Mali Empire

The Mali Empire was a large West African state that rose in the 13th century after Sundiata Keita defeated the Sosso king Sumanguru Kanté at the Battle of Kirina (traditionally dated c. 1235). At its height in the 14th century, it stretched across much of the savanna belt between the Atlantic coast and the bend of the Niger River, encompassing parts of present-day Mali, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, and Niger.

Mali's power rested on control of trans-Saharan trade routes carrying gold from the Bambuk and Bure goldfields northward, exchanged for salt, copper, textiles, and books. The empire is often associated with the Mande (Mandinka) peoples and the oral traditions of the jeliw (griots), most famously the Epic of Sundiata.

The most internationally recognized ruler was Mansa Musa (reigned c. 1312–1337), whose 1324 pilgrimage to Mecca, with a retinue reportedly carrying enormous quantities of gold, briefly destabilized prices in Cairo and placed Mali on European maps — notably the 1375 Catalan Atlas of Abraham Cresques, which depicts Musa holding a gold nugget. Under Musa and his successor Mansa Suleyman, the cities of Timbuktu, Djenné, and Gao became centers of Islamic scholarship; the Sankoré madrasa in Timbuktu attracted jurists and astronomers.

The Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta visited Mali in 1352–1353 and left one of the few surviving eyewitness accounts of its court, justice system, and Friday observances.

Decline began in the late 14th century through succession disputes, Tuareg raids that took Timbuktu around 1433, and the rise of the Songhai Empire under Sonni Ali and Askia Muhammad, which absorbed Mali's eastern provinces by the early 16th century. A rump Mali polity persisted in the Manding heartland until roughly the 1670s, when it fragmented under pressure from the Bamana state of Segou.