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Crash Course: Mansa Musa

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hi my name is John Green this is crash course world history and today we're going to talk about African talking about Africa Egypt in Africa horse from the big much bigger than it appears on most Maps actually mean you can fit in China and the United States Holden Maine out of that fits an African issues Place Africa is incredibly diverse and it's mistake to focus just on Egypt so today let's go here south of the Sahara Desert first let's turn to written alright we don't have very many least not written by sub-Saharan Africans much of African history was preserved by Oral rather than written for description but then again we do live in a print based culture and we've already said that writing is one of the markers of civilization implying that people who don't use writing aren't civilized the Prejudice that has been applied over over again to Africa how it's for centuries before anyone ever wrote them down and Plato said that writing destroys human memory by alleviating the need to remember anything and you think oral tradition is who do I hear you are listening to me talk we do have a lot of interesting records for some African histories including the legendary tale of months of moose by legendary I mean some of it is it true but it sure is important let's go to the thought bubble the West African Empire of Mali and in 1324 he left his home and made the is the pilgrimage to Mecca we should have been donkey so I could say he had 100 assholes of gold but no camels right play Andrea at the time one of the most cultured cities in the world he spent so much gold that he caused runaway inflation throughout the city that took years to recover from Evil houses in KY who ended Mecca two houses attendance and as he traveled through the world a lot of people notably the merchants of Venice no thought of the like actual merchants of Venice right saw him in Alexandria and return to Italy with Tales of moms and moose's ridiculous wealth which helped create them it's in the minds of Europeans that West Africa was a land of gold Rado the kind of place you'd like to visit and maybe you know in five centuries or so begin to pillage thanks all bubble so what's so important about this first it tells us that they were African kingdoms ruled by fabulously wealthy African king which undermines one of the many stereotypes about Africa that it's people were poor and lived in tribes rule play Chiefs and witch doctors how much more connected to the parts of the world we've been talking about then we generally are led to believe lots of moose are new all about the places he was going before he got there and after his visits the rest of the Mediterranean world was sure interested in finding out more about his homeland what did his kingdom look like and how did he come to convert Islam the first questions a little easier so we'll start with that the Empire of Mali which months and Musa ruled until the extremely Elite year of 1337 with a large swath of West Africa running from the coast hundreds of miles into the interior and including many significant cities the largest and best-known of which was Timbuktu the story of the as long as Asian of the Empire however is a good more complicated offering salt and exchange from West Africa until you consider that without salt we die whereas without gold we only have to face the universe's depraved indifference to us without the benefits of metallic adornments I went to an ominous Place pretty quickly play to anyway the berbers were early converts to Islam and Islam spread along those pre-existing trade routes between north and West Africa the first conference and Molly were traitors who benefited from having a religious as well as a commercial connection to their trading partners in the North and the rest of the Mediterranean the Kings followed the traitors maybe because sharing the religion of more established Kingdoms in the North and the Eastwood dim Prestige not to mention access to Scholars and administrators who could help them cement their power so as long again the religion of the Elites in West Africa which method Muslim kings were trying to spin their power over largely non-muslim populations which worships traditional African gods and Spirits in order not to seem to for in these African Muslim Kingswood often blend no religion we've Islam like for instance giving women more equality than was seen in his lungs birthplace anyway the first things we have a record of adopting Islam were from Ghana which was probably the first Empire in Africa really took off around the 11th century as with all Empires and also everything else going to Rose and then fell and was replaced by Molly and the kings of Mali especially who's a but also months is Suleiman his successor tried to increase the knowledge and practice of Islam in their territory returned from his Hashi brought back Scholars and Architects to build Moss did Empire end by muy in women riding they are extremely beautiful and more important than the men know it must be time for the open letter an open letter to Evan battuta I wanted a fake beard did you do this to me dear even bro I love Twitter and my Xbox and Hawaiian pizza but if I had to go into the past and live anyone's life it would be yours who managed to the greatest road trip in history need to Russia to Indonesia you would probably the most well-traveled person before the invention of the steam engine everywhere you went you were treated like a king and then you went home and you wrote a really famous who called the real that people still read today and also you can grow a real beard and I'm jealous that's one more thing attempting to engage in Maritime trade across the Atlantic Ocean and some historians even believe the mulian reached the Americas CNA investigation May one day prove it but until then do you have oral tradition Empire eventually felt this song Empires that relied upon religion and War and Incredibly boring dynastic politics man I hate politics independent what we move to Canada oh come on what's on the rise of what historians call Swahili civilization which was not an Empire or a kingdom but a collection of city-states like Zanzibar report those Central Authority each of these cities was autonomously ruled usually although not always by a king but there were three things that link the city-states that we consider them a common culture language trade and religious which is part of the language group called The Band 2 and its original speakers were from West Africa their migration to East Africa change not only that which the traditions of Africa everything else because they brought with them iron work and agriculture until then most the people living in the East have been hunter gatherers or herders but once introduced agriculture to a cold as it almost always close unless wait for it you're the Mongols  modern-day Swahili by the way is still a band 2 based language although it's been heavily influenced by on that topic for a long time stories believe that these East African cities were all started by Arab or Persian Traders which was basically just racist they didn't believe that Africans were sophisticated needed enough to found these great cities now Scholars recognize that all the major Swahili cities were founded well before Islam arrived in the region and that in fact trade-in been going on since the first ten Ace let's begin its rapid development until the 8th century when Arab traders arrive seeking Goods that they could trade on the vast Indian Ocean Network the seal go to see out of course those Merchants brought us along with them which just like in West Africa was adopted by the elites who wanted religious as well as commercial connections to the rest of the Mediterranean world in the the Swahili fifties Muslim Community started out quite small but at their height between the 13th and 16th century most of the city's boasted large mosques the one in kilwa even impressed even battuta of course visited the city because he was having the best life ever most of the goods exported we raw materials like Ivory an animal hides and Timber it's worth noting by the way that when you're moving trees around you have a sophistication to your tray that goes Way Beyond The Silk Road I mean if you'll recall they were just trading like tortoise shells and stuff not again will not in huge numbers and they exported gold and they imported luxury goods like porcelain and books stacked archaeological digs in kilwa have revealed that houses often featured built-in bookshelf where do architecture nicely captures the magic of studying history archaeology writing and oral tradition all intermingled what to give us glimpses of the pass through some fun house mirror but if we can at least recognize you look at lots of sources and lots of kinds of sources if we want to get a fuller picture of the past if we were lied only on written sources it would be far too easy to fall into the old trap of seeing a cut is backwards and uncivilized sometimes not that way he becomes not separate from but part of our history thanks for watching I'll see you next week Choice written by my high school history teacher role Meyer and myself and our Graphics being thought bubble last week's praise the week was animal crackers if you want to suggest a future phrases of the week or guess at this one you can do who in comments also with your questions about today's video ask them and our team of historians will endeavor to answer thanks for watching and supporting crash course in this we say in my hometown don't forget to be awesome

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