Mali Empire Essay

The Mali Empire

The great Mali empire reigned from 1200 to 1610 under the rule of many great kings, including Mansa Musa who is believed to have been the wealthiest person in history. It was founded by Sundiata, also known as “The Lion Prince”, after the fall of Ghana. The Mali empire is the best empire because it amassed a great wealth, and practiced tolerance of religion and gender.

The wealth of Mali was built on the gold and the salt trade, and thrived during 1200 and 1400 AD. The Mali Empire had fertile land, which gave them control over the gold fields and they sold the gold for extra profit and to supply military forces. King Mansa Musa made generous donations to the poor and as well as the rulers he came across. Empires like the Qing dynasty starved their people and had a drug problem. Mali had a strong unified empire with an emperor that cared for his people and shared his wealth and knowledge of the people.

With words to tolerance, Mali exercised it in all aspects of their empire.

This includes, but is not limited to, women had more rights than other Muslim countries, and people were allowed to practice their own religion. This is shown by how animism and Islam blended their stories of genies and black magic together. In other empires, like the Incas, people were not allowed to practice their own religion. This display of ignorance by the Incas shows that the Mali empire is better because it not only let people practice their own religion, but let it blend with Islam. The Incas also forced certain ten-year-old girls to marry and “could not refuse service’. This shows how the Mali empire is better because the Mali empire allowed women to marry who they w

anted.
Yet some would say the Mali empire was terrible. That it caused inflation and that it collapsed on itself. However, this is such a skewed view of the Mali empire. One can say the inflation was a bad thing because it made Cairo’s economy worthless. Prior to Mansa Musa’s pilgrimage, many of the empires he visited were facing bankruptcy. He tried to help them, and accidentally inflated the other empires. When he realized he inflated these empires, he tried to correct this by taking out loans from other empires and paying back with high interest. He was able to balance back other economies within ten years. To the note of Mali collapsing on itself, it had a string of bad leaders, which caused unrest amongst the states. A few times Mali was able to pull itself out, yet it just kept getting weaker. Mali at least tried to pull itself from the muck, yet it just kept on getting sucked in until the Songhay eventually took advantage of its weakened state.
The Mali empire was a great empire for it was a center for tolerance of all people and it was able to amass and maintain a great wealth. Mali was able to have such social equalism, almost that of the US. For this reason, despite its few faults, Mali deserves the title of the best empire.