MANSA MUSA OF MALI, RICHEST KING OF THE PLANET -- SRI PADMANABHASWAMY TEMPLE -- IBN BATTUTA'S TRAVEL ACCOUNTS IN MECCA, MALI , -- BARTER OF GOLD FOR VEDIC BOOKS OF KNOWLEDGE
Those collections — stashed in libraries, locked away in closets or buried in the desert sands — have been preserved, in large part, by Timbuktu's isolation from the rest of the world. Landing in this blisteringly hot Malian town in the southwestern corner of the Sahara feels a little like arriving at the end of the earth. Dirt tracks melt into the featureless desert sands. Chickens peck in the shade between mud-walled houses. Little wonder that Timbuktu is a byword for remoteness.
Mansa Musa was born in 1280 and ruled the Mali Empire which, at the time, produced more than 70% of the world's supply of gold thus contributing to his substantial wealth.
Mansa Musa's reign (1312-1337 CE) was "the golden age of the empire of Mali”. Today Mali has been exploited and is one of the poorest countries in the world. Mali has good reserves of Uranium, oil and gas.
Mansa Musa is remembered for his extravagant Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca), which he performed in 1324.
The journey across Africa to Mecca took over a year and he is said to have travelled with a large retinue of camels, slaves, subjects, saddled horses, coloured flags, gold - as well as his senior wife Inari Kunate, who, apparently took with her five hundred maids-in-waiting.
Mansa Musa set out from Mali for Mecca with an entourage of 60,000 people as per Ibn Batuta who visited Mecca 9 years later.
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Since his empire was one of the richest in the world, the caravan of travelers must have made quite an impression to everyone they passed. 12,000 servants accompanied him, each wearing valuable silks and carrying a 4 pound bar of gold.
More than 100 camels of this caravan carried more than 300 pounds of gold nuggets , each. The propaganda is that he gave all the gold away away free, enroute.
No Sir! not at all !!!.
He has lot of scholars with him and he bought up every book of knowledge on the way for nearly one year. He also hired doctors , architects , teachers , thinkers, translators and scholars and took them back to Mali with him. He would set up great universities.
This wise king knew that knowledge is more precious than gold, which very few understood those days.
Most of this knowledge in those days were transcripts of Vedic Indian books in Astronomy, Medicine, Maths, Science etc translated to Arabic from Malayalam and Sanskrit books of Kerala--my home state.
This is as per Ibn Batuta’s accounts .
Musa’s Mecca trip and his barter of gold for books and scholars would soon establish Mali as one of the intellectual capitals of the world. Mali developed one of the richest educational traditions of the world at that time. Libraries were all over cities such as Gao and Timbuktu. Public and private collections had thousands of books.
Most of these books are still lying in deep foxholes in the desert sands at the people of Mali do NOT trust any central library .
This tradition of knowledge lasts until today in Mali. Families still hold on to private library collections that number in the hundreds of books, many of them hundreds of years old.
The people of Mali are fiercely protective of their knowledge that has been passed down from the time of Mansa Musa, making it very difficult for outsiders to access these great libraries.
Mind you, never be under the illusion that this knowledge is generated from brains of Mali citizens -- this is IMPORTED Indian ( translated ) knowledge, paid for with gold nuggets --money well spent.
Those days you could dig 3 feet under the ground with a stick and get gold nuggets.
Mansa Musa was the richest man ever to have lived! The 14th Century king of Mali is ranked at number one in a new inflation-adjusted list of the world's 25 wealthiest people of all time (three of which are still alive including Bill Gates and Warren Buffet). This king is said to have had a personal net worth of $400 billion at the time of his death in 1337 !
Timbuktu is not mentioned by the early Arab geographers such as al-Bakri and al-Idrisi. The first mention of Timbuktu is by the Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta who visited Timbuktu in 1353.
Mansa Mussa's pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 had made Mali known worldwide and attracted the attention of the Kings of Portugal and Spain. The fact that so much of gold was bartered and taken away.
It is no wonder that soon by 1498, Vasco Da Gama would land at Calicut. Some of the Kerala manuscripts translated to Arabic are now found in Mauritania.
Today, nothing remains of the palace built by Mansa Musa, but the mosque still stands as a reminder of the past. After the Europeans actually reached Timbuktu, it was reduced to little more than a "mass of ill-looking houses made of earth."
They had no interest other than looting whatever wealth was available. The local population hid the books in fox holes in the desert and most of them are still there in these holes.
It was a bit distressing to hear that the rebels burn the library of Mali containing ancient books of knowledge accumulated by Mansa Musa , the richest king of this planet ever.
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peace
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