HIST103: World History (1600–Present)

By the 17th century, the Mali Empire had been replaced by the smaller Bamana Empire. In the early 18th century, this fell as a series of Fulani jihadist states inspired by the founder of the Fulani Sultanate spread across West Africa. By the first decade of the 20th century, these had, in their turn, fallen to European powers, and the era of the great West African empires was over.

Fulani jihad states in the Western Sudan circa 1830 replaced the Bamana and the earlier and larger Mali empire.

The legacy of the Mali Empire is that of a sophisticated polity with institutions that were at least equal to any elsewhere in the world at the time. Timbuktu was a flourishing center of learning to which scholars traveled and whose graduates taught elsewhere in the Muslim world. It was a sister academy of those in Fez, Cairo, and Cordoba. ^[14]

It is regrettable that knowledge of this civilization is not as widespread as other contemporary polities elsewhere in the world. Such knowledge could help to combat some racist constructions of history that posit that Africa lagged far behind Europe and required European help and assistance in order to develop and progress.

The Mali Empire possessed a vibrant economy and may even have sent pirogues across the Atlantic to engage in trade. At a time when few such institutions existed elsewhere, it had a consultative assembly that played a vital and significant role in the Empire's governance. At a time when many of the world's emperors ruled with absolute, unchecked power, a system of checks and balances existed in this African polity.