Mansa Musa's Hajj: Gold Across the Sahara

Musa ruled from a city the Arab writers simply called Mali; al-Umari gives its official name as Niani. Mali was then perhaps the world's largest source of gold, much of it gathered as tribute and trade rather than mined by the king. Musa told officials in Cairo that he had conquered 24 cities. Which ruins were his capital is still argued over: excavations at Niani, a village in today's Guinea, have found a royal quarter, a mosque's mihrab and town walls, but other sites have been proposed too.

Location precision: The capital's site is disputed; the pin marks Niani in Guinea, the best-known candidate.

After months crossing the Sahara by a route nobody recorded, the caravan reached the outskirts of Cairo in July 1324. Musa's people camped for three days beside the Pyramids of Giza before crossing the Nile into the city on 19 July. The sight was remembered for decades: the later accounts describe heralds in silk carrying gold staffs, and a procession that al-Umari called unprecedented in its size and pageantry. The pyramids were already some 3,800 years old when the Malians pitched their tents below them.

Location precision: The sources say the camp was by the pyramids but not exactly where; the pin marks the Giza plateau.

Visitor guidance: The Giza plateau opens daily; the Grand Egyptian Museum is a short ride away.

Musa lodged in the Qarafa, Cairo's great cemetery district, and befriended its governor, who later told historians about Mali. Summoned by the Mamluk sultan al-Nasir Muhammad, he refused to prostrate himself, then bowed and declared he was doing so for God alone. His people spent and gave away gold so freely that, al-Umari wrote, its value fell from 25 silver dirhams a mithqal to under 22 and stayed low for years. Modern historians think the dip was within normal swings. On 18 October he left with the pilgrim caravan.

Location precision: Where in the Qarafa he lodged isn't known; the pin marks the Southern Cemetery around the Mausoleum of Imam al-Shafi'i.

The journey's purpose was the hajj itself. Musa gave gifts to fellow pilgrims and to the people of Medina and Mecca. In the Great Mosque a quarrel between Malian and Turkic pilgrims came to drawn swords before Musa talked his men down. Lingering after the hajj and travelling apart from the main caravan, the Malians had a disastrous journey back to Cairo; Musa ran out of money, sold goods and borrowed from merchants, some of whom were never fully repaid. In Cairo he met the Andalusian poet al-Sahili and persuaded him to come to Mali.

Location precision: The pilgrimage covered Mecca and Medina; the pin marks the Great Mosque of Mecca.

According to the Timbuktu chronicle Tarikh al-Sudan, written three centuries later, the city of Gao on the Niger submitted to Musa as he passed through on his way home. Gao was the seat of the Songhay, later Mali's great rival. The sources disagree: Ibn Khaldun credits Musa's general Saghmanja with taking the city, and another account says it had fallen under an earlier mansa. Either way, under Musa the Niger bend from Timbuktu to Gao lay within the empire.

Location precision: The sources name the city only; the pin marks Gao.

Timbuktu also came under Musa on his return, and he set out to make it a city of Islamic learning. Tradition credits him with the Djinguereber Mosque, dated to 1327, and long claimed that al-Sahili designed it; recent research sees its earthen style as a West African and Saharan tradition rather than an import. The mosque, part of the scholarly community later called the University of Timbuktu, was listed by UNESCO in 1988. Since 2012 it has been on the list of World Heritage in danger.