The Richest Man Ever Lived
By: Muna Abubakr, Halal Incorp
This Is something which is said throughout history regarding Mansa Musa as the richest man who ever lived. Before this can be determined let’s dive into who Mansa Musa is. Musa Keita or rather Mansa Musa was born in C. 1280, and he was the ninth Mansa of the Mali Empire. He was West African and emperor of the West African Mali Empire. It was Covering around five hundred thousand square miles of land and it was the largest empire West Africa has ever known.
Mansa Musa’s personal name was Musa, and this is the Arabi form of Moses. He was the Mansa of the Mali Empire which was one of the most powerful West African States. He has been called the wealthiest person in history to have ever lived.
Mansa’s ruler in Mande was the title of the ruler of the Mali Empire. It has also been translated as “priest King” or conqueror. Musa is known as Kanku Musa in oral tradition and the Timbuktu Chronicles. In the Mande tradition, it was very common for one’s name to be prefixed by their mother’s name and so the name Kanku Musa means “Musa, son of Kanku”. Musa is also called Hidji Mansa Musa in oral tradition, and this is in reference to his hajj. In the Songhai language, rulers of Mali such as Musa were known as the Mali-koi, koi being a title that conveyed authority, and this over religion. Meaning “the ruler of Mali”.
Mali In large parts consisted of the territory of the former Ghana Empire, which Mali had conquered, and this was during the time of Musa’s ascension to the throne. The Mali Empire consisted of land and is also land that is now part of Mauritania, Guinea, and Senegal, the modern state of Mali, and the Gambia as well.
The richest man ever lived
Musa’s father was named Faga Leye, and his mother may have been called Kanku. Musa’s father was the son of Abu Bakr, a brother of Sunjata and the first Mansa of the Mali Empire. Ibn Battuta visited Mali, and this was during the time of Musa’s brother Sulayman’s reign and said that Musa’s grandfather was named Tariq Jata. The actual date of Musa’s birth is unknown, but he appeared to be a young man around the year 1324. Musa accidentally killed Kanku at some point prior to his hajj and this is claimed by the Tarikh al-fattash.
Around the year 1324, Musa had gone on Hajj to Mecca. Musa had travelled with an enormous entourage and a vast supply of gold. During this time, he also travelled to places like Cairo and spent some time over there. This is where his luxurious and lavish gifts giving caused a noticeable drop in terms of the prices of gold for over a decade and as a result garnered a lot of attention from the wider Muslim world.
It has been recorded that Mansa Musa had travelled through the cities of Gao and Timbuktu and this happened on his way to Mecca. Mansa Musa had made them a part of his empire when he returned around the year 1325. Musa has expanded the borders of the Mali Empire, and this is to incorporate the cities of Timbuktu and Gao into its territory. He sought closer ties with the rest of the Muslim world and to the Marinid Sultanate and the Mamluk Sultanate. Musa had brought architects from Andalusia, a region in Spain, and Cairo in order to build a grand palace in Timbuktu and the great Djinguereber Mosque, a mosque that still stands today.
Musa had recruited scholars from the wider Muslim world, and this is in order to travel to Mali. This is such as the Andalusian poet called Abu Ishaq al-Sahili helped establish Timbuktu and this is as a centre of Islamic learning. His reign has been associated with various construction projects, and this is including parts of the Djinguereber Mosque in Timbuktu. His reign is often regarded as the Zenith of Mali’s both prestige and power.
Timbuktu soon became the centre of culture, trade, and Islam; markers brought in merchants from Egypt, Hausa land and other African kingdoms, and a university was founded in the city as well as in the Malian cities of Djenné and Ségou. Islam was spread through universities and markets which resulted in Timbuktu becoming a new area for Islamic scholarship. The news of the Malian empire’s wealth broadcasted across the Mediterranean to southern Europe, where traders from Granada, Genoa and Venice soon added Timbuktu to their maps in order to trade manufactured goods for gold.
In the University of Sankore in Timbuktu, it was restaffed under Musa’s reign with mathematicians, jurists and astronomers as well. In fact, the University became a centre of both culture and learning which meant that it was drawing Muslim scholars around the Middle East and from Africa to Timbuktu.
The richest man ever lived
In the year 1330, the kingdom of Mossi invaded and conquered the city of Timbuktu. Gao had already been captured by Musa’s general, but Musa ended up rapidly regaining Timbuktu again. He built a stone fort and a rampart; he also placed a standing firm army and the reason behind this was so that the army could protect the city from future invaders. This meant that Mansa Musa took a lesson from the first invasion and took serious measures in order to stop that from happening again.
The University and mosque still stand currently today even though Musa’s palace has since disappeared. By the end of Mansa Musa’s reign, the Sankore University had been converted into a fully staffed University with the biggest collections of books in Africa and since the library of Alexandria. In fact, the Sankore University was able to house twenty-five thousand students and had one of its largest libraries in the world, with approximately 1,000,000 manuscripts.
The richest man ever lived: Musa had ascended to power in the early 1300s under very unclear circumstances. In fact, according to Musa’s own account his predecessor as Mansa of Mali, presumably Muhammad ibn Qu had launched two expeditions in order to explore the Atlantic Ocean and these are the first two hundred ships for the first exploratory mission and two thousand ships for the second. The Mansa led the second expedition himself personally, and he had appointed Musa as his deputy in order to rule the empire until he had returned. However, when he did not return, Musa ended up being crowned as Mansa himself, marking a transfer of the line of succession from the descendants of Sunjata to the descendants of his brother Abu Bakr.
The richest man ever lived: Musa was a devoted Muslim and his pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj) made him very well-known across Northern Africa and the Middle East as well. Islam was “an entry into the cultured world of the Eastern Mediterranean” to Musa. He would have spent much time fostering the growth of religion within his empire.
Musa made his pilgrimage in the year 1324 which was spanning approximately 2,700 miles. His procession has been said it included sixty thousand men and all of them are collectively wearing Persian silk and brocade which included twelve thousand slaves. The slaves had each carried 1.8 Kg (4 IB) of gold bars, handled bags, organised horses, and heralds dressed in silks, who bore gold staffs. Musa had personally provided all the necessities for the procession which resulted in feeding the whole company of the animals and men as well. Those animals included eighty camels which each carried 23-136kg (50-300 IB) and this is of gold dust.
Musa was so generous to the point where the value of gold fell. Musa had generously given the gold to the poor that he met along his route. He had not only just given to the cities he passed on the way to Mecca, including Medina and Cairo but also traded gold for souvenirs as well. The gold that Mansa Musa gave away was significant to the point that the economy of Cairo was again affected years later as a direct consequence of that. It has been said that he built a mosque every Friday making great use of his time wisely for this life and the hereafter. The statement that giving away to charity or the less fortunate does not diminish your wealth but rather increases it makes it very true. This is the case for Mansa Musa.
The richest man ever lived
Musa’s Journey was documented, and this is by numerous eyewitnesses along his route who were in awe of his extensive possession and wealth. Records exist in a variety of sources, and this is including histories, journals, and oral accounts.
The historians estimate that Mansa Musa, in modern currency was around $400bn. That is very significant as it is more than twice as wealthy as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos who can also be considered the richest person alive today. Most of Mansa Musa’s wealth came from both salt and gold. Although his wealth is impossible to accurately calculate and being that it is very difficult to meaningfully compare the wealth of historical figures especially seen as it is again difficult to quantify it thoroughly. However, through some sources, his wealth has been estimated as equivalent to US$400 billion although again it is impossible to have an exact calculation of it.
Mansa Musa may have brought as much as 18 tons of gold on his Hajj which is equivalent to approximately US$957 million in 2022. Musa himself personally has, in addition, promoted the appearance of having vast, and endless wealth and this is by spreading rumours that gold grew like a plant in his kingdom which was very classic and intelligent of him to do.
The richest man ever lived
The only American billionaire from modern history who even comes close to 400 billion dollars, Mansa Musa’s estimated believed net worth is John D. Rockefeller, whose net worth estimated by economists is around 336 billion dollars. Today’s billionaires do not even get close to that. Officially as of May 2021, Bill Gates comes in far below Musa and this is at 126 billion dollars. Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are a little closer. Currently, Bezo is the world’s richest person and is worth approximately one hundred and eighty-seven billion dollars. Whilst Musk is worth around one hundred and fifty-six billion dollars to his name.
Moreover, meaning that today’s richest people do not even have half of Mansa Musa’s wealth that he had accumulated as emperor all those centuries ago. This is what is had led all the experts to conclude and believe that Musa was the richest person in history. However, to this day many still struggle to comprehend the true size of his fortune.
Contemporary accounts of wealth are very refreshing and breathtaking that it is almost impossible to get a sense of just how powerful and wealthy he really was. Ultimately, historians, find that Mansa Musa’s legacy rich was not only because of how much money he had but also how wisely he spent it as well. While he had an endless amount of money, he also was very happy sharing it with others hence putting a smile on the less fortunate. He clearly did not forget about his purpose despite how much he had which made him wealthy inside and out.
Mansa Musa’s death date is not certain but utilising the reign of lengths that is reported by Ibn Khaldun to calculate the death of Mansa Suleyman which occurred in the year 1360, Musa would have died around the time 1332. However, Ibn Khaldun also reports that Mansa Musa had sent an envoy in order to congratulate Abu al-Hasan Ali. This was for his conquest of Tlemcen, which took place in the year 1337 May, by the time Abu al- Hasan sent an envoy in response, Musa had died and Suleyman was on the throne which gives you an idea that Musa died in the year 1337. In contrast to this al- Umari, who was writing twelve years after Musa’s hajj in the year 1337 claimed that Musa returned to Mali in order to abdicate and return to live in Mecca but tragically died before he could do so.
Disclaimer: The view of the author does not necessarily represent the views of Halal Incorp