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“He left me to deputize for him and embarked on the Atlantic Ocean with his men. That was the last we saw of him and all those who were with him, and so I became king in my own right.”

As reported by al-Umari · Masalik al-absar (c. 1337), trans. Levtzion & Hopkins, Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (1981), p. 269

Context During his stay in Cairo on pilgrimage in 1324, Musa told the emir Ibn Amir Hajib how he had come to the throne; al-Umari recorded the account.

Portrait of Mansa Musa
Mansa MusaMali · c. 1280–1337
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