Mansa Musa: Did the Richest Man in History Really Crash Egypt's Economy?

In 1324, Mansa Musa of Mali rode into Cairo with so much gold that, according to the scholar al-Umari, its value in Egypt fell for years. But did he really crash Egypt's economy? Was he really the richest man who ever lived? And what did he do with all that gold? This is the true story of the Gold King of Mali: the empire built on gold and salt, the king who sailed into the Atlantic, the pilgrimage that made Mali famous, how Musa went broke on the way home, and how Timbuktu became one of the great centres of learning in the Islamic world. 0:00 Intro: the king who came to Cairo 0:51 An Empire Built on Gold and Salt 1:47 The King Who Sailed Away 2:42 The Most Famous Pilgrimage in History 3:35 Cairo: The Gold Rush in Reverse 4:47 Broke in the Desert 5:35 Timbuktu: Gold Into Knowledge 6:55 The King on the Map 7:39 Richest Man Ever? 8:22 Legacy Next on The Africa Files (Thursday): Shaka Zulu. #MansaMusa #AfricanHistory #MaliEmpire #Timbuktu #History SOURCES Shihab al-Din al-Umari, Masalik al-Absar (c. 1337), via Levtzion & Hopkins, Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History Ibn Khaldun, Kitab al-Ibar Warren C. Schultz, research on Mamluk monetary history (gold-silver exchange rates) J. O. Hunwick, on Abu Ishaq al-Sahili and Sudanese architecture Nehemia Levtzion, Ancient Ghana and Mali Catalan Atlas (1375), Bibliothèque nationale de France CREDITS Video: "Les Pyramides" (1897), Alexandre Promio / Lumière, public domain (Wikimedia Commons). Pexels License footage: Sahara camel caravans, Niger river town and village aerials, desert town, musicians (pexels.com). Images: Wikimedia Commons, public domain and CC (CC0, CC BY 2.0, CC BY 4.0, CC BY-SA 2.0/3.0/4.0) — Catalan Atlas (Abraham Cresques); Angelino Dulcert map; David Roberts lithographs; Heinrich Barth / Martin Bernatz Timbuktu; Edmond Fortier; Félix Dubois; Félix Bonfils (Museo Egizio); Rijksmuseum; American Numismatic Society gold dinar; Khalili Collections; Eugène Mage; Dr. Ondřej Havelka; upyernoz; David Sessoms; James St. John; Mark Fischer; Elias Altmimi; UNESCO Bureau of Mali; Prof. Mortel; Annabel Symington; M.GADJ!; Taguelmoust; HetmanTheResearcher (Mali Empire map, CC BY 4.0); American Colony Photo Dept.; Mariano de Franceschi; NGA. Music (Kevin MacLeod, incompetech.com, licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... "Desert City", "Lost Frontier", "Ibn Al-Noor" Voice: Kokoro-82M TTS (bm_george), Apache-2.0 Fonts: Anton (SIL OFL), DejaVu Sans