Which empire was ruled by Mansa Musa in the 14th century?

Mansa Musa ruled the Mali Empire in the fourteenth century. He became mansa, or ruler, around 1312 and is remembered as one of the wealthiest sovereigns in history because Mali controlled major West African gold-producing regions and trans-Saharan trade routes.

His most famous journey was a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324. Medieval accounts describe a large caravan that passed through Cairo and spent or distributed so much gold that it affected local economic conditions for years. The exact scale of the effect is debated, but the pilgrimage made Mansa Musa famous across the wider Islamic world.

Mansa Musa also supported scholarship and architecture. In Timbuktu and other cities, Mali’s rulers patronized mosques and centers of learning. He is sometimes mistakenly associated with the Ghana Empire, an earlier West African state; the Mali Empire rose after Ghana’s decline and later gave way to the Songhai Empire.