King Mansa Musa is famous for his Hajj journey, during which he stopped off in Egypt and gave out so much gold that the Egyptian economy was ruined for years to come. In the 14th year of his reign (1324 A.D.), he set out on his famous pilgrimage to Mecca. The journey across Africa to Mecca took more than a year and it took a powerful king to be able to be absent from his kingdom for so long. It was this pilgrimage that awakened the world to the stupendous wealth of Mali. Traveling from his capital of Niani on the Upper Niger River to Walata (Oualâta, Mauritania) and on to Tuat, which was a trade center in central Africa. At last he made his way to Cairo. Mansa Musa was accompanied by a caravan consisting of 60,000 men including a personal retinue of 12,000 slaves, all of whom were clad in brocade and Persian silk. He also brought with him 80 to 100 camels loaded with 300 pounds of gold each. The emperor rode on horseback and was directly preceded by 500 slaves, each of whom carried a four-pound staff of solid gold.
When he arrived in Egypt, Mansa Musa camped near the Pyramids for three days. He then sent a gift of 50,000 dinars to the Sultan of Egypt before settling in Cairo for three months. The Sultan lent him his palace for the summer and made sure that his entourage was treated well. Mansa Musa gave away thousands of ingots of gold, and Egyptian traders took advantage of this by charging five times the normal price for their goods. The value of gold in Egypt decreased as much as 25 percent. By the time Mansa Musa returned to Cairo from Hajj, however, he had run out of money and had to borrow from local Egyptian merchants.
Musa's lavish clothing and the exemplary behavior of his followers created a favorable impression among the peoples his caravans encountered. The Cairo that Mansa Musa visited was ruled over by one of the most powerful of the Mamluk sultans, Al-Malik an-Nasir. The emperor's noted civility notwithstanding, the meeting between the two rulers might have ended in a serious diplomatic incident, for so absorbed was Mansa Musa in his religious observances that he was only with difficulty persuaded to pay a formal visit to the sultan. Another reason why it was difficult to persuade Mansa Musa to pay a formal visit to the sultan was because he had to face a test of humility because it was required, when greeting the sultan, to kiss the ground. This was an act that Mansa Musa could not bring himself to perform. Ibn Fadl Allah Al-Omari, who spent time with Musa in Egypt, reports that Musa had made many excuses before he could be persuaded to enter the sultan’s court. In the end, he made a compromise by announcing that if he had to prostrate on entering the court, it would be before Allah only, and this he did.
Mansa Musa’s Hajj had a significant impact on the development of Islam in Mali and on the perception of Mali throughout Africa and Europe. He was later accompanied back to Mali by an Andalusian architect, who is said to have designed the mosque at Timbuktu. He also invited back with him four descendents of the Prophet, so that the country of Mali would be “blessed by their footprints.” According to Levtzion, Mansa Musa’s pilgrimage is recorded in many sources, both Muslim and non-Muslim and from both West Africa and Egypt. Mali also appeared on the maps of the Jews and Christians in Europe. In Mali, Musa is known for building mosques and inviting Islamic scholars from around the Muslim world to his empire.
