074 - The Madrassas of Timbuktu
Wonders of the World
English - November 26, 2020 05:00 - 48 minutes - 89.2 MB - ★★★★★ - 300 ratingsHistory Society & Culture Places & Travel food history travel wonders world Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Some call him the richest person in human history. Whether that's true, Mansa Musa of Mali shook up the world with his gold-laden hajj through Cairo and his university in Timbuktu.
That city at the edge of the Sahara might seem like the furthest place on earth, but it was a remarkable center of learning, home to as many as 700,000 manuscripts.
Cody Michaels from the History Unwritten podcast comes by to talk about Musa, his gold, and his famous journey to Mecca, as well as how African history is so much more than what we're commonly taught. Plus poulet yassa!
Sources:
Baxter, Joan. "Africa's 'greatest explorer'" in BBC News
Bell, Nawal Morcos. "The Age of Mansa Musa of Mali: Problems in Succession and Chronology" in The International Journal of African Historical Studies
Coleman de Graft-Johnson, John. "Mūsā I of Mali" in Encyclopaedia Britannica
Hamidullah, Mohammed. "Echos of What Lies Behind the ‘Ocean of Fogs’" in Muslim Historical Narratives
Levtzion, N. "The Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Kings of Mali" in The Journal of African History
Mohamud, Naima. "Is Mansa Musa the richest man who ever lived?" in BBC Africa
Sogoba, Mia. "Mansa Musa: the Rejected Ruler of the Mali Empire?" in Culture of West Africa
Photograph by Francesco Bandarin