Talk:Mali Empire

Gold refining in medieval Mali

They used cupellation, which present-day chemists still use for fire assay. Here's a write-up of how archaeologists reconstructed their metallurgical technique: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/medieval-african-gold

I'll digest it & add something to the article in due time. --Pete Tillman (talk) 16:17, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

From cupellation: "Small-scale cupellation may be considered the most important fire assay developed in history, and perhaps the origin of chemical analysis". Whoa! --Pete Tillman (talk) 16:20, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Identity of the capital

As far as I can tell, the location and name of the capital of the Mali Empire is not agreed upon. Some recent sources appear to be of the opinion that Niani definitively was not the capital of Mali, except possibly briefly long after its glory days. In my opinion it would be prudent to have a section of this article that discusses the debate over the identity of the capital(s) of the Mali Empire. Ornithopsis (talk) 20:44, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Hey, I've found the same thing, and some similar problems with citing Kangaba as the original home of the Keita dynasty. I've been looking at these articles: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3172058 and https://www.jstor.org/stable/182640 . I think having a section talking about the capital would be a good idea. But I really don't know what to do with all the various references to Niani and Kangaba scattered around this page and others like it. Open to suggestions and ideas. Catjacket (talk) 14:38, 2 February 2021

Where appropriate, I think it would be a good idea to replace "Niani" with "the capital" if the context in the source justifies it. I think that adding a section that clarifies the situation with the capital is a good idea even if we can't clear out every stray reference to Niani, though—best not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I'm reluctant to write the section myself because history is not my main area of knowledge and I am not familiar with the original evidence that led to the hypothesis that Niani was the capital, but I can give it a shot if need be. On a tangentially related note, I think the article needs some cleanup so that the history of the empire is all under a single top-level section like other articles, rather than a separate top-level section for nearly every paragraph. Ornithopsis (talk) 04:57, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Good idea. I'm happy to write the section - I read those papers I referred to above, and will do some more research to round it out. I can do the cleanup of the layout too, but go for it if you'd rather. Catjacket (talk) 09:01, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

I'll clean up the layout the best I can; feel free to modify it if you disagree with my decisions. I think the section on the location of the capital should go in the "Geography" section, once I add that heading. A couple of other papers relevant to the capital issue I've encountered: [1] [2]. Ornithopsis (talk) 23:26, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm having trouble accessing online versions of those two articles you shared. Do you have access through an institution? Catjacket (talk) 22:12, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't have institutional access but I managed to acquire copies with some help. Haour 2005 only mentions the issue of the capital of Mali tangentially—it doesn't offer a lot of information on the question not also in Conrad 1994. Fauvelle 2018 offered more information, but I just found another article by Fauvelle that looks like it contains the most important parts mentioned in Fauvelle 2018 and then some: [3]. I haven't read it yet but based on the title and abstract this looks extremely useful to us. Ornithopsis (talk) 18:16, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Pleasure working with you, my friend. Catjacket (talk) 19:50, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, that looks great! Ornithopsis (talk) 04:53, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Demography?

I know this "empire" didn't keep record of its demography, but it would be great to have some sourced estimate. All this page tells us right now is that this "empire" comprised a capital city + 400 villages... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.119.104.223 (talk) 08:30, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I would rather compare West Africa to Southeast Asia, both areas where the population remained low until the 20th century due to a hostile enviroment. According to Thai historians Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit, Southeast Asia's density was a fifth of that of India and China's until the modern period. Ayutthaya had a population of 1-2.5 million in it's heyday in the 1700s. Taungoo and Konbaung Burma had a similar population number. Vietnam and the Philippines, two countries with similar growth rates to African countries (Egypt, Nigeria, Ethiopia) each had a population of around 10 million in 1900. Ilffie, whose book "Africans: The History of a Continent" is an r/askhistorians recommended book, argues that most historians don't know the exact population of pre-modern West Africa. I would probably agree with removing Mali from here.

Usually, when empires don't do the numbers, or if their records don't survive, historians use accounts of foreign travelers to guess this (which occurred with Ayutthaya), as well as simulating population numbers. Yourlocallordandsavior (talk) 06:45, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

It was an Empire. Not an "Empire". Cheikh Khadim Rassoul D. (talk) 14:27, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

-applause emoji- Catjacket (talk) 23:59, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Constitutional monarchy

I don't know Mali's history but "constitutional monarchy" seems VERY unlikely to me Braganza (talk) 17:11, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Reorganization and suggestion of new sections

I reorganized the page to better match the format used in Featured Articles on medieval states. I have neither the time nor expertise to do a great job on any of these on my own, but I think there are several sections that could be added, and I've noted locations I think sections should be added with comments in the article. The Culture section needs expansion in particular—at minimum there should be subsections on religion and jeliw, I think. I think there could also be a section on the legacy of the Mali Empire at the end, as exists for several other articles on notable civilizations (e.g. Byzantine Empire). Ornithopsis (talk) 02:03, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

I just did some reorganization, particularly in the early history part, but also in economy and government to try and streamline the categories and whatnot, make the table of contents more sensible, and generally clean up repetitive or clumsy phrasing. I moved a lot of the early history to the dedicated Pre-Imperial Mali page, since if we have it may as well use it and avoid cluttering the main page with detail that can remain accessible elsewhere. Open to feedback and happy to make adjustments as necessary. Catjacket (talk) 23:57, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Manuscript section please

I think that a section about the manuscripts should be added in the main article and the stuff about them should be moved there. 68.37.205.126 (talk) 12:45, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Do you mean that you think that there should be a section of the article that talks about the sources for the history of the Mali Empire such as al-Umari, Ibn Khaldun, Ibn Battuta, and the Tarikhs? Ornithopsis (talk) 19:18, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Manden Kurufaba

I have removed the references to the empire being called Manden Kurufaba, as I suspect we may be dealing with a case of wikiality. This topic was previously brought up on the talk page all the way back in 2013, but satisfactory evidence was not given to support the term. The page was edited to call it Manden Kurufa in 2007 [4] and Manden Kurufaba in 2012 [5]. The cited source for the term (Piga 2003) does not actually use it, though it does contain the word "kurufaba" as a translation of "confederation":

Ainsi l'empire ou la confédération (kurufaba) peut-il apparaître comme une forme agrandie du village ou du canton (kafo lè) et réciproquement le village ou le canton comme un petit État.

Il importe de constater en revanche que citte idée se retrouve dans l'oeuvure historique de Souleymane Kanté consacreée aux empires de Sosso et du Mali sous la forme de l'opposition déjà évoquée entre la confédération (kurufaba) et le canton (kafo lé).

I can't read French, so I'm not even sure if these statements are specifically about the Mali Empire or are more generally referring to the concept of confederations, but it's clear that at most they indicate that the Mali Empire was called a kurufaba. This is not enough to indicate its official name was Manden Kurufaba. For an analogy, the United States of America is a republic and a federation, but its name is not the Republic of America or American Federation. There are virtually no results on Google or Google Scholar for either term prior to their addition to Wikipedia; pretty much every Google Scholar result for the term turns up text similar to Piga 2003, which do not support the name of the empire being Manden Kurufaba. One [6] suggests that the term "kurufaba" may be a neologism devised by Solomana Kante. Suffice to say, there is inadequate evidence for the term Manden Kurufaba, and I think the term should be removed until a source that satisfactorily demonstrates its validity (and that can be trusted to not be just quoting Wikipedia) can be found. Ornithopsis (talk) 06:41, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Unsourced flag

I've removed the "flag" in the infobox for now, as there are no sources included in either this article or at the image's description page to support the claim that this is the flag of Mansa Musa or the Mali Empire. Unlike modern national flags, there is no obvious reference to consult on the flags of historical states centuries ago, so clear and reliable sources should be included to verify that any such flag is actually real. The closest I could find to a source were a couple of books ([7], [8]) that mention Mansa Musa's flag as "yellow with a red background", but that provides practically nothing to go on, as there's no indication of what pattern it would have.

From what I've seen in other articles so far, there is a lot of WP:OR on Wikipedia when it comes to "flags" of historical states. There is very little restriction on what users can upload to Wiki Commons and many users just upload their own personal creations, so please do not take any claims or labels in Wiki Commons at face value. Unlike Commons, content on Wikipedia must be verifiable, and that includes any claims about historical flags. R Prazeres (talk) 05:55, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

The official flag or banner of the Mali Empire was probably just plain red; Al-Umari notes that Mansa Musa brought red banners with yellow symbols on it, sometimes translated to “yellow banners with a red background”, which brings to the misconception that the flag was actually a red flag with a yellow square. (1 / 4) Cheikh Khadim Rassoul D. (talk) 15:33, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

However, reading Ibn Khaldūn's account, we only hear testimony about red banners without the yellow symbols — this plain red flag was noted both in a ceremony he described, and inside the court. (2 / 4) Cheikh Khadim Rassoul D. (talk) 15:33, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

It's disputed whether it could've been really seen as an official flag or similar, however it might be also a plausible conclusion to note that adopting a banner was among the things Mali got from the Muslim world, choosing a red one in particular, sometimes putting yellow symbols on it. ( 3 / 4 ) Cheikh Khadim Rassoul D. (talk) 15:33, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

SOURCE 1: Gomez, M. A. (2019). African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa. United Kingdom: Princeton University Press. — p. 115 Cheikh Khadim Rassoul D. (talk) 15:37, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

SOURCE 2: A History of Islam in West Africa - John Spencer Trimingham, University of Glasgow, 1970 — p. 79/80 Cheikh Khadim Rassoul D. (talk) 15:37, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

SOURCE 3: Hamdun, S., King, N. Q. (1975). Ibn Battuta in Black Africa. London: Collings. — p. 50

OR you can check my tweet with all references screenshotted here: https://twitter.com/CKRD11/status/1761766390795497825?t=afExtTp5l_9mCdR3hT885w&s=19

(4 / 4) Cheikh Khadim Rassoul D. (talk) 15:38, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the research, but from what I'm reading, this amounts to WP:OR (original research), which is not admissible on Wikipedia. We clearly don't have complete information to reconstitute the flag in full detail and with certainty, therefore Wikipedia should not be introducing hypothetical flags that can't be directly found in reliable sources. Many pre-modern states had no "official" flag, which is a modern concept, and that's likely true here (as you more or less noted above).

Information on what type of banners were used and on what flags may have looked like can still be added in the body of the article, so long as it's clearly supported by citations, as always. R Prazeres (talk) 18:19, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

As pointed out by J.S Trimingham, Mali could've got influenced by other arabo-muslim states such as the mamluks and made it's own version of a banner. We see it described by Al-Umari as the main colours of the banners & by Ibn Battuta (NOT Khaldun, my bad). Analyzing it's uses we see it mentioned in the context of the royal flag brought in an expedition (the Hajj), as the flag brought with the sultan in a ceremony (as said by Ibn Battuta) and flag of the court, literally inside the court.

Fundamentally, we can come to the logic conclusion that Mali, seeing other muslim kingdoms wave banners, decided to make one for their own, and so they adopted this plain red banner. Both Gomez & Trimingham basically concluded that Mali's flag was fundamentally just red, and it doesn't require an academic book to reconstruct a flag said to be, fundamentally red.

Either way, we can imply that the red banner was the main symbol of the empire, similar to the other banners of the same period, and thus it can be an important piece of information for people to read. Maybe not necessarily calling it the official flag but at least the imperial banner, or at least "banner used by the Royalty as cited by Al-Umari and Ibn Battuta"

In conclusion, I may ask you to re-instate my edit, as I find it informative and correcting the common misconception, propagated by strategic games, that Mali's symbol/banner was red with a yellow square, thank you. Cheikh Khadim Rassoul D. (talk) 21:37, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Your explanation only makes it clearer that this is WP:OR. If the flag is not found in reliable sources, then it doesn't belong on Wikipedia. It is not up to editors to "imply" or "come to the logic conclusion" based on clues in other sources. This is a core content policy of Wikipedia and it cannot be disregarded, so please review it. The original red-with-yellow-square flag has already been removed, and the only way to prevent further errors and misconceptions is precisely by avoiding the insertion of other hypothetical flags. And as a reminder, the infobox is for summarizing the article: there is no requirement that a flag be included here at all. R Prazeres (talk) 21:59, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Hey, I've found a good, sourced description of the flag of Mali. It's in Soundjata: la Gloire du Mali, by Wa Kamissoko and Youssouf Tata Cisse, page 53. The section is called "Le djondjon, « étendard » du « soleil » de Soundjata" (The Djondjon, Sundiata's 'sun banner'):

La veille de son intronisation, Soundjata fit hisser au sommet des entrées monumentales ( djinda) de Dakadjalan le drapeau symbolisant son ère : «Rouge vif frappé d'un disque or» matérialisant l'ardeur des malinkés et la prospérité du Manden nouveau. Le célèbre griot Ba-Zoumana Sissoko évoque cet étendard dans « Mali djondjon », « Drapeau du Mali », hymne qu'il chanta à l'occasion de la proclamation de la République du Mali.

One the eve of his coronation, Sundiata had raised on the top of the monumental gate (djinda) of Dakadjalan the flag symbolizing his era: "Bright red struck with a golden disk", embodying the bravery of the Malinkes and the prosperity of the new Manden. The famous griot Ba-Zoumana Sissoko invoked this banner in "Mali djondjon", "Mali's Flag", a hymn that he sang at the ceremony of the Republic of Mali's proclamation .

Based on the quote above and the context in the book, it's clear that this red flag with a golden disk was an official flag, symbol of the new Mali Empire. Sissoko even uses the same Bambara word (djonjon) to describe it that he uses to describe the flag of modern Mali. No implications or logical conclusions necessary.

Unless there is some objection or problem with this, I'm going to make a flag image matching this description and add it to the page. Catjacket (talk) 20:12, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

One single source, whose reliability is not clear from what I can see, is not sufficient here given the discussion above. Moreover, even if reliable, it still doesn't provide details required to reconstruct a full flag. This remains WP:OR. Wikipedia is not a forum for flag enthusiasts, please stop creating these unless there are clear and reliable sources that illustrate the flag in full. R Prazeres (talk) 00:32, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

In your initial post you asked for a source that indicates "what pattern it would have." Now I've provided that source that explains the pattern, and you're moving the goalposts. I believe that this source meets any reasonable standard for reliability and clarity.

Kamissoko and Cisse's work is one of the most important modern texts for the historiography of the Mali Empire. In this case, their work is even buttressed by contemporary Arabic written sources and the western historians cited by you and @Cheikh Khadim Rassoul D. who agree that the flag was yellow on red. If you still reject Kamissoko and Cisse as unreliable, I would want to know why. Is it because they use oral tradition? If so, then by that standard we should equally reject all sources that use oral traditions, and therefore remove at least half the information on the Mali Empire page, plus shrink or delete many many other pages on the history of West Africa. I think that standard is unreasonably harsh.

Would you require that the source provide the exact proportions of the flag, and/or the exact hues used, and/or an image of the flag? If so, then we should remove all other flags on Wikipedia that are based on only textual descriptions without precise measurements. This would affect a massive number of pages. With a few minutes of link-clicking I found a number of examples including the Rasulid dynasty, the Principality of Ryazan, the Ayyubid dynasty, the Principality of Moscow, and Makuria. I assume there are many more. Do you believe that we should remove all of these flags from Wikipedia? Why are you only removing the flag from the Mali Empire page and leaving these other ones?

Would you accept the gray flag shown in the Catalan Atlas because it derives from an image printed in medieval Europe, even though to my knowledge it is otherwise entirely unattested in both oral and written sources?

This Kamissoko and Cisse source clearly meets all the requirements for sourcing that you have laid out in this discussion, and is more well-sourced and fully described than many other ancient flags that have been on Wikipedia for years without any pushback. If you want to purge Wikipedia of all flags that do not meet a strict modern standard with precise color and proportion descriptions, that is a much larger conversation as it would affect hundreds of articles, and it should be hashed out in a forum before such changes are made. In the meantime, Mali Empire should follow the example of similar pages and allow a flag that matches a description given in reliable sources like Kamissoko and Cisse. I would ask that you check your biases and assumptions about both historical West African states and the African sources used to study them. Just because the sources are oral or African does not make them less reliable than, for example, a map or book published in Spain in the 1300s that has been used as a source for a flag from the Middle East, particularly when written sources from the 1300s support what the oral African source says.

If this does not convince you, please tell me what is a reasonable and achievable standard for a source and description of a flag that you would accept? Catjacket (talk) 09:47, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

You're right, we should remove all flags that are fully or partially the original creations of editors. In fact, myself and others have done precisely that in many articles, and it will likely happen in many more as you suggested, because it is indeed a wide-ranging problem on Wikipedia (as is true of other content issues). The solution is not to sideline WP:OR or WP:V because editors have done so elsewhere, but to continuously improve the encyclopedia's reliability per those policies.

I have told you the standard to meet: reliable sources that show the flag in full (visually), or perhaps describe it to the point of no ambiguity (in other words, requiring no WP:SYNTH). "Red with a gold disk" is interesting but vague and does not mean it's literally a plain yellow circle on a plain red ground with colours chosen by an editor. If the source is reliable, then that's great: I would encourage you to summarize the information in the body of the article and cite it there. This is what myself and other editors have done in multiple articles where information is available in sources but no direct records of the flags/banners exist (e.g. see Almohad Caliphate#Emblem). An inline description with more context is also more informative to readers than a plain image in an infobox. This could be done briefly in the "Government" section, for example, or in a new section if there's more to say. If the flag's appearance is obvious in your mind, then readers can imagine it on their own from the exact same information you read, but it's not our job as editors to imagine it for them. I hope you find that a useful option. Thanks, R Prazeres (talk) 18:32, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying the standard you're applying, but I disagree with your interpretation of the OR and SYNTH policies in this instance. Since there are not multiple sources or multiple statements from the same source being combined, this situation cannot be SYNTH. My image also doesn't include any information that isn't in the original source. I feel that criticizing an editor for selecting flag colors (assuming of course that they match a description given in a textual source) is comparable to criticizing an editor for summarizing a textual source rather than quoting it verbatim. Whether you're turning text into an image or whether you're re-phrasing, both require the editor to make calls on how to best present the information to the Wikipedia reader. If you think that the red I used is not "vif" and the yellow I used is not "or", then we can modify the flag. But if the colors match the description, then the image is a faithful and accurate reproduction of the source information, as faithful and accurate as replacing the word 'massive' with 'huge' would be.

Even for historical flags sourced from a visual image or described to the point of no ambiguity, the editor must and should make decisions about how to present the information. Take, for example, the Mamluk Sultanate, whose two infobox flags are taken from the Catalan Atlas. In the original image the flags are golden, but in the digital version they are yellow. One of them shows a lion in a black circle, but on the original image you could argue that the animal could be a griffon or leopard, because it's small and hard to see the details. The editor also had to select particular proportions. Are these choices all OR? I don't think so. I think it's an editor who is doing good work to take information in one medium and faithfully reproduce it as well as possible in another. One of the images even includes a caveat describing the source, which I feel would be a suitable compromise in this situation - a comment in the image info or the article itself on the context for the flag. I think that would work better than your summary proposal. It seems that the Almohad issue was with conflicting sources of information rather than with turning text into an image, especially since the article includes an image of an Almohad flag. For Mali all the sources agree on what the flag looked like, so I see no reason why that information can't be conveyed visually.

Depending on how you apply the standard you've laid out, it is either impossible to meet (because even reproducing visual images requires the editor to make some editorial decisions) or arbitrary (because we draw a line separating the acceptable amount of editorial input from the unacceptable amount based purely on personal preference rather than clear logic).

All that being said, my opinion alone doesn't matter any more than yours. If there is some Wikipedia policy that addresses this flag issue directly, please share it. But I hesitate to accept your interpretation of the above policies on faith considering how many of our fellow editors continue to make historical flags based on textual sources. Hopefully @Cheikh Khadim Rassoul D. and/or others will enter the chat, and we can start to build consensus on this.

Also, I am actually curious if you would prefer a reproduction of the Malian flag as shown in the Catalan Atlas, as it's a visual source. Catjacket (talk) 16:32, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Summarizing text and creating images from scratch are not the same thing. Per my comments above, my argument is not about the colours, but about the vagueness of the text description with no accompanying visual aids. The "standard" I've laid out, if it is one, is not impossible to meet and it's not purely my personal preference since I'm not the only one who has pushed back against speculative flags in history articles. So once again: yes, there are other articles that include what are very likely WP:OR flags, often added long ago and/or without discussion, that would not stand up to scrutiny if editors were asked to actually examine them. Same with other types of content. Again, this isn't a convincing argument.

(For that it's worth: the Mamluk Sultanate example you mention likely needs attention too and I've considered raising the question there, and probably will. Among other problems, the Catalan Atlas is a primary source. At least, however, this is a visual source and it is made explicit to readers in the caption, so the WP:OR is minimized (but not eliminated) and it may be as much a question of WP:UNDUE. Which leads me to your last question: I personally would not push for an image from the Catalan Atlas here, since (as you mentioned) it doesn't have support anywhere else, and you don't seem to support it either.)

I've also proposed an alternative above (written description) that is more directly in keeping with the encyclopedic purpose of Wikipedia. If the flag isn't worth any attention in the rest of the article, why would it be worth becoming the lead image in the infobox which, per MOS:INFOBOX, is a template designed to summarize information in the article? The image might be reasonable (though not necessary) to include as an accompaniment to a written section, where it could be easily contextualized. But to use it merely as a lead image serves no other informative purpose and makes it appear as if there's a well-known official flag of the empire, which isn't the case here or, for that matter, with many/most pre-modern states.

If you still disagree, I think an RfC would be a good idea, especially since the question would likely be relevant beyond this article. It could also be worth seeing if there's already an older RfC (or similar discussion with consensus) that could be directly applicable here. R Prazeres (talk) 18:07, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

I think an RfC is a great idea, since as you said it's a much wider question than only this article. That would also help create a clear, universal standard that doesn't ask editors to make individual judgements on how much editorial leeway someone can be given in reproducing flags, whether they are described textually or illustrated like in the Catalan Atlas.

Your proposal to include the flag image in a separate section dovetails nicely with my suggestion to include it with commentary and context. I had assumed that you were objecting to the use of the image itself rather than it's position in the infobox. If it works for you, I would be happy to write a section more or less summarizing the sources that @Cheikh Khadim Rassoul D. and I have cited above and put both images there as examples. I still think it's necessary to do the RfC, however, to determine A. how editors should use sources to recreate historical flags and B. whether they can/should be in the infobox. Catjacket (talk) 18:31, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I think those are both productive avenues to follow (a new section + RfC). If there's no urgency, then I'm happy to assist with formulating the RfC, if helpful. Cheers, R Prazeres (talk) 19:10, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Sure. There's certainly no urgency. Did you mean that you'd draft the RfC and share it here before submitting? Catjacket (talk) 10:53, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Feel free to draft it, or I can draft it if you prefer (though I'm very busy this week so it may have to wait a bit). But yes, either way it's a good idea to share the wording here first to make sure we agree it's clear. R Prazeres (talk) 19:29, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Just added the section on imperial regalia. Have you worked on the RfC at all? Catjacket (talk) 13:18, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your work. For the RfC, the recommendation from WP:RFCBRIEF (and also judging by a couple that I've participated in) is to keep it very brief and simple, so in the end I think it's best to just ask something like:

• "Should this flag image be included in the infobox of the article?"

We can link the image as done here but we can also add it as thumbnail alongside the question. Then it would be up to each of us to bring up arguments for or against (sources, policies, etc), or argue for a third option, and so on. R Prazeres (talk) 16:59, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

15th-16th century mansas

I would like to draw attention to some problems regarding the identities of the mansas "Musa III", "Uli II", "Mahmud II", and "Mahmud III". The existence of mansas of these names seems to be yet another example of Delafosse's speculation being treated as historical fact. It is known from João de Barros that the Portuguese sent emissaries to the mansa of Mali late in João II's reign (c. 1490–1495) and in 1534, and that both of these mansas had the same name, but their name is not directly mentioned. Separately in Barros's account, he mentions emissaries being sent to someone called "Mahamed bem Manzugul, grandson of Mussa, king of Songo," which is "one of the most populous cities of...Mandinga," during the reign of João II. Delafosse thought this was the mansa of Mali, and suggested that "Manzugul" should be read as "Mansa Uli", thereby concluding that the two mansas contacted by the Portuguese were both named Mahmud, and that the earlier Mahmud was preceded by his father Uli and grandfather Musa. However, as discussed by Masonen (2000), it is not altogether clear that "Mahamed bem Manzugul" was a mansa of Mali, and indeed there seems to be good reason to think he was not. Several possibilities have been suggested over the years; Barth was under the impression that "Mahamed bem Manzugul" was a nephew of Askia Musa (perhaps confusing Portuguese neto "grandson" with German Neffe "nephew"?), Garrard apparently suggested he was a ruler of Begho, and Masonen speculatively suggested that "Mahamed", "king of Songo" could even refer to a Songhai ruler named Muhammad—i.e. Askia Muhammad himself. Suffice to say, there are a lot of problems with our coverage of the 15th-16th century history of Mali, and extensive revisions are needed. Ornithopsis (talk) 02:04, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

History of the Mali Empire Page?

What would y'all think of moving the bulk of the historiography and history sections to a new History of the Mali Empire page, and keeping a shorter summary here? I'm thinking of following the model of the Roman Empire page.

I find the current layout, with the names of kings as section heads and disputed or limited sourcing, confusing and messy, especially for a casual reader who wants to understand the overall sweep of the empire's history but doesn't need mansa-by-mansa details. Catjacket (talk) 19:24, 28 May 2024 (UTC)