On the road to Mecca, gold moved through my hands so visibly that Cairo remembered the price of it. But the pilgrimage was not only wealth. It was Mali announcing itself to the Islamic world: a western empire of learning, trade, law, and cities. The mapmakers drew me with gold because that is what they understood first.
— Al-Umari, Masalik al-Absar; accounts of Mansa Musa's pilgrimage (1324-1325).
Medieval