THE WORLD ATLAS

Empire · 1235–1670 · Northern Africa

Mali Empire

Also known as Mali

The Mali Empire was founded by Sundiata Keita, the hero of a famous oral epic, who defeated the Sosso king Sumanguru at the Battle of Kirina around 1235. Mali's Mandinka rulers, called mansas, absorbed the old Ghana lands and expanded to control the gold fields of Bambuk and Bure and the trading cities of the Niger bend.

Provinces and allied kingdoms paid tribute, and Islam spread among the ruling classes and merchants. Mansa Musa's pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324, during which he gave away so much gold that he lowered its value in Cairo, made Mali famous as far as Europe, and Timbuktu became a centre of Islamic learning. From the 15th century succession disputes, Tuareg raids and the rise of Songhai stripped away its provinces, leaving a small Mandinka kingdom by the 17th century.

Follow its story on the map

The Djinguereber Mosque in Timbuktu, built in 1327 under Mansa Musa
The Djinguereber Mosque in Timbuktu, built in 1327 under Mansa Musa upyernoz from Haverford, USA · CC BY 2.0
Years
1235–1670
Capital
Niani (probable), among other royal towns
Greatest extent
1350, about 1.10 million km²
Region
Northern Africa

Under Mansa Musa and Mansa Suleyman, from the Atlantic coast to beyond Timbuktu and Gao; c. 1.1M km² (Taagepera 1997, for c. 1380); c. 1.1M km² c. 1380 (Taagepera 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006); some estimates reach 1.3M km²

Legacy

Mali made Timbuktu a legendary city of scholarship and trade, and the Epic of Sundiata is still performed by West African griots.

Timeline of Mali Empire

  1. c. 1240: Sundiata takes the old Ghana capital

    Mali grew from small Mandinka kingdoms on the upper Niger that had once been vassals of the Ghana Empire. When the Sosso king Soumaoro Kanté conquered much of the region, the exiled prince Sundiata Keita returned and led an alliance of Mandinka and other states that defeated the Sosso at Kirina in about 1235. According to the World History Encyclopedia, Sundiata then captured the old Ghana capital in 1240. Ghana's lands, with their trade routes and gold, became part of Mali. Mali replaced Ghana as the great power of the western Sahel.

  2. c. 1255: Sundiata dies; his son Uli succeeds

    Sundiata is remembered as Mali's founder and the hero of the Mandinka epic that bears his name. He was the first ruler to take the title mansa, meaning king or emperor, and his capital was at Niani. When he died, around 1255, he was succeeded by his son, called Uli in oral tradition and Wali in Arabic sources. Like later mansas, Uli made the pilgrimage to Mecca, showing the dynasty's links to the wider Muslim world.

  3. General Sakura, a former slave, seizes the throne

    After Uli's reign, Mali went through a period of political instability among the Keita princes. Around 1285 (an estimate by the French scholar Delafosse), Sakura, who was not a member of the Keita family and may once have been a slave of the royal court, seized the throne. He was a successful general and led Mali to considerable expansion, west toward the Atlantic and east beyond Gao, according to Ibn Khaldun. He was killed in the early 1300s while returning from the pilgrimage to Mecca, and the Keita dynasty was restored.

  4. c. 1312: Musa becomes mansa

    Musa became mansa around 1312. According to his own account, his predecessor had sailed west into the Atlantic with a great fleet and never returned, leaving Musa as his deputy in charge. Some historians suspect Musa simply deposed him and invented the story. At his accession Mali already covered much of the former Ghana Empire. Musa went on to make Mali richer and larger than ever, and he became the best-known ruler in its history.

  5. Mansa Musa's pilgrimage passes through Cairo with lavish gold

    Mali was probably the largest gold producer in the world, and much of the gold used around the Mediterranean came from West Africa. In 1324 Musa made the pilgrimage to Mecca with a huge caravan and a vast supply of gold. In Cairo his lavish gifts were said to have noticeably lowered the value of gold in Egypt. Officials he met there passed information about Mali to Arab historians such as al-Umari. The journey made Musa famous across the Muslim world and Europe, and Mali appeared on later European maps, such as the Catalan Atlas.

  6. c. 1325: Musa, back from Mecca, builds mosques and palaces in Timbuktu

    According to the Tarikh al-Sudan, Gao and Timbuktu submitted to Musa as he travelled home from Mecca, although modern historians doubt this account, and Gao may already have been taken by his general. What is clearer is that Musa brought scholars and architects back with him, including the Andalusian poet Abu Ishaq al-Sahili. He built mosques and palaces in Timbuktu, including part of the Djinguereber Mosque. Timbuktu grew into a famous centre of Islamic learning. With the Niger Bend cities in Mali's hands, the empire reached its greatest extent on the map.

  7. Ibn Battuta visits the court of Mansa Sulayman (1352–53)

    Musa's son Maghan I was deposed in 1341 by his uncle Sulayman, who ruled for 19 years. The Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta visited Mali and stayed at Sulayman's court from 1352 to 1353. He wrote the first eyewitness account of a West African kingdom, describing the court ceremonies of Mansa Sulayman and praising the safety of the empire and its people's 'lack of oppression'. His account shows Mali at the height of its wealth and power.

  8. Sulayman dies, ending Mali's golden age

    Sulayman died in 1360. His death marked the end of Mali's golden age, as quarrels over the succession among the Keita princes weakened the empire. In the following decades rival claimants and powerful officials struggled for control of the throne. Meanwhile pressure grew on the empire's northern frontier, where Tuareg Berbers from the Sahara fought Mali's forces and in the 1370s devastated the city of Gao. Mali stayed large on the map for some time, but its grip on its outer provinces began to slip.

  9. Timbuktu lost to the Tuareg (1433–34)

    Timbuktu, on the Niger Bend, was Mali's great trading and learning centre where the Saharan caravan routes met the river. In 1433–1434 Mali lost control of the city to the Tuareg, led by Akil Ag-Amalwal. The Tuareg held it until the Songhai ruler Sonni Ali captured it in 1468. The loss cut Mali off from the main trans-Saharan trade route. Its northern frontier now pulled back from the desert edge, and the map shows the empire shrinking toward the south and west.

  10. Songhai conquers Mema, one of Mali's oldest provinces

    Songhai, centred at Gao on the middle Niger, had once been a vassal of Mali but became independent and expanded rapidly under Sonni Ali. In 1465 Songhai conquered Mema, one of Mali's oldest possessions, whose king had sheltered the young Sundiata in exile. Songhai was now Mali's main rival, and within a few years it would take Timbuktu as well. On the map the Niger Bend passes from Mali to Songhai, and Mali's eastern lands begin to fall away.

  11. Mossi raiders conquer Macina

    Mali's grip on its northern provinces was weakening, and the Mossi kingdoms to the south had been raiding the Macina region on the inner Niger Delta. In 1477 the Mossi emperor Naba Nasséré launched another raid into Macina, this time conquering it and the old province of BaGhana (Wagadu), Ghana's former heartland. Mali lost more of its northern territory. The empire was being squeezed between Songhai to the east and the Mossi to the south.

  12. Mansa Mahmud II receives Portuguese envoys

    Portuguese ships had been trading along the West African coast since the mid-15th century. Their traders found that the peoples of the Gambia river region were still subjects of the mansa of Mali. Hoping to stop Mali's decline, Mansa Mahmud II opened diplomatic relations with Portugal, receiving the envoys Pêro d'Évora and Gonçalo Enes in 1487. The contact shows that Mali still controlled western lands near the Atlantic coast. Its future increasingly lay there, while Songhai dominated the Niger Bend.

  13. Askia Muhammad I of Songhai seizes the province of Diafunu

    Under Askia Muhammad I, the Songhai Empire continued to expand westward at Mali's expense. In 1502 Songhai forces defeated the Malian general Fati Quali Keita and seized the province of Diafunu. Later, in 1544 or 1545, a Songhai army even sacked Mali's capital. Mali was now a regional power confined to the upper Niger and the lands toward the Gambia and Senegal rivers. On the map it is a much smaller kingdom.

  14. Mali army defeated outside Djenné by Moroccan troops

    After Morocco invaded and destroyed the Songhai Empire in the 1590s, Mali tried to win back power along the Niger. Mansa Mahmud IV gathered allies and marched on Djenné, but the governor of Kala, Bukar, secretly went over to the Moroccans. On 26 April 1599 the Moroccan musketeers, helped by Bukar's support, defeated the Malian army outside Djenné, though Mahmud escaped. According to the Mali Empire article, this defeat marked the end of the empire. Mali's hopes of revival were over.

  15. c. 1610: Mahmud IV dies and the empire breaks up

    Mahmud IV died around 1610. According to oral tradition, his three sons fought over what remained of Manden, the Mandinka heartland. The kingdom broke up into small rival states, and the Keita family retreated to the town of Kangaba, on the upper Niger, where they lived on as provincial chiefs, holding only a small part of the former empire. The Mali Empire, which had once stretched from the Atlantic to beyond the Niger Bend, disappears from the map.

Periods and reigns

Rulers

Realms on the map

Chapters

Sources