Black Experience | Page 7

his people and passed
judgMent on them. Al- Bakri also describes lavish royal banquets
which included a great deal of ceremonial ritual.

The power of the king, and therefore of the empire, was based on his
ability to maintain law and order in his kingdom. This provided the
development of a flourishing commerce, and it was by taxing all
imports and exports that the king was able to finance his government.
The key item in this financial structure was the regulation of the vast
gold resources of West Africa, and it was by controlling its availability
that the king was also able to manipulate its value. However, after the
eleventh century, the Ghanaian empire was continually exposed to
harassment from a long series of Arabic holy wars. Over a long period
of time, the power of the king was reduced until the empire of Ghana
finally collapsed. From its ashes emerged the basis for the creation of a
new and even larger empire: the empire of Mali.
Mali, like Ghana, was built on gold. While Ghana had been under
attack by the Arabs from outside, various peoples from within struck
for their own freedom. The Mandinka people, who had been the
middlemen in the gold trade and who had received protection from the
king of Ghana, achieved their independence in 1230 A.D. They went
on to use their position in the gold trade to build an empire of their own.
The peak of their influence and power was achieved in the early
fourteenth century under MansaKankan Musa who ruled Mali for a
quarter of a century. He extended its boundaries beyond those of Ghana
to include such important trading cities as Timbuktu and Gao,
encompassing an area larger than that controlled by the European
monarchs of that day. This empire also was based on its ability to
provide stable government and a flourishing economy. An Arab
traveler, Ibn Batuta, shortly after Musa's death, found complete safety
of travel throughout the entire empire of Mali
Mansa Musa and, for that matter, the entire ruling class of Mali had
converted to Islam. This intensified the contacts between West Africa
and the Islamic world. Although several of these kings made
pilgrimages to Mecca, the most spectacular was the one by Mansa
Musa in 1324. On his way there, he made a prolonged visit to Cairo.
While there, both his generosity in giving lavish gifts of gold to its
citizens and his extravagant spending poured so much gold into the
Cairo market that it caused a general inflation. It was estimated by the
Arabs that his caravan included some sixty thousand people and some
five hundred personal slaves. Mansa Musa took a number of Arabic

scholars and skilled artisans back to West Africa with him. These
scholars enhanced the university of Timbuktu which was already
widely known as a center of Islamic studies. Now, besides exchanging
material goods, West Africa and the Arabs became involved in a steady
exchange of scholars and learning.
The success of Mali in bringing law and order to a large portion of
West Africa was responsible for its decline. Having experienced the
advantages of political organization, many localities sought
self-government. In fact, Mansa Musa had overextended the empire. A
skilled ruler like himself could manipulate it, but those who followed
were not adequate to the challenge. Movements for self- government
gradually eroded central authority until by 1500 Mali had lost its
importance as an empire. Although the period of its power and
prosperity was respectable by most world empire standards, it was
short-lived compared to the history of the previous empire of Ghana.
Again, a new empire was to emerge from the ruins of the previous one.
The Songhay empire was based on the strength of the important trading
city of Gao. This city won its independence from Mali as early as 1375,
and, within a century, it had developed into an empire. Songhay carried
on a vigorous trade with the outside world and particularly with the
Arabic countries. The ruling class, in particular, continued to follow the
religion of Islam, but it is generally believed that the masses of the
population remained faithful to the more traditional West African
religions based on fetishism and ancestor worship. Two of the more
powerful rulers were Suni Ali, who began his 28-year reign in 1464,
and Askia Mohammed, who began his 36-year reign in 1493. Askia
Mohammed was also known as Askia the Great. The security of
Songhay was undermined when Arabs from Morocco invaded and
captured the key trading city of Timbuktu in 1591. Thus ended the last
of the three great empires of West Africa.
It would be a mistake, however, to assume that those parts of West
Africa which remained outside of these three empires fulfilled the usual
European image