


While Mansa Musa’s pilgrimage to Mecca is famous for crashing gold prices in Cairo, this episode turns our gaze toward the architectural legacy that remained. We explore the constr…

While we often hear about gold and pilgrimage, the Mali Empire’s true stability came from its judicial system. In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore how the empire administered j…

We often hear that Mali was rich, but rarely do we explore exactly where that wealth came from or how it moved. In this episode, Lucas and Luna shift focus from the famous pilgrima…

After decades of episodes exploring Mali’s gold, its constitution, and Mansa Musa’s legendary pilgrimage, we finally turn our gaze to one of the empire’s most enigmatic rulers: Man…

In 1352, the Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta arrived in Niani, the capital of the Mali Empire, expecting the grandeur he had heard about from earlier pilgrims. Instead, he found a ci…

While Mansa Musa’s gold often steals the spotlight, the true architects of Mali’s legacy were its jeliw — the griot historians who preserved centuries of Mande history through song…
