The Empire of Mali

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Empire of Mali which flourished from 1200 to 1600 and was famous in the wider world for the wealth of rulers such as Mansa Musa. Mali was the largest empire in west Africa and for almost 400 years controlled the flow of gold from mines in the south up to the Mediterranean coast and across to the Middle East. These gold mines were the richest known deposits in the 14th Century and produced around half of the world’s gold. When Mansa Musa journeyed to Cairo in 1324 as part of his Hajj, he distributed so much gold that its value depreciated by over 10%. Some of the mosques he built on his return survive, albeit rebuilt, such as the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Great Mosque of Djenne.

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Amira Bennison 10 episodes
  Reader in the History and Culture of the Maghrib at the University of Cambridge
• Marie Rodet No other episodes
  Senior Lecturer in the History of Africa at SOAS
• Kevin MacDonald No other episodes
  Professor of African Archaeology Chair of the African Studies Programme at University College, London

Reading list

• In Search of Sunjata: The Mande Oral Epic as History, Literature and Performance
  R. A. Austen (ed.) (Indiana University Press, 1999) Google Books →
• Epic Traditions of Africa
  Stephen Belcher (Indiana University Press, 1999) Google Books →
• Sunjata: A West African Epic of the Mande Peoples
  David C. Conrad (ed.) (Hackett Publishing Company, 2004) Google Books →
• The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, A Muslim Traveler of the 14th Century
  Ross E. Dunn (University of California Press, 2004) Google Books →
• Journeys to the Other Shore: Muslim and Western Travelers in Search of Knowledge
  Roxanne Euben (Princeton University Press, 2008) Google Books →
• Ibn Battuta in Black Africa
  Said Hamdum & Noel King (eds.) (Markus Wiener Publishers, 2012) Google Books →
• West Africa, Islam and the Arab World
  John Hunwick (Markus Wiener Publishers, 2006) Google Books →
• Medieval West Africa: Views from Arab Scholars and Merchants
  Nehemia Levtzion & Jay Spaulding (Markus Wiener Publishers, 2002) Google Books →
• Ancient Ghana and Mali
  Nehemia Levtzion (Methuen, 1973) Google Books →
• Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History
  N. Levtzion & J. Hopkins (Cambridge University Press, 1981) Google Books →
• Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali
  D. T. Niane (Longman, 2006) Google Books →
• The Cambridge History of Africa, Vol.3
  Roland Oliver (ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 1977) Google Books →
• Son-Jara: The Mande Epic: Mandekan/English Edition with notes and Commentary
  F. D. Sisoko (trans. J. W. Johnson) (Indiana University Press, 2004)
• Sunjata: Gambian Versions of the Mande Epic
  Bamba Suso & Banna Kanute (Penguin Classics, 1999) Google Books →

Related episodes

• The Mamluks
  
  26 Sep, 2013 950 History of Asia
• The Mughal Empire
  
  26 Feb, 2004 950 History of Asia
• The Arab Conquests
  
  26 Jun, 2008 950 History of Asia
• The Siege of Malta, 1565
  
  11 Jan, 2018 940 History of Europe
• The Abbasid Caliphs
  
  2 Feb, 2006 900 History
• Muslim Spain
  
  21 Nov, 2002 940 History of Europe
• The Zulu Nation’s Rise and Fall
  
  15 Apr, 2010 960 History of Africa
• The Hittites
  
  23 Dec, 2021 930 History of the Ancient World
• The Sikh Empire
  
  7 Apr, 2016 900 History
• The Almoravid Empire
  
  3 May, 2018 960 History of Africa
• Ashoka the Great
  
  5 Feb, 2015 950 History of Asia
• The Ming Voyages
  
  13 Oct, 2011 950 History of Asia
• Persepolis
  
  7 Jun, 2018 930 History of the Ancient World
• Queen Zenobia
  
  30 May, 2013 930 History of the Ancient World
• The Safavid Dynasty
  
  12 Jan, 2012 950 History of Asia
• The Barbary Corsairs
  
  9 Nov, 2023 900 History
• The Battle of Talas
  
  9 Oct, 2014 950 History of Asia
• Byzantium
  
  19 Jul, 2001 940 History of Europe
• Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem
  
  21 Nov, 2019 900 History
• Africa
  
  8 Jul, 1999 960 History of Africa

---

Programme ID: b06kgggv

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06kgggv

Auto-category: 966.2 (African History)