

This shows us that the suppliy lines across the sahara were water-tight and that Mali was unequivocally the most wealthy nation on earth at that time.

And army of 60'000 with such a well established supply line could have taken over all of North Africa with ease.

Your problem with Mansa Musa seems to be that he didn't have the world conquest ambition and "killer instinct" of a Napoleon, Alexander, Genghis Khan, or Timur type. I'm not going to really disagree with you about that. All I have to say here is that one can't really change who they are deep down. Mansa Musa was something of an "accidental king" anyway and probably didn't have the war-lust and violent ambitions of a world conqueror.

But this does not mean that he did not have other positive and possibly equally important qualities - the drive for education, scholarship and general civic development, for example. Some of the most celebrated individuals in history are those who are not super conquerors but those who improve the economic, intellectual and social development of their societies peacefully through their policies and initiatives. Musa belonged to that class of individuals, but the men who followed him did not have as large a vision or were just unable to handle the threats to the stability and advancement of the empire. Songhai, whose capital was at Gao (which as I said before, was a great threat to Mali) eventually rose up after Mansa Musa's successors weakened the state, failed to maintain Mali's power, and were unable to keep Gao/Songhai in check. Songhai then took over some parts of Mali, did not really continue Mansa Musa's initiatives in developing and improving Timbuktu as a center of learning (even if they did save it from some Tuareg raiders) and as is already known, the foreign policy and military choices of their later leaders eventually proved disastrous for the wider region (the Western Sudan). Basically, some of Musa's successors screwed up, and a lesser empire (Songhai) took the lead in the Western Sudan, but eventually just led the whole region nowhere.

On the part I crossed out above, Mansa Musa is not even the most praised, noteworthy or celebrated man among his own people - that honor belongs to Sundiata Keita, a real warrior king type, who might have had the kind of temperament and ambition to eventually attempt the world conquest stuff you've been talking about, if he had been king in Musa's time. Also Keita possibly was not Muslim. If he really wasn't then he would not have been held back by religious considerations in any of his military decisions.

pleep: If he is so great and generous why didn't he free the 12,000 black slaves he dragged across the Sahara, is generosity only deserved by Arabs?

This is a very good objection. So maybe you're right and he was mostly just being flashy and showing off. Or maybe he was generous, but only to people he didn't treat and use as property.

By the way, are the written sources all in agreement that those people were all slaves?

pleep: Physics why did Mali decline?

Because it was led by dumbasses, that don't know when to seize oppurtunity! When empires stop aquireing new power they stagnate... what did Mali's "great learning" do for Africa? All they were learning was how to kiss Arabic Bottom with greater effectiveness.... ill bet 90% of their learning was just Arab script and the rest was memorizing the whole Koran by heart, something most Arabs didn't even bother doing.

Considering that most of the Timbuktu manuscripts haven't been analyzed, it's hard to see how you could arrive at a figure of 90%. From what I've read, some of the manuscripts that they have examined so far actually cover a pretty wide range of topics. Anyway, assuming that what you said here was all true (the "90%" stuff), you do realize that a society at least needs an earlier, usually smaller and less wide-ranging, intellectual basis/foundation to start from before great and really innovative intellectual achievements can later be made (sometimes only hundreds of years later), as was the case in other cultures? The scholastics of medieval Europe spent a lot of time writing a lot of unremarkable material, much of which was simply Christian theology, law, rhetoric, etc., and made few significant innovations or real intellectual breakthroughs, but they also gave Western Europe a firm pre-existing academic/scholarly tradition that they could use to receive and absorb new information (such as the knowledge provided by Muslim innovators and Muslim preservers of Greek learning) which they eventually utilized in bringing about the European renaissance.

This site has a few of the Timbuktu manuscripts:

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

As you can see, there is considerable variety in just this small group.

Basically, the point is about what Mali's learning could have done for Africa if it had been allowed to continue developing and improving at the pace at which Mansa Musa had started things off with Timbuktu (and there would eventually have been multiple centers of scholarship later on, as this learning and scholarship spread throughout the state), without this learning being affected by the overall decline of Mali, the stagnation endured under Songhai and the ravages of later foreign conquests, occupations and raids.

There would have been a diffusion of knowledge and new technology through other parts of West Africa through trade contacts, and this could have significantly changed the course of African history (I won't speculate on exactly how, since I don't think there's any point in just blindly guessing).

pleep: Mansa-Musa did nothing for Africa, I tell you most American students think he is just an exaggerated Afrocentric myth.

Most American students don't learn anything detailed about African history unless they go out of their way to do so, because only European and Western history is considered fundamental or foundational to American society (which is mostly a correct perspective, strangely enough), so they generally leave school thinking Africans had little to no history and were doing nothing impressive before they were colonized by Europeans. When they later encounter hyper Afrocentric websites which list legitimately renowned kings like Mansa Musa next to bogus, fictional, or exaggerated black "heroes," of course they'll think his wealth and scholarly initiatives are just part of a larger corpus of exaggerated Afrocentric mythology. But more mature people who actually bother to research this stuff seriously, including some Americans and other Westerners, don't consider him an exaggerated myth as far as I can tell.

Did you know that Malien gold financed the Italian renaissance? This dumb coon made it possible for the Europeans to advance to the point where they colonized us!

Now i apologize for the foul language, but i am legitimately angry right now. Mansa Musa was a gotdamn coon

Could you go into detail about how Malian gold financed the Italian renaissance and provide some sources that discuss it? I don't remember ever reading about that.




And I didn't get the 'Abd Al-Abdulla' joke. What was that about?

pleep: Dude. you people always miss the point

The point is everyone built stuff out of wood up until the 1940's... that is not anything particular. Even a good percentage of houses today are made entirely of wood.

The mosque at timbuktu is magnificent structure, but i think that with the resources available to Mali at that time they could have done much better.

Well the structures near the Sahara are usually built with mud bricks by all kinds of peoples and cultures. The availability of stone doesn't necessarily mean it is the best material to use or the most desirable.

I think Mansa Musa was a great man. He was rich, powerful and his people loved him.
So he wasn't much of a conqueror, so what.
He gave a lot of his gold away because he could and he wanted to build a "fan base" so to speak.

You see a lot of ignorant people like pleep think that a kindness and a giving spirit is a sign of weakness.
Never confuse kindness and a given spirit for weakness.

ill give a good response to this later.... been busy with exams, havn't had time. Goods posts btw

and kenechi, lets be cool. We have more opinions in common than we disagree about

if he had not been muslim, Mansa Musa would have been another Genghiz Khan.

He would have gone to Mecca as a conqueror , not as a slave bowing to a foreign God.

remember how many mosques Genghiiz Khan, the Pagan Mongol destoryed. he even nearly destroyed the islamic caliphate and took the caliph (islamic pope) hostage. no Allah or muhammad came then, to save the muslims from the wrath of the Mongols.

There have been only 2 Great individual conquerors so far. both Pagan. Alexander the Great & Genghiiz Khan.

Stranglehold:

Everyone throughout history was blinded by religion...Your point? At least Mansa Musa was not doing any witch hunts like the Europeans, which even lasted in the Americas. At least he didn't destroy civilizations like Aztec which the Europeans thought of as 'unholy'. At least Mansa unlike European kings, didn't kill anyone who was a 'non believer'. That's what I call blinded by religion.

what you call witch hunting made europe great and they are still enjoying the benefits till date. and arabs/muslims have destroyed more civilizations than any other group of people. just look at what they have turned africans to in northern nigeria. muslims and boko haram do not even give christian a breathing space not to talk of the pagans amongst them who want to stick to indigenous culture. look, im not against religion but im against people who are overly religious because that religion may blind them from using a lot of opportunities that may come their way. musa was a conqueror and is the richest gatdam human to ever grace planet earth and i don't see anybody taking that spot from him at least not in the next 100 yrs. but what did he do with all that wealth outside his immediate environment of west africa? apart from a trip to mecca and a spending spree in egypt and god knows where else. damn, dem negroes were making it rain in egypt back in the days.

And you got it backs. Mansa was not eagered to learn from OTHER Muslims. Other Muslims were eagered to LEARN FROM HIM! Since Timbuktu at that time had the most advanced universities in the Islam world!

so what was the purpose of his pilgrimage to mecca? and im talking about today. it is those same universities abi na mosques that current muslims are gradually destroying. so why are they not earger to learn from the oldest universities abi na mosques from the islamic world, but instead they are tearing it down?

PhysicsQED:

And I didn't get the 'Abd Al-Abdulla' joke. What was that about?

i think the joke is the name is laced with "abd" the arab name for slave

ezotik:

what you call witch hunting made europe great and they are still enjoying the benefits till date. and arabs/muslims have destroyed more civilizations than any other group of people. just look at what they have turned africans to in northern nigeria. muslims and boko haram do not even give christian a breathing space not to talk of the pagans amongst them who want to stick to indigenous culture. look, im not against religion but im against people who are overly religious because that religion may blind them from using a lot of opportunities that may come their way. musa was a conqueror and is the richest gatdam human to ever grace planet earth and i don't see anybody taking that spot from him at least not in the next 100 yrs. but what did he do with all that wealth outside his immediate environment of west africa? apart from a trip to mecca and a spending spree in egypt and god knows where else. damn, dem negroes were making it rain in egypt back in the days.

Cant really argue againt this.


But in one of my post I posted a source sayng Mansa refused to bow down to one of the Egyptian leaders.

ezotik:

so what was the purpose of his pilgrimage to mecca? and im talking about today. it is those same universities abi na mosques that current muslims are gradually destroying. so why are they not earger to learn from the oldest universities abi na mosques from the islamic world, but instead they are tearing it down?

Those were extremist Muslims.

But Timbuktu back then was the center of learning throughout the Islam world, because most the population was educated.

PAGAN 9JA:
remember how many mosques Genghiiz Khan, the Pagan Mongol destoryed. he even nearly destroyed the islamic caliphate and took the caliph (islamic pope) hostage. no Allah or muhammad came then, to save the muslims from the wrath of the Mongols.

There have been only 2 Great individual conquerors so far. both Pagan. Alexander the Great & Genghiiz Khan.

Thutmoses III was greatest conqueror no holds barred. The definition of a real black men if you ever see one! Took the first civilization and made that first "empire" with his worship only for the native africa gods. That is what captivate me on him really! This is a men who like high priest "manetho" looked at race in antiquity definite and fought war after war to let people know that. Mansa musa I will not call the man bad things, like i say " he could not see forest for the tree" still I think we cant make excuse for him.

PhysicsQED:

Considering that most of the Timbuktu manuscripts haven't been analyzed, it's hard to see how you could arrive at a figure of 90%. From what I've read, some of the manuscripts that they have examined so far actually cover a pretty wide range of topics. Anyway, assuming that what you said here was all true (the "90%" stuff), you do realize that a society at least needs an earlier, usually smaller and less wide-ranging, intellectual basis/foundation to start from before great and really innovative intellectual achievements can later be made (sometimes only hundreds of years later), as was the case in other cultures? The scholastics of medieval Europe spent a lot of time writing a lot of unremarkable material, much of which was simply Christian theology, law, rhetoric, etc., and made few significant innovations or real intellectual breakthroughs, but they also gave Western Europe a firm pre-existing academic/scholarly tradition that they could use to receive and absorb new information (such as the knowledge provided by Muslim innovators and Muslim preservers of Greek learning) which they eventually utilized in bringing about the European renaissance.

This site has a few of the Timbuktu manuscripts:

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

As you can see, there is considerable variety in just this small group.

Basically, the point is about what Mali's learning could have done for Africa if it had been allowed to continue developing and improving at the pace at which Mansa Musa had started things off with Timbuktu (and there would eventually have been multiple centers of scholarship later on, as this learning and scholarship spread throughout the state), without this learning being affected by the overall decline of Mali, the stagnation endured under Songhai and the ravages of later foreign conquests, occupations and raids.

There would have been a diffusion of knowledge and new technology through other parts of West Africa through trade contacts, and this could have significantly changed the course of African history (I won't speculate on exactly how, since I don't think there's any point in just blindly guessing).

Those manuscripts are interesting, those are some good links. However, Songhai did not end the Malien tradition of learning at Timbuktu. All the great universities and schools were functional for the duration of both empires. By the time Songhai fell in the 1600's, at Tondibi, there were still foriegn students living in the city, these foreigners were the only ones who were unable to flee back to their villages after they heard of the armies defeat.

That is why i find it so hard to believe that Timbuktu was this "great center of learning" for the whole middle east. If it was, they were not learning anything of concrete importance. By 1600 why had they not heard of gunpowder? the information was available since 1280! Musa made his pilgrimage in 1328 and founded his universities soon after.

The "great learning" done at Timbuku has stunningly little to show for it ... if you can explain this let me know.

And i don't think it was possible for Musa to have been completely unaware of the feeling of racial inferiority held over black people in during the 1300th century. Keep in mind, Timbuktu itself was a slave route. While the Africans most certainly didn't see themselves as the same race, the Arabs did, a race marked by its black skin that sold itself into slavery.

By this time Arabs were already calling all black people abd, and the curse of ham was widely believed and written about. Many of the most famous arab scholars hypothesized on negro inferiority. The first racist descriptions of blacks by the Arabs date around 1000 years before Musas pilgrimage, and were widely considered fact by the time he arrived.

PhysicsQED a) accept that the hostility and contempt was legitimate, normal or even deserved and become a self-hating and self-deprecating "coon" who walked around timidly, shucked and jived for Arabs at the local bazaar every other night, and sulked around the town full of self-loathing

or

b) pretend that all the racially based antagonism and hostility wasn't really there, or that all this stuff was there but wasn't really significant so he could try to ignore it and attempt to live his life from a non-racialized perspective

or

c) become a "race conscious" person with notions of strong racial solidarity and a feeling of much greater closeness to any members of his race and much greater distance from any members of other races, who views every action of members of outside races with added suspicion and secretly or openly desires for his race to outdo those other races in any and everything that is good or noble

You are forgetting the most probable reaction a man in Musas situation would have had to racsim from fellow muslim arabs.

d) Awknowledge the racism, and as a result become so extravagant and flamboyant in material displays as to rise above the low status of his racial group. This is the purest example of an inferiority complex and is the most common explanation for black peoples' material over-indulgence. Rappers who spend all their money on nice whips, flashy rims and gold chains, African rulers who cover themselves in medals while their people are starving.

They are trying to wash away their black-ness with money, and "buy" acceptance.

We need to stop pretending Mansa musa was any different. This is a man who came to Eygpt with something to prove, that is the only explanation for such behavior. He wanted to prove to the Arabs that he was not a nigga, and in so doing proved that he was.

As for Gao, it was a direct and more obvious threat from the perspective of ethnic and political solidarity. Gao's resurgence would obviously have been an obstacle to Mali securing its local dominance in the region, and would have decreased Mali's wealth and its survival capability. It would have decreased the ability of the Malian state to survive politically, because there would be a dangerous rival carrying on unchecked right next to it, and also it might have affected their ability to physically survive, for the economic and military threat that it posed.

Also, that local dominance (which required the subjugation of Gao) of Mali would have been necessary before they could even start to contemplate international and intercontinental dominance.

I agree with you on this... in every circumstance the closet "other" is the biggest enemy. This is not only with africans but with other groups

However, this shows the extreme uncreativity of Musa's empire.... They only fought in the shahel region were gold was so plentiful that it was valueless. He was not able to put the full might of his empire against Gao, because his wealth was useless at home

Basically, Mali was in the unique situation were it could have been a major global power on the world stage, but in the seculuded west African region it could not even acheieve complete domination because of market saturation of their resources. From the gate mali's success hinged upon access to the world outside of west Africa, but because of short-sidedness he only looked inward.

I do not believe Musa could have fully known the value of the gold he gave away during his pilgrimage, so much gold that the value of the metal deflated for 10 years. But by the time he finished his pilgramage, he should have realized that he lead the wealthiest nation on earth. If he had simply recruited a mercenary army in the middle east, instead of giving it away he could have taken over west Africa....

His short-sidedness goes both ways, up and down, side to side, and in diagonal patterns...

pleep: There is hardly a black man on this earth who can keep money past 2 generations.

most cant even keep it past 2 decades

Black men like Aliko Dangote are showing that is changing

How

KidStranglehold: Note Pleep...That The South(West Africa) was much more advanced than North(Northwest). I'm just stating this, because Eurocentrics always like for us to believe that North Africa was advanced...When it wasn't. Many info is coming out that West Africa was more advanced. I know this has nothing to do with what you are saying, but it is still important. I am thinking about making a thread on this.

Anyways heres a video on the great Ahmed Baba. One of my favorite videos...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vhx5OHfekk&list=FLOi5yL1B9aLEWSTjyIwcWLw

^^^Note at 1:23 those were mostly Africans(Arma people) who attacked and invaded Songhai.

This video basically sums up why i think the battle of Tondibi was one of the worst events in human history.

Yes, there are tecnicaly worst things that have happened... but that one battle set the stage to erase the pride of an entire race. https://www.nairaland.com/1271994/bloodiest-battles-african-histroy

I know I'm late to respond to this basically dead thread, but I still don't think I agree with your view on Mansa Musa, pleep. You definitely made some interesting points and I admit that he (Musa) could possibly have been a more impressive historical figure if he had expanded his empire outside of West Africa, but I'm still not convinced of the validity of your characterization of him. Of course I would also have preferred if he were not heavily caught up in a Middle Eastern religion, but I don't think he was really the failure you're portraying him as.

pleep: Those manuscripts are interesting, those are some good links. However, Songhai did not end the Malien tradition of learning at Timbuktu. All the great universities and schools were functional for the duration of both empires.

I was really talking about complacency vs. advancement/improvement. I know that learning didn't end at Timbuktu under Songhai, and in fact, it seems to have flourished precisely because of the earlier foundation set by Mali.

But what I mean is that if Mali made it a point to develop Timbuktu as a center of learning, and to staff the place with scholars in the first place, then it's probable that further initiatives like this would have occurred under Mali (if they had had good leadership once again). But I'm not sure if this practice of actually channeling the wealth of the state significantly into education was actually continued by Songhai. Maybe it was and maybe it wasn't, but if they did just let what Mali established in Timbuktu sit around and stay as it was or funded scholarship to a lesser degree, then this complacency would have prevented Timbuktu from reaching its full potential.

By the time Songhai fell in the 1600's, at Tondibi, there were still foriegn students living in the city, these foreigners were the only ones who were unable to flee back to their villages after they heard of the armies defeat.


That is why i find it so hard to believe that Timbuktu was this "great center of learning" for the whole middle east. If it was, they were not learning anything of concrete importance.

The great centers of learning for Muslims in the centuries before the European renaissance took off were located in certain cities in Iraq, Iran, Al-Andalus (the Muslim controlled part of Iberia), Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Mali, and Syria. Timbuktu was just one of multiple centers of learning.

By 1600 why had they not heard of gunpowder? the information was available since 1280! Musa made his pilgrimage in 1328 and founded his universities soon after.

That they had difficulty obtaining guns and gunpowder is not the same as them not knowing about the existence of guns or gunpowder. Guns spread from China to the rest of Eurasia and the Mongols and the Turks played a huge role in spreading them though warfare, but it's not the case that they were just handing them out to other groups on a platter. And after they got guns, Europeans had prohibitions against selling weapons to non-Christians and especially to Muslims, and Muslims were not just handing out guns freely and openly to rival Muslim states or non-Muslims either. It's wasn't like today where a gun is an regular item of trade which even an ordinary person, with no connections to a powerful government, can easily buy at will. It's also important to remember that guns were not the extremely powerful game-changing weapon that they eventually became, until later on. The first guns were not really decisive factors in warfare in Africa, as some historians have noted. So the enthusiasm for these new weapons would probably have been limited until the time when they improved significantly - but since states like Mali and Songhai were "out of the loop" in a sense in the spread of guns from Eurasia and in the improvements of the gun that were taking place in Europe and parts of Asia, they probably wouldn't have known how effective guns could be until it was too late.

The "great learning" done at Timbuku has stunningly little to show for it ... if you can explain this let me know.

From the information that I've come across regarding the manuscripts that have been studied so far (as I said earlier, most of them have not been studied thoroughly in modern times because of a lack of funding), with the exception of medicine, their focus was mostly on more abstract issues (astronomy, math, ethics, law, theology) and not on military technology.

But the additional factors to take into account are 1) the possibility that the Songhai state didn't invest as much into its centers of learning as Mali did and 2) the invasions, conquests, raids, etc. that disrupted important cities after Songhai's decline.

And i don't think it was possible for Musa to have been completely unaware of the feeling of racial inferiority held over black people in during the 1300th century. Keep in mind, Timbuktu itself was a slave route. While the Africans most certainly didn't see themselves as the same race, the Arabs did, a race marked by its black skin that sold itself into slavery.

By this time Arabs were already calling all black people abd, and the curse of ham was widely believed and written about. Many of the most famous arab scholars hypothesized on negro inferiority. The first racist descriptions of blacks by the Arabs date around 1000 years before Musas pilgrimage, and were widely considered fact by the time he arrived.

I don't see how he could have been acutely aware of what some Arab scholars who had never seen any black person other than the black slaves in their lands were writing about all black people. Even if he was somehow aware of such claims/beliefs (I don't see why he would have specifically sought out their publications that dealt with their view of the different races of men), I'm not sure if he would have taken them seriously, being surrounded as he was by highly organized and competent black people in his own kingdom and having highly organized and powerful rival black kingdoms all around him.

And while what you say here about Arab writers is true, black empires like Ghana and Mali that Arab writers were aware of were praised by some of these Arab writers at the very same time that some other Arab writers were putting forward their conjectures about the nature of black people. And in fact one of those writers who "hypothesized on Negro inferiority" - the famous Arab or Berber writer Ibn Khaldun - had high praise for the Ghana empire and the Mali empire in particular. Ibn Khaldun did not simply accept the idea of black inferiority (there is a section dealing with this topic in the Muqaddimah - which is an extraordinary book, by the way) because he felt that the idea (that it was true) was lacking in evidence and proof, but he was willing to speculate on it and consider the possibility based on what other people in the Arab world were saying about blacks. But if it were really viewed as an already established "fact" it's unlikely that he would have had to do all that analysis of the race inferiority claims only to reach the conclusion that the issue of whether it was true or false was unresolved and indeterminate.

You are forgetting the most probable reaction a man in Musas situation would have had to racsim from fellow muslim arabs.

d) Awknowledge the racism, and as a result become so extravagant and flamboyant in material displays as to rise above the low status of his racial group. This is the purest example of an inferiority complex and is the most common explanation for black peoples' material over-indulgence. Rappers who spend all their money on nice whips, flashy rims and gold chains, African rulers who cover themselves in medals while their people are starving.

They are trying to wash away their black-ness with money, and "buy" acceptance.

We need to stop pretending Mansa musa was any different. This is a man who came to Eygpt with something to prove, that is the only explanation for such behavior. He wanted to prove to the Arabs that he was not a nigga, and in so doing proved that he was.

That is not the most likely explanation for his behavior in my view. I still think the conclusion you reached does come from looking at this primarily from a modern day racial standpoint. He might have just gone there to make a name for himself while making his pilgrimage, but the idea that he was trying to impress them because they were non-black (rather than for the more plausible reason that they were closer to the center of the Islamic world that he was trying to make a name for himself in) is reading too much into racial dynamics which may have been non-existent for him. That Mansa Musa was trying to impress other Muslims in other important Muslim lands (possibly in order to recruit some of them for his civic projects back home), does not necessarily mean that his motivation in trying to impress them was because he was black and they were non-black. It probably had more to do with their being closer to the centers of great learning and religious influence in the Muslim world or the fact that he intended to recruit some of them for his projects back home.



The rest of what you said about gold and his possible short-sightedness is interesting, but regarding this part:

If he had simply recruited a mercenary army in the middle east, instead of giving it away he could have taken over west Africa....

Thank goodness he didn't even dream of that. That definitely would have been far worse for his credibility and his historical significance - especially from a racial standpoint - than anything you've criticized him for in this thread. And in fact, if he had done something like that and had been successful (which seems improbable to me, anyway) that would have been disastrous for the region and would have established numerous mini-states where the descendants of Arab mercenaries (who naturally, would have assumed the positions of governors of important outlying provinces of the mega-empire, as a reward for their loyalty and military support) would exert enormous power and influence over African states. And after this super-empire collapsed, the descendants of these Muslim Arab mercenary groups would probably still have retained significant influence and power in their areas.

Again I want to point this out. It was NOT Masa that was kissing up to Arabs, it was Arabs that were kissing up to Masa.

PhysicsQED: Thank goodness he didn't even dream of that. That definitely would have been far worse for his credibility and his historical significance - especially from a racial standpoint - than anything you've criticized him for in this thread. And in fact, if he had done something like that and had been successful (which seems improbable to me, anyway) that would have been disastrous for the region and would have established numerous mini-states where the descendants of Arab mercenaries (who naturally, would have assumed the positions of governors of important outlying provinces of the mega-empire, as a reward for their loyalty and military support) would exert enormous power and influence over African states. And after this super-empire collapsed, the descendants of these Muslim Arab mercenary groups would probably still have retained significant influence and power in their areas.

Yeah, the white people have done that instead. Ha!

PhysicsQED:

You're viewing this primarily from a modern racial perspective which may not have existed for him though. Your priorities are a little different than his own.

To this you might respond that this difference in perspective was due to "religious brainwashing" that made him see all fellow Muslims as brothers before seeing all other black people as brothers and sisters but that is probably not the best explanation for this sort of behavior.

Racial solidarity movements and mindsets probably only arise as a response to some actual or perceived threat, conflict, competition, etc. with another racial group. Without that, it's doubtful that they can ever arise on their own, naturally.

The only solidarity that is usually natural to a person would be solidarity with one's immediate and extended family, then solidarity with one's larger ethnic group against rival ethnic groups when in competition for resources for survival, and then finally, at a lower, tertiary level, solidarity with one's politically defined community, nation or kingdom. This is a more natural arrangement than one which involves race.

Ethnic and political solidarity would have been the kinds of solidarity that would have been natural to Mansa Musa's environment, not racial solidarity. He was a black African surrounded by other black Africans and those North Africans were just some paler people who often came to buy what his merchants and government were selling and brought interesting and valuable items from far off lands to his empire (either directly or by sending them there from their homelands), and who occasionally lived as merchants in the cities of his kingdom if they were more sedentary types. And these paler people with the fancy goods, interesting books, etc. would no doubt have paid respect and obeisance to him and would have been very polite and gracious to him whenever they met him face to face anywhere in his capital city or elsewhere in the state.

These paler skinned North Africans, and the larger racial group to which they belonged, did not and could not have automatically appeared as a threat, a dangerous competitor for resources, a fierce rival, hostile enemy, etc. in the recesses of his mind, merely because of their difference in skin color, hair, facial features, and possibly their mannerisms/general tendencies.

Now had he been born a slave, or a free but poor or middle class black commoner in an Arab or North African Muslim city, and grown up in such an environment, he might have gauged the degree of hostility and contempt towards his racial group (black people) that these paler skinned Arabs and North Africans really had, and based on the degree of this hostility or contempt in that particular area - or his awareness of it - and his personal resilience of mind, "spirit", mental toughness, etc., he would have decided, unconsciously or instinctively, whether he was going to

a) accept that the hostility and contempt was legitimate, normal or even deserved and become a self-hating and self-deprecating "coon" who walked around timidly, shucked and jived for Arabs at the local bazaar every other night, and sulked around the town full of self-loathing

or

b) pretend that all the racially based antagonism and hostility wasn't really there, or that all this stuff was there but wasn't really significant so he could try to ignore it and attempt to live his life from a non-racialized perspective

or

c) become a "race conscious" person with notions of strong racial solidarity and a feeling of much greater closeness to any members of his race and much greater distance from any members of other races, who views every action of members of outside races with added suspicion and secretly or openly desires for his race to outdo those other races in any and everything that is good or noble


But none of that happened. Mansa Musa didn't grow up in the Maghreb or the Middle East so this race consciousness and solidarity stuff would probably have been alien to his mental constitution and his priorities, and besides, as mentioned before, any of these paler skinned people that visited his country or lived there would have been paying him great respect, honor and praise any time that he encountered them - just like his other subjects who were of the same race as him.


As for Gao, it was a direct and more obvious threat from the perspective of ethnic and political solidarity. Gao's resurgence would obviously have been an obstacle to Mali securing its local dominance in the region, and would have decreased Mali's wealth and its survival capability. It would have decreased the ability of the Malian state to survive politically, because there would be a dangerous rival carrying on unchecked right next to it, and also it might have affected their ability to physically survive, for the economic and military threat that it posed.

Also, that local dominance (which required the subjugation of Gao) of Mali would have been necessary before they could even start to contemplate international and intercontinental dominance.

Impressive and accurate riposte to pleep's hysteria.

hysteria?

Thank goodness he didn't even dream of that. That definitely would have been far worse for his credibility and his historical significance - especially from a racial standpoint - than anything you've criticized him for in this thread. And in fact, if he had done something like that and had been successful (which seems improbable to me, anyway) that would have been disastrous for the region and would have established numerous mini-states where the descendants of Arab mercenaries (who naturally, would have assumed the positions of governors of important outlying provinces of the mega-empire, as a reward for their loyalty and military support) would exert enormous power and influence over African states. And after this super-empire collapsed, the descendants of these Muslim Arab mercenary groups would probably still have retained significant influence and power in their areas.

Touche, ill admitt that was a bad idea

You know the Spanish mercenaries that helped take over Shongai ruled timbuktu until 1770? They created a light skinned tribe called the Arma.

Thank God Musa didn't do that.