In 1324, while staying in
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
during his
hajj
The Hajj (; ar, حَجّ '; sometimes also spelled Hadj, Hadji or Haj in English) is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims. Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for Muslims that must be carried ...
,
Mansa Musa
Mansa Musa ( ar, منسا موسى, Mansā Mūsā; ) was the ninth ''mansa'' of the Mali Empire, which reached its territorial peak during his reign. Musa is known for his wealth and generosity. He has been subject to popular claims that he is ...
, the ruler of the
Mali Empire
The Mali Empire ( Manding: ''Mandé''Ki-Zerbo, Joseph: ''UNESCO General History of Africa, Vol. IV, Abridged Edition: Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century'', p. 57. University of California Press, 1997. or Manden; ar, مالي, Māl ...
, told an Egyptian official whom he had befriended that he had come to rule when his predecessor led a fleet in an attempt to cross the
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...
and never returned. This account, recorded by the Arab historian
al-Umari
The al-Omari (also spelt Alomari or el-Umari or omary) ( ar, العمري) is a family that are descent from Umar, the second caliph, or leader, of the Islamic empire.
The Jordanian Omaris produced a number of Sunni religious scholars and Otto ...
, has attracted considerable interest and speculation as a possible instance of
pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact
Pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theories are speculative theories which propose that possible visits to the Americas, possible interactions with the indigenous peoples of the Americas, or both, were made by people from Africa, Asia, Europe, ...
. The voyage is popularly attributed to a Mansa Abu Bakr II, but no such
mansa Mansa may refer to:
Places In India
* Mansa, Gujarat, a town in northern Gujarat, Western India; the capital of:
** Mansa, Gujarat Assembly constituency
** Mansa State, a princely state under the Mahi Kantha Agency in India
* Mansa district, ...
ever reigned. Rather, the voyage is inferred to have been undertaken by
Mansa Muhammad ibn Qu.
A precise date for the suggested voyage is not known, though it is interpreted as having occurred in or shortly before 1312, the year Musa is inferred to have become mansa. No clear evidence of the fate of the voyage has been found.
Musa's account
Mansa Musa stayed in Cairo for three months in 1324 while en route to Mecca for the hajj. While there, he befriended an emir named Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Amir Hajib, who was the governor of the district of Cairo Musa was staying in. Ibn Amir Hajib later recounted to the scholar al-Umari what he had learned of Mali from his conversations with Musa. In one such conversation, Ibn Amir Hajib had asked Musa how he had become king, and Musa responded:
Al-Umari’s record of this conversation is the only account of this voyage, as it is not mentioned by other medieval Arab historians or West African oral tradition. Nonetheless, the possibility of such a voyage has been taken seriously by several historians.
Identity of Musa's predecessor
The identity of the mansa responsible for the voyage has been subject to some confusion. Al-Umari’s record of Musa’s account does not mention mansa’s name, giving no indication of his identity other than that he was Musa’s predecessor. According to the Arab historian Ibn Khaldun, writing several decades later, Musa’s predecessor as mansa was Muhammad ibn Qu. As such, several historians have attributed the voyage to Mansa Muhammad.
Many sources call the mansa in question Abu Bakr II. However, the inclusion of a Mansa Abu Bakr II in the list of Malian rulers is an error that originated in a mistranslation of Ibn Khaldun’s text by the 19th-century European historian
Baron de Slane
William McGuckin (also Mac Guckin and MacGuckin), known as Baron de Slane (Belfast, Ireland, 12 August 1801 - Paris, France, 4 August 1878) was an Irish orientalist. He became a French national on 31 December 1838. and held the post of the Princ ...
. De Slane translated Ibn Khaldun as saying that the kingship passed from Muhammad to Abu Bakr, then to Musa. However, in the original Arabic text, Abu Bakr is only mentioned in his role as the progenitor of Musa's lineage, not as a ruler. The Abu Bakr in question was a brother of Sunjata, the founder of the Mali Empire, and apparently never himself ruled. Another figure named Abu Bakr did rule as mansa, but he was the predecessor of Sakura, not Musa.
Additionally, some historians have suggested without elaboration that the voyage should be attributed to Mansa Qu, who was the father and predecessor of Muhammad ibn Qu according to Ibn Khaldun.
Interpretation
No uncontroversial evidence of pre-Columbian contact between Africa and the Americas has ever been found. Regardless of whether any of the Malian ships ever reached the Americas, they apparently never returned to Africa and there were not any long-term economic consequences of the voyage.
The river on the sea described by the survivor of the first expedition is presumably the
Canary Current
The Canary Current is a wind-driven surface current that is part of the North Atlantic Gyre. This eastern boundary current branches south from the North Atlantic Current and flows southwest about as far as Senegal where it turns west and later jo ...
. The inclusion of this fact in Musa's account indicates that Musa had some awareness of the oceanographic conditions of the open Atlantic. The Canary Current flows from West Africa to the Americas, which would have facilitated travel from Africa to the Americas but prevented it in the opposite direction.
Ivan van Sertima and Malian researcher Gaoussou Diawara proposed that the voyage reached the
New World
The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...
. Van Sertima cites the abstract of Columbus's log made by
Bartolomé de las Casas
Bartolomé de las Casas, OP ( ; ; 11 November 1484 – 18 July 1566) was a 16th-century Spanish landowner, friar, priest, and bishop, famed as a historian and social reformer. He arrived in Hispaniola as a layman then became a Dominican friar ...
, according to which the purpose of Columbus's third voyage was to test both the claims of King
John II of Portugal
John II ( pt, João II; ; 3 March 1455 – 25 October 1495), called the Perfect Prince ( pt, o Príncipe Perfeito, link=no), was King of Portugal from 1481 until his death in 1495, and also for a brief time in 1477. He is known for re-establishi ...
that "canoes had been found which set out from the coast of Guinea
est Africaand sailed to the west with merchandise" as well as the claims of the native inhabitants of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola that "from the south and the southeast had come black people whose spears were made of a metal called
guanín
''Guanín'' is an alloy of copper, gold and silver, similar to red gold, used in pre-Columbian central America. The name ''guanín'' is taken from the language of the Taíno people, who prized it for its reddish color, brilliant shine, and uniqu ...
... from which it was found that of 32 parts: 18 were gold, 6 were silver, and 8 copper."
However, scholars dispute evidence of any such voyage reaching the Americas, and that there are insufficient evidentiary grounds to suppose there has been contact between Africa and the
New World
The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...
at any point in the pre-Columbian era., Haslip-Viera et al. noted in particular that "no genuine African artifact has ever been found in a controlled archaeological excavation in the New World".
Karl Taube
Karl Andreas Taube (born September 14, 1957) is an American Mesoamericanist, Mayanist, iconographer and ethnohistorian, known for his publications and research into the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. he ...
, a professor at
UC Riverside
The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on in a suburban distr ...
specializing in pre-Columbian Meosamerican history writes there "simply is no material evidence of any Pre-Hispanic contact between the Old World and Mesoamerica before the arrival of the Spanish in the sixteenth century".
Legacy
Mansa Musa himself appears to have considered his predecessor's plan to be impractical. The main point he appears to have been trying to make to Ibn Amir Hajib is that his predecessor's failed voyage paved the way to his becoming king. Likewise, it has been speculated that the lack of information in oral tradition about the voyage reflects a view that the mansa's voyage was a shameful abdication of duty.
In modern times, the voyage has become more celebrated. The
Malian historian Gaoussou Diawara has remarked that the mansa should be looked up to by modern politicians as an example of a ruler who valued science and discovery over holding onto power.
Footnotes
References
Bibliography
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See also
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Zheng He
Zheng He (; 1371–1433 or 1435) was a Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat, fleet admiral, and court eunuch during China's early Ming dynasty. He was originally born as Ma He in a Muslim family and later adopted the surname Zheng conferred ...
(admiral of the 14th-century Chinese long-distance fleet)
External links
Malian praise singer Sadio Diabate, singing about Abubakar II- BBC World Service Audio
{{Authority control
1312
Mali Empire
Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact
Hyperdiffusionism
Transatlantic relations
14th century in Africa