Excerpt from Al-Masalik wa ʾl-Mamalik

Published in African Civilization Revisited, 1991

Excerpt from Description of Africa

Published in Readings about the World, Volume 2, 1999

"The king of Ghana can put two hundred thousand warriors in the field, more than forty thousand being armed with bow and arrow."

From Al-Masalik wa ʾl-Mamalik

"Many hand-written books imported from Barbary are also sold [in the market at Timbuktu]. There is more profit made from this commerce than from all other merchandise."

From Description of Africa

The Sahara Desert in Africa is larger than the continental United States. Not surprisingly, this most forbidding of all deserts ensured that the southern part of the African continent would be shut off from the northern part, where the people had much greater opportunities for...