The Mali Empire (c. 1235–1600) was one of the great medieval West African empires to control the trans-Saharan gold trade at scale — founded by Sundiata Keita after the Battle of Kirina, reaching its height under Mansa Musa's extraordinary reign, and cementing Timbuktu and Djenné as centers of Islamic learning before giving way to the Songhai Empire that succeeded it.
In 1324, the ruler of Mali crossed the Sahara with a caravan of 60,000 people, 12,000 enslaved attendants, and so much gold that when he arrived in Cairo and gave it away freely, the value of gold in Cairo reportedly fell and stayed depressed for years. Mansa Musa's hajj to Mecca did not just demonstrate wealth. It announced to the Islamic world, and eventually to Europe, that there was an empire in West Africa organized enough, rich enough, and confident enough to reshape the economics of half a continent by passing through.