Mansa Musa's Legal Revolution The Qadis Who Wrote Mali's Law

Mansa Musa: The Richest Man Who Ever Lived — Fexingo History · Jul 13, 2026 · 6m · transcript

When Mansa Musa returned from his 1324 Hajj, he brought back more than gold and stories. He brought a legal framework — and the jurists to implement it. This episode follows the qadi al-jama'a, the chief judge Mansa Musa appointed to oversee a network of Islamic courts spanning the Mali Empire. We trace the careers of these Maliki-trained jurists, the fatwas they issued on trade, marriage, and slavery, and the delicate balance they struck between sharia and Mande customary law. We look at the al-Umari account of a qadi who ruled against a farba official, at Ibn Battuta's surprise at…