Mansa Musa's Lost Brother Abu Bakr II

Mansa Musa: The Richest Man Who Ever Lived — Fexingo History · Sep 18, 2026 · 8m · transcript

We have spent the last twenty episodes tracing the gold, the architecture, and the diplomatic letters of Mansa Musa, but there is a ghost in the Keita court that has haunted historians for centuries. In this episode, we turn our attention to his predecessor and elder brother, Abu Bakr II, who did not simply die or step aside. According to the Tarikh al-Sudan and later oral traditions preserved by the jeliw, he abdicated his throne to lead a massive naval expedition across the Atlantic Ocean. We examine the conflicting accounts from al-Umari and Ibn Khaldun, the logistical nightmare of…