hello, and welcome to how to take over the world. This is Ben Wilson.  If you Google, who is the richest man of all time, Mansa, Musa, his name is likely to pop up.  He's remarkable for many reasons, but I think most interesting reason is that he's the only person that I know of, at least through history who had what I would describe as limitless amounts of money.

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to just be able to conjure money out of thin air, , Mansa Musa has kind of the guy that can answer the question for you. Um, you think about the other extremely rich people of all time. You think about someone like Jeff Bezos today $170 billion is what he's worth.

Last time I checked and, um, you know, it would be extremely difficult for Jeff Bezos to spend all his money, even if he tried.  But you can't say it's limitless because that's not using very much imagination. I mean, think if, if he tried to exert anything like the kind of political or military control that, that men of his wealth did in the past,

you know, Jeff Bezos would probably have a tough time spending down all his money if he were trying to buy cars and planes and houses. Um, but if you were trying to buy kingdoms and in land and the things that Julius Caesar or Charlemagne was buying with his money, he would find himself out of money pretty quick.

But not Mansa Musa. Uh, this is a guy who really just had so much money that , the only things he didn't have were things that he could not buy

So he's just sort of on a different level when it comes to that wealth. Um, that that's why people make the case for him as the richest man of all time.  So who was this guy and how did he become so rich? Uh, let's find out, but first a word from our sponsors.

the empire of Mali was founded in the year, 1235 in Western Africa by a man named Sundiata Kaita. The records are a little bit shaky about the early days of the empire. It wasn't until the 13 hundreds that the world at large started to understand the region. And we started to get reliable documentation histories, but we do know that Sundiata Kaita was a warrior Prince who led the battle to freed the Mali people from the rule of the ancient Ghanaian empire.

And as he did, so he expanded the power and territory of the Mali empire and crucially managed the secure access to the transparent trade routes. And those trade routes were everything. They were what connected Subsaharan Africa to the rest of the world. By the time Mansa Musa took over the empire covered about 500,000 square miles of West Africa extending all the way to the coast.

They were able to tax trade going in and out of the region and become very wealthy as a result,

the three big commodities of that day were gold, which was used as currency, obviously copper, which was used in bronze and in jewelry and had many different functions and salt, which was used for preserving and enhancing the taste of food.

Luckily for the Mali empire, they had all three of these things in great abundance. The empire was the home of. In particular three massive gold mines, , and big salt mines too. Um, the Mali empire had access to a mine called Tagawa, and this was this crazy place. Nobody lived in the area except for the people who worked the mines.

And there was like nothing in the area. So they ate imported dates and  dried camel meat. And the buildings were literally constructed out of big slabs of salt that they were mining. Cause that's, that's all there was in the area.  the salt would be dug up and cut into these really thick slabs and then strapped to a camel and. And sold for a huge markup. So between the salt mines and the gold mines, thrillers of the Mali empire had a license to print money and every incentive to continue doing. So,  in fact, the world of the Mediterranean was short on gold at the time.

So there was constant demand for it. And obviously these guys were happy to provide it.

Moose, his predecessor as the King of Molly was a man by the name of AGU Barker. And despite his vast wealth Abu Barker was not particularly interested in the affairs of the empire or even in the world of West Africa, listen to Mansa Musa as quoted by Arab historian. Almari describe AGU backer and what he did.

Mansa Musa said, quote, the ruler who proceeded me did not believe that it was impossible to reach the extremity of the ocean, that in circles, the earth, meaning the Atlantic ocean and wanted to reach that end and obstinately persisted in the design.

So he equipped 200 boats full of men, many others, full of gold water and victuals sufficient enough for several years and ordered the chief Admiral not to return until they had reached the extremity of the ocean, or if they had exhausted the provisions and the water, they set out their absence extended over a long period.

And at last only one boat returned  on our questioning. The captain said, Prince, we have navigated for a long time, until we saw in the midst of the ocean as if a big river was flowing violent  Prince, we have navigated for a long time, until we saw in the midst of the ocean as if a big river was flowing violently.

My boat was the last one. Others were ahead of me. As soon as any of them reached this place. It drowned in the Whirlpool and never came out.

I sailed backwards to escape this current,  but the Sultan would not believe him. He ordered 2000 boats to be equipped for him and his men and 1000 more for water and victuals. Then he conferred on me, the Regency during his absence and departed with his men on the ocean trip, never returned, never to return nor to give a sign of life.

so basically the predecessor to Mansa Musa hops on this boat and says, all right, you hold things down while I'm gone and disappears over the horizon. Never to be seen again.  I love conspiracy theories and there's some good ones that he actually did reach the Americas. And to be fair, uh, there actually are reports that natives of some Caribbean islands had legends of black men from the South who arrived with massive amounts of copper and gold.

And I find that somewhat compelling. , but the academic consensus is that they did not in fact ever arrive at the Americas. , for the simple reason that there has never been any concrete evidence found of any African artifacts in the new world before the Colombian exchange.

So regardless of whether he actually reached the new world or not, it is certain that he never returned to West Africa. And when everyone back in Mali, hadn't heard from Abu Bachar in a year, Mussa became the official Monsa or King of the Mali empire. So when we say Mansa Musa, that literally just means King Mussa  and Musa was not unprepared to become King.

He had been biding his time waiting for it. And when that moment finally arrived, he was ready to act.  So you mentioned Moosa doot with his vast new empire, with an army numbering around a hundred thousand men, including an armored cavalry Corps of 10,000 horses. And using his talent at general, Sarah and Mundean Mansa Musa was able to extend and maintain Molly's vast empire.

He wrestled control of the cities of Timbuktu and gal, which were rich and salt and gold. And this gave him control over even more important trade routes between the Mediterranean and West African coast. By the end of his reign moves ahead doubled the Empire's territory, making it second in size only to that of the Mongol empire at the time.

Never again with the Mali empire, be as vast as it was during the months. And Rousseau's rain

Musa was about much more than just expanding his territory though. He had to manage an extremely diverse empire with people of all different backgrounds, cultures, and religious beliefs. As a devout Muslim, he was initially inclined to impose Islam as the official religion, but listen to his people and actually implemented a quite progressive religious tolerance as compared to other empires at the time.

But imagine your mentum Musab, you're a Muslim with an awareness of the Islamic world, but great difficulty in accessing it.  You've basically expanded your empire to the greatest extent that is possible to reach given the technology at the time. , cause once you get to a certain distance, you hit the Sahara desert.

And I think sometimes people don't understand what a great barrier that's a hard desert is. First of all, everyone knows, obviously it's extremely hot and dry. Temperatures can get up into the a hundred and twenties degrees Fahrenheit. And most of it receives less than an inch of rain per year away. Seas are very rare and it's extremely inhospitable to life.

If you got dropped off in the Sahara desert, you would likely survive a couple days at most.  But what I think sometimes people don't grasp about the Sahara desert is just how big it is. It's huge. It contains three and a half million square miles of desert. It's the largest hot desert in the world. And, um,  I know that's a little difficult to conceptualize three and a half million square miles, but think of it like this, the city of Tunis is on the North African coast.

So it's on the continent of Africa and right the coast of the Mediterranean sea. But to give you an idea of how big the Sahara desert is, Tunis is closer to Stockholm, Sweden  than it is to the Ghanaian coast.  So Cairo, the city in Egypt, uh, was at the time, the center of the Islamic world and Cairo.

Again, technically on the continent of Africa is closer to Copenhagen, London, Moscow, uh, even to India than it is to Timbuktu. Uh, or in other words to Mali where Mansa Musa was.  There's just no barrier in the world. Quite like it it's this enormous desert. And it kept Subsaharan Africa basically completely isolated from the Mediterranean world and beyond for tens of thousands of years, by the time Mansa Musa came around,

there were trade routes going over the Sahara. But it was a months long journey through the desert. So obviously only non perishable goods could be transported and it really limited contact still between the two areas.  So if you're a wealthy, ambitious, young ruler, how do you continue to grow your empire and your influence beyond this fast desert?

Well, what Mansa Musa decided to do would make him famous for generations. He decided to take the Hodge. The Hodge is a trip to the Holy city of Mecca that every Muslim is expected to make, at least once in their lifetime and Mansa Musa decides to make this Hodge in spectacular fashion.  And this is one of those moments where just reading about it.

I kind of get lost in the movie, in my head of what's going on.  Imagine you're living in the 13 hundreds in Cairo, Egypt. It's a vibrant city.  It's kind of, you know, at the center of the world, when you think about all these European and middle Eastern and Asian empires, they sort of all come together in Cairo.

So it's very worldly, very international. Uh, it's the cultural capital of the Islamic world with stunning, artistic and architectural achievements, uh, incredible buildings, you know, all the greatest poets, all the greatest

scholars, all, you know, everything is going on in Cairo. Living in Cairo back then is a, is a little bit like living in New York city today. Only more so right.  And then one day a rumor of a city moving through the desert spreads throughout the Cairo.  people talk of this, you know, golden moving city  after much anticipation after weeks of hearing about it, it finally arrives. And what you see is even better than what you had been hearing. It's 60,000 people in total, all the newcomers are clad inexpensive silks and golden brewery from the Royal officials to the soldiers, to the entertainers and the merchants, even the slaves are wearing this incredible gold garb and men on horses are waiving gold banners.

even the 500 slaves have these six pound staffs of gold. Um, this thing is so overlaid with gold. They they're putting it on everything. They don't even know what to do with it. Each camel, there are a hundred camels that are Laden with 300 pounds of pure gold. So literally gold is just flowing from this caravan and they're walking through the city and they're just throwing it there.

They're handing out left and right making charitable donations, giving as gifts. and at the helm of this whole extravagant procession. Is a man riding on a stallion dawning, a crown made a pure gold. If you've seen the Disney movie Aladdin, it's a lot like when Aladdin wishes to be Prince Ali.

And as they marched through the street, Mansa Musa and his Royal associates are looking Regal and dignified as they give out all this gold. And, uh, it makes obviously a huge splash and creates this aura of mystique around this foreign King Mansa, Musa.  And I say mystique, and that's because you know, this empire of Mali was not well known to the rest of the world. Like I said, even some places close as Cairo already on the continent of Africa was completely separated from Mali. Um, there's very little cultural contact between the two. And so it's really this mysterious man.

Um, this Hodge was the event that literally put Molly on the map. Years later, a world map called the Catalan Atlas, which was commissioned by King Charles the fifth in 1375 included the first detailed map of West Africa. And in it lies a drawing of Mansa Musa. He's sitting on a throne, he's got a gold ball in one hand and a golden staff in the other.

And if you Google Mansa, Musa, it's likely the first image you'll see. But before this, you know, West Africa was, was not really on the maps, certainly not in any detail. And after this, it was because he made such a Sur  and it wasn't necessarily all a positive stir. The entourage ended up giving out so much gold and spending so much in the markets that the value of golden Cairo crashed by 20%.

And it wasn't just Cairo. They accidentally devastated economies all along their path. Some estimate that this led to approximately a billion and a half dollars in economic losses throughout the middle East. and it took a decade to fully recover from this massive depreciation and the price of gold  Moosa made such an impact on the Egyptians that 12 years later, when Syrian historian and writer Umar, he visited Cairo.

He noted that people were still raving about him and his extravagant visit.

And so you see why people call him the richest person of all time. You know, he's spending so much money, but it's devastating economies and it's still not putting a dent in what he has.  Rudolph Butch where a West African history professor at UC Santa Barbara put it this way. He said, quote, contemporary accounts of moose as well are so breathless that it's almost impossible to get a sense.

Of just how wealthy and powerful he truly was.

where said, imagine as much gold as you think a human being could possess and double it. That's what all the accounts are trying to communicate,  but Moosa didn't just inspire others by his vast displays of wealth. He was in turn inspired by what he saw in his journey. He was impressed by the universities and the architecture and the schools, the libraries that he saw in Cairo and devoted much of his reign to making his empire a robust center of scholarship.

He picked up several poets, scholars, artists, and architects from all around the middle East.

And brought them back to the Empire's prize, Juul, the city of Timbuktu,  obviously his, uh, his vast wealth gave them plenty of motivation to relocate.

And have you heard of the city of Timbuktu? It's usually as referring to a place that is extremely remote and far away, you know, Where does Susie live? Oh, she lives out in Timbuktu.  That sort of thing.  In reality, Timbuktu became a legendary city because of Mansa Musa. In fact, as late as the 18th century, European explorers were still venturing through the inhospitable Sahara to find this golden city in the desert.

You know, it was kind of, the Eldorado, uh, for a time that people thought it was this golden city, that if they discovered it, have these vast treasures.

Musa said about turning Timbuktu into a great urban center of learning religion, commerce, like he had seen in Cairo, he commissioned incredible mosques schools and libraries to be built. One of those magnificent mosques still stands to this day, over 600 years later. And he sent scholars out to cities all over the world to learn new things and bring them back for the people of Timbuktu to study.

Timbuktu soon became an educational hub with people traveling from around the world to study at what would become known as the sand core university. He encouraged literacy and scientific advancement. And one of the libraries housed hundreds of thousands of books and manuscripts.

Mansa Musa really did manage to turn Timbuktu into a world class city. Unfortunately much of that history has been destroyed in recent years due to tribal conflicts and terrorist occupation in the area. But at the time it was a great center of religion, education, art, culture, and commerce.

So what do we make of this, of the history of Mansa Musa?

Which was his ultimate ambition and Mansa Musa spent the rest of the duration of his reign in his life, strengthening the kingdom and continuing to build up Timbuktu as this great city, this kind of Pearl, this prized Juul of his empire. Yeah.  So what do we make of the story of Mansa Musa? What can we learn from it?

It's easy to be cynical and say, you know, the lesson to be drawn from the life of Mansa Musa. Is be born on top of the world's largest gold mines  and, uh, sure. Whatever.  I guess there's some truth to that, but at the same time, think about this, his predecessors and his successors both had access to the same salt and gold mines.

And yet no one has really ever heard of them.  It's true. His wealth was mostly a function of his position of birth. Combined with some level obviously of strong leadership and enterprising spirit, But if his wealth can largely be explained as a matter of inheritance, what he did to Timbuktu can not be explained that way.

He could have sailed off into the distance, like Abu Bachar or he could have virtually done nothing with his wealth, as many of his successors did, but instead he had a vision for this amazing city in the desert.

And so I think that's one crucial lesson from the life of Mansa, Musa, his vision.  Uh, the other important thing to point out was how he realized his vision, how he did it. Mansa Musa was able to realize his vision by turning gold, into actual influence and the way he did that was through spectacle. If he had just tried to hire, you know, the, the Islamic world's great poets from Cairo and Baghdad and Damascus, , to come to Timbuktu, they probably would have stopped and said, you know where,  the middle of the desert, you know, someplace beyond the Sahara, we've never heard of yet.

Right. But after the spectacle that he created on the Hodge,  when everyone saw this unbelievably wealthy caravan, these sorts of people were intrigued and were much more willing to come to Timbuktu and see what was going on.  I had the chance to chat with a bestselling author the other week. And I mean, like really best-selling he put out one of the top selling books in the world last year as a first time author.

And I was asking him to what he attributed his success. And he said, you know, I, I think I wrote a great book obviously, but. One of the biggest things in making it this mega bestseller was the rollout. We had this huge rollout plan. , and I was everywhere in the media, did took every interview, , and just really emphasized creating a huge stir with this big rollout of the book.

And it worked, it became a New York times bestseller. Again, it was one of the bestselling books in the world last year.

And that's a little bit what Mansa Musa did too. Right? He could have tried to make regular trips to Egypt or Mecca to make himself a known presence in the Islamic world and become familiarized with those circles and have them familiarize with him. But what he did was actually much more effective to make one big trip that was completely unforgettable.

So that's one thing you can contemplate after this episode, we all need good habits, of course, that we need to do every day. We all need to have big goals that we slowly work towards over time. Those are both great, of course, very important. But in addition, you should think about what your Hodge will be.

How can you be like Mansa, Musa? What can you do that will demand attention and make yourself completely unforgettable.  That does it for this episode of how to take over the world. Thank you for listening.

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