Mansa Musa. Pilgrim of the desert, King of Timbuktu

Book excerpt: The Emperor of Mali, along with ten thousand of his subjects and camels, travels through the Saharan Desert while making his pilgrimage to Mecca, Hajj, spending money without any limit and turning the city of Timbuktu into the cultural and religious capital of Western Africa. A perfectly well documented novel about the mesmerizing life of Mansa Musa, Emperor of Mali in the fourteenth century, 1312-1337, and his reign, whose Empire, located in Western Africa, extended through the territory that is occupied today by Southern Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Southern Algeria, Northern Nigeria and Chad. This is the story of the man who managed to rule over the totality of the production and trade of gold, salt and slaves from the jungle of Western Africa to the Mediterranean.