Richest Man Ever - Mansa Musa
when we think of the world's all-time
richest people names like bill gates
warren buffet and jeff Bezos immediately
come to mind
but few would have thought or even heard
of man's moose of mali the obscure 14th
century african king
who was actually the richest person in
all of history
so who was mansa musa and how did he
make his wealth
mansa musa also known as moosa the first
of mali was born in 1280
into a family of rulers his name
literally translates
to king of kings his brother mans abu
bakr
ruled the empire until 1312 when he
abdicated the troll to go on an
expedition to the atlantic ocean
where
he never returned thus mansa musa
inherited the kingdom
his brother left behind under his rule
the kingdom of mali grew significantly
he annexed 24 cities including timbuktu
with such a large landmass came great
resources such as gold and salt
during the reign of mansa musa the
empire of mali
accounted for almost half of the old
world's gold
and all of it belonged to the king with
important trade routes and resources at
his fingertips
king musa made his fortune some
estimates say
it would be worth about
400 billion dollars today one thing many
people don't understand is
how important a commodity like salt is
prior to the modern era
when salt mining became industrial with
huge machines doing most of the work
salt was very difficult to get it was
either mined by hand
in deplorable conditions usually by
slaves or made through evaporating
seawater
the importance and scarcity of salt thus
led to the development of trade
between west africa where gold was
relatively abundant
and north Africa
where salt came from
camel caravans would cross the sahara
desert to do their trade
and timbuktu because of its position in
the middle between the gold fields and
salt
mine became very wealthy from this trade
though the empire of mali was home to so
much gold
the kingdom itself was not well known
this changed when mansa musa
a devout muslim decided to go on a
pilgrimage to mecca in 1324
not only was this popularly received by
his empire it was also telling of
moussa's strength at the time
that he was able to leave his empire
unattended
it took around nine months to fully
prepare for this journey
the king had to gather resources from
across mali
and assemble a grand procession of 60
000 men to accompany him
he took his entire royal court and
officials soldiers entertainers
merchants and about 12 000 slaves who
were dressed in persian silk
moosa roden horseback with 500 slaves
carrying gold adorned staff
directly preceding him he also took with
him 80 camels
which carried about 300 pounds of gold
each it was like a city
moving through the desert and the site
got even more opulent once the caravan
reached cairo
where they could really show off their
bill a scholar at that time remarked
that
he brought so much gold with him that he
and his followers
bought all kinds of things from new and
old cairo and that
the people around him
thought that their money was
inexhaustible
during the time he stayed in cairo the
king spent so much gold that the value
of gold in egypt
plummeted and would not recover for at
least a decade
moosa spent his gold frivolously
wherever the procession stopped on the
journey
all his spending actually destabilized
the region's economy
and caused a mass inflation that would
take years for the regions to recover
from
he gave beggars huge ingots overpaid at
the bazaars and he would tip the
merchants with
fistfuls of gold dust moussa also
reportedly
ordered a new mons to be built for him
to pray at every friday
mansa moosa's pilgrimage led to about
1.5 billion dollars of economic losses
across the middle east there is no doubt
that mansa musa spent
or wasted a lot of gold during this
pilgrimage
but
it was this excessive generosity
that also caught the eyes of the world
moussa had put mali and himself on the
map
quite literally in a catalan atlas map
from 1375
which was the most important map in
medieval europe a drawing of the african
king
sits on a golden throne atop timbuktu
holding a piece of gold in his hand
timbuktu became an african eldorado and
people came from near and far to have a
glimpse
in the 19th century
it still had a
mythical status as a lost city of gold
a beacon for both european fortune
hunters and explorers
and this was largely down to the
exploits of mansa musa
500 years earlier in addition to
encouraging arts and architecture
musa also funded literature and built
schools libraries and mosques
timbuktu soon became a center for
education and people travelled from
around the world to study at what would
become the sangkar university
he also built the great mosque in
timbuktu the rich king is often credited
with starting the tradition of education
in west africa
after mansa musa died in 1337 aged 57
the empire was inherited by his sons who
could not hold the empire
together the smaller states broke off
and the empire crumbled
the rich king's legacy persisted for
generations
and to this day there are mausoleums
libraries and mosques
that stand as a testament to this golden
age of
mali's history
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