The Richest Person In History? Meet Mansa Musa

Musa Keita was born around 1280, a member of the Keita Dynasty, the ruling family of the Mali Empire. From an early age, Musa was surrounded by wealth and power, long before his eventual coronation. Trivia: “Mansa” means king or sultan in Mandinka, which is how he got his name, Mansa Musa.

Musa’s predecessor, who ruled Mali until 1312, abdicated the throne to lead a fleet across the Atlantic Ocean.. The 14th century historian Shihab al-Umari wrote of a fleet of perhaps 2,000 ships laden with thousands of men, women, and enslaved people, none of whom were ever seen again.

By the time Musa came to power in 1312, the Mali Empire was already reputed to be rich. It already had the means and markets, but was not widely known outside of West Africa. It was a very good place to land financially!

Under Musa’s rule, the Mali Empire became one of the largest and wealthiest in the medieval world. Through conquest and diplomacy, he brought 24 cities, including Timbuktu, which was well known as a trading center, under his control.

It was also one of the biggest empires in Africa in history, stretching as far as 2,000 miles from the Atlantic Ocean to present-day Niger. This includes parts of modern day Senegal, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Ivory Coast.

During Musa’s time of power, Mali became a power throughout West Africa through both diplomacy and military strength. He reportedly never lost a battle, and he used his military to conquer new territories.

Musa had access to more wealth than almost anyone else on the planet. To give an idea, the British Museum reports that the Mali Empire supplied almost half of the Old World’s gold during the period of his reign.

In addition to gold, Musa made hefty sums off of the salt mines and the ivory trade. His empire was home to major trading centers and Musa made sure to reap wealth from many avenues rather than just from one.

It’s often cited as the most extravagant pilgrimage to happen in human history. In 1324, devout Muslim Musa led a group of followers thousands of miles across the Sahara Desert and through Egypt on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Musa was a very extravagant man.

On the road Musa traveled with 60,000 people! Yes! Musa’s royal court, soldiers, griots, merchants, camel drivers, and 12,000 enslaved people accompanied the journey along with a seemingly endless trail of sheep and goats, to make sure that the food lasted throughout their journey! It’s hard to even imagine what that looks like.

You had to see the caravan. It was said to be like a mobile city crossing the desert! Musa had NO subtlety in him when it came to ostentatious displays of wealth. Each member of the caravan, even those enslaved, dressed in gold brocade and fine Persian silk to impress any kingdom they crossed through on how wealthy Mali was.

Once inside Cairo, it must have been a scene to behold. Arab chroniclers describe a baggage train of 80 to 100 camels loaded with gold dust, and hundreds of attendants each carrying a four-pound rod of solid gold.

In Cairo he stayed for about three months. Musa’s generosity in the form of the largesse with which he doled out his gold in Cairo so depressed the local economy that it is said to have taken over a decade to recover, as the price of gold in the region fell.

On his return trip through Egypt, having run out of gold, Musa is reportedly said to have taken out loans from Egyptian lenders at exorbitant interest rates to cover his expenses.

On the other hand, Musa was very generous abroad, and not everyone back home liked that. In her research on Malian oral history, Lucy Duran mentions how griots were reluctant to praise Musa in their historical songs, due to the waste of their empire’s wealth upon foreign people. This actually makes a lot of sense to me.

Timbuktu’s reputation in Europe as a city built on gold can be traced back to the Catalan Atlas produced in 1375 by Spanish cartographer Abraham Cresques, in which Musa was depicted enthroned and clutching a nugget of gold.

Reportedly, Musa paid an Andalusian poet, scholar, and architect named Abu Es Haq es Saheli to design the structure. He had met es Saheli during the hajj and brought him back to Mali, and the fee was said to be 200 kilograms of gold, worth millions of dollars today.

Musa’s support of education and funding of libraries and schools, helped to make Timbuktu a center of learning. It is home to the famed Sankore center for learning, and over the centuries, an extensive manuscript collection has accumulated.

Unfortunately, the influence and power of Mali was significantly decreased long before the arrival of Europeans, centuries later. Upon the death of Musa in about 1337, at age 57, his son took over as ruler, but was not able to maintain the integrity of the empire like his father, and over time, smaller kingdoms seceded from the empire.

Some economists have estimated Musa’s wealth at between $400 billion and $500 billion, though most agree this figure is little more than a rough guess. To be fair, it is almost impossible to make a fair comparison between his riches and those of the modern-day billionaires. This is primarily because his fortune was based on commodities such as land, gold and salt.

This content was created with the help of AI.