The Richest Muslim Figure, 40 Years Old – Has Assets of IDR 7,000 T!

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – World history has recorded that there are the richest people in history who have wealth more than Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates and so on. He was Mansa Musa, a Muslim, king, and had assets of IDR 7 thousand trillion.

Mansa Musa was born around 1280 AD in the Mali Kingdom. He came from a line of rulers and because of this he was able to become ruler of Mali in 1312, or when he was 32 years old.

As explained National GeographicWhen he became king, Musa practically controlled everything that controlled Mali, including natural resources. At that time, Mali had the most important resource in the world, namely gold. Mali's territory in West Africa has many productive gold mines that bring in profits.

Apart from that, Mali also depends on the exploitation of spices, the elephant ivory trade and salt ponds. All of this was the most optimal money mining machine of its time which clearly made Musa's wallet thicker. It is not known for certain how much wealth he had, but historical records can show how rich he was.

One of the most famous historical records is about his departure to Mecca. As a devout Muslim, Musa also performed the Hajj in 1324 or at the age of 44. He went with an extraordinary jumbo entourage. BBC recorded that 60,000 men, 12,000 slaves and 80 camels participated. In that group, everyone wore gold-plated silk clothes and each carried gold bars.

Throughout the 4,345 km journey from West Africa to Mecca, the gold bars were distributed free of charge to local residents or to someone who happened to see the group. It is said that Musa's attitude like this made the local economy in the areas he passed through unstable. In fact, it caused mass inflation for 10 years after Moses left.

Not only that, when he arrived in the Holy Land, Moses also distributed the gold to the Hajj pilgrims. According to historians, quoted from The age of Mansa Musa of Mali (1972) the reason Moses did this was not only alms, but also to show how rich his kingdom was. Understandably, at that time every kingdom had invasive characteristics that wanted to continue expanding its territory.

Upon his return from Mecca, Musa made many improvements for the progress of the kingdom. He built many mosques, schools, libraries and other cultural centers. All workers in the various projects were given gold bars of up to tens of kilograms.

Based on these historical records, many people today estimate how rich Moses was. At that time there was no financial recording system, so no one knew for sure his wealth. One thing that makes speculation is

Some say his assets reach US$400 billion to US$500 billion (around Rp. 6,236 trillion – Rp. 7,795 trillion). There are also those who say that his wealth cannot be described as enormous considering the size of his land and gold holdings.

[Gambas:Video CNBC]

(mfa/sef)