Mali Empire

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Presumed expansion of the Mali Empire in the 13th century

The medieval kingdom of Mali (in Mandinka : Manden Kurufa ) was the largest West African empire in history.

The state people were the Malinke ("People of Mali") and the most important source of income was the gold trade . In its borders it corresponded roughly to today's Mali . In its greatest extent, however, the Mali Empire extended far beyond from the Atlantic Ocean to the Aïr Mountains in the center of the Niger .

Sources

Since in almost all African empires - including today's Mali - there was no tradition of historiography in the occidental sense for a long time, the tradition was passed on through oral stories. Further sources are available with the information of Arab geographers and historians, who are based on the reports of Berber and Arab traders and Malian pilgrims to Mecca. During the colonial period, the history of the medieval Mali Empire was systematically processed for the first time on the basis of source studies.

Founding of the Mali Empire

According to the Andalusian geographer al-Bakrī , a king of Malal became Muslim around 1050. The 12th century Muslim historian and geographer al-Idrisi added that Malal was often the target of slave hunters. After 1200 Sumanguru Kanté , mighty king of the Sosso , ruled the Mandinka . Sumanguru took over the Islamicized empire of Ghana , conquered and Islamized by the Almoravids in the second half of the 11th century , which has since fallen into disrepair. In the first half of the 13th century, the Muslim Malal empire expanded, extending to the Niger Lake area (southwest of Timbuktu ) to the southwest. In 1235, however, the subsequent Lion King Sundiata Keïta rose against Sumanguru. Supported by the troops of the petty king of Mema , the military leader marched on the upper reaches of the Niger against the Sosso king. He defeated him at the Battle of Kirina , took over his power attributes and founded the Mali empire that succeeded the Muslim Malal. He then conquered the northern part of the empire, also drove out the Sosso there and made Mali the extended successor region of Ghana. Sundiata Keita died in 1255. From 1285 to 1300 the usurper Sakura ascended the throne, but there he turned out to be one of the most energetic rulers of the empire. Under his aegis, the empire was expanded beyond Timbuktu to Gao . From 1342 to 1360 heir to the throne, Mansa Suleyman, was considered prudent and powerful . The explorer Ibn Battuta reported on this . Prodigal and weak kings followed, heralding the decline of the empire from 1388. The traditional list of kings of the historian and politician Ibn Chaldūn breaks off during this time.

Pilgrimages by the Mali rulers to Mecca

The ruler Mansa Musa of Mali (Catalan World Atlas, 1375)

The first pilgrimage of a Mandinke prince to Mecca took place around 1200 . Sundiata's successor, Wali Keïta , was able to undertake this pilgrimage without having to cross the territory of a neighboring country in the Sahel. At the beginning of the 14th century, Mansa Sakura, a "client of the kings of Mali" who obviously did not belong to the Keïta, set out for Mecca. Undoubtedly the most important pilgrimage of all West African kings, Mansa Musa undertook in 1324. According to the reports of al-Omaris, this gave him a great reputation in the Islamic world. Several Egyptian chroniclers unanimously report that the purchases by the King of Mali and his companions brought so much gold to the Cairo market that the gold price fell dramatically. According to modern calculations, the price drop must have been around 25%. Mansa Musa is also said to have initiated the construction of the Djinger-ber mosque after completing his Hajj to Mecca , which was conducive to the spread of Islam.

Local Customs and Uses - Practice of Islam

When Ibn Battuta traveled to Mali from 1352 to 1353, Mansa Musa was no longer ruling, but his brother Mansa Sulayman. The traveler had the impression that even at that time the inhabitants of the country were deeply influenced by Islam. According to his observations, the residents of the capital Niani regularly said the five daily prayers, they took part in large numbers in the Islamic festivals, parents attached great importance to their children learning the Koran by heart, legal disputes were partly settled by the kadis and not by the political ones Authorities. But there were also customs that shocked a devout Muslim like Ibn Battuta: female slaves served their masters completely undressed and appeared in public that way; to greet the king, the people sprinkled sand and ashes on their heads, a reverence that, according to the Muslim understanding, is at best appropriate to Allah , but not to a human being; The price songs in honor of the king, in which the bards appeared in a strange disguise, also seemed grotesque and inappropriate to him. These individual phenomena do not change the fact that Islam in Mali was already practiced by the urban population in the middle of the 14th century with great sympathy and devotion. As Ibn Battuta also praises, conditions were peaceful and secure throughout the Keïta sphere of influence. According to the traveler Ibn Battuta, the historian Ibn Chaldun provided valuable information about the rise, expansion and the beginning of the disintegration of the Mali Empire in 1394. From his and al-Umari's information, it can be inferred that at the time of its greatest development of power, the Mali Empire extended into the mountains of the Air in the east.

Disintegration of the Mali Empire

Towards the end of the 14th century, the first signs of decline appeared in the Mali Empire. The main reason for this was the dynastic conflicts, of which Ibn Khaldun bears eloquent testimony: within 30 years, six kings ruled - a son of Sulayman, three descendants of Musa, a usurper and ultimately a descendant of Sundiatas from the line of his son Wali. In addition, there was the de facto rule of a powerful official who took the rightful king into custody for some time and exercised power in his place. Around 1400 Jarra and Gao broke away from the empire. It can hardly be assumed that this development could be reversed in the following period, because in 1433 the Keïta had to give up Timbuktu. In the same year, Tuareg gained control of Timbuktu and Walata . The province of Mema in the Niger Lake District and the trading town of Djenné could no longer hold them under the pressure of the expanding Songhai Empire in the middle of the 15th century. The northern parts of the empire were lost. Also Massina fell from 1450 after the Mossi had advanced there. In 1480 they also looted Walata. Before 1500 the situation of the empire was such that Tekrur had become independent and the Mali empire consisted only of the core area and the provinces around the rivers Gambia and Casamance .

The decline of the great Mali Empire is indirectly confirmed by the Portuguese . After their explorations in Senegambia , a great Mali King ruled somewhere in the interior of the country. The Mandinka kings of the Gambia were subject to this, but he resided in seclusion on the upper reaches of the Niger. He had long since lost control of the trans-Saharan gold trade. Around 1600 the south-western areas of Mali broke away.

See also

literature

  • Ralf A. Austen (Ed.): In Search of Sunjata. Bloomington 1999.
  • François-Xavier Fauvelle: The golden rhinoceros. Africa in the Middle Ages. CH Beck, Munich 2017.
  • Dierk Lange: Ancient Kingdoms of West Africa. Dettelbach 2004.
  • Nehemia Levtzion: Ancient Ghana and Mali. London 1973.
  • Nehemia Levtzion, John Hopkins: Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History. Cambridge 1981.
  • Madina Ly Tall: L'empire du Mali. Dakar 1977.
  • Rudolf Fischer: Gold, Salt and Slaves. The history of the great Sudan empires of Gana, Mali and Son Ghau. Edition Erdmann, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-522-65010-7 .

Web links

Commons : Malireich  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Rudolf Fischer: Gold, Salt and Slaves. 1986, p. 255. (abstract)
  2. ^ Al-Bakri in: N. Levtzion, J. Hopkins: Corpus. 1981, pp. 82-83; N. Levtzion: Ancient Ghana. 1973, pp. 53-54; D. Lange: Ancient Kingdoms of West Africa. 2004, pp. 518-519.
  3. ^ N. Levtzion: Ancient Ghana. 1973, pp. 53-61.
  4. ^ N. Levtzion: Ancient Ghana. 1973, pp. 66, 209-213.
  5. ^ Rudolf Fischer: Gold, Salt and Slaves. 1986, p. 203 f.
  6. ↑ N. Levtzion, J. Hopkins: Corpus. 1981, pp. 289-301; Ly Tall, Empire. 129-180.
  7. ↑ N. Levtzion, J. Hopkins: Corpus. 1981, pp. 262, 336, 338-339; D. Lange: Ancient Kingdoms of West Africa. 2004, pp. 520-522.
  8. ^ N. Levtzion: Ancient Ghana. 1973, pp. 81-82.
  9. ^ N. Levtzion: Ancient Ghana. 1973, pp. 66, 209-213.