Sunjata, the founder and mansā (king) of Mali, Empire of the Malinke, is said to have fought his decisive battle against Susu Sumanguru in 1240. Just over one hundred years later, Ibn Battuta visited Mali, by which time it had become a predominantly Muslim region.

Levtzion gives an external analysis of the rise of the Mali empire:

Through alliances and coercion, Sundjata … was recognized as the supreme leader of the war of liberation against the Soso by the mansās of other kafus [village confederacies]. During this stage, chiefs of other kafus lost their sovereignty and the title mansā; this title was henceforth reserved for Sundjata and his successors. (Nehemia Levtzion, Ancient Ghana and Mali, p. 106)

In sub-Saharan Muslim society, men and women maintained a status of equality, which was beginning to be lost in the North African region.

By the fourteenth century AD, when Ibn Battuta was traveling in Africa, the mutual gender respect recommended long before by the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) had given way to a stiff, male supremacism in the countries north of the Sahara, along the southern shores of the Mediterranean. But this attitude was not admired or even admitted by the people south of the desert, even when Muslim. (Basil Davidson, African Civilization Revisited, p. 101.)

As taught to me by Lucy Durán, the recitation of the Sunjata epic can only be done by those qualified to handle the volatile esoteric energies (nyama), which are released when the words are uttered. These reciters are called nyamakalaw and a nyamakala (singular) must be between the ages of 35 and 40 before he is permitted to recite. Once every seven years, the roof of the house said to contain Sunjata’s bones is renewed and on this occasion only is the epic recited from beginning to end.

There will always remain the question among scholars as to whether Sunjata was Muslim or not. Some versions of the epic contain few Islamic elements, but it is still very possible that Sunjata could have come from a family of Muslims, since trade with the Muslim world had brought Islam to sub-Saharan Africa by the late 9th, early 10th centuries.

A look at two transcribed recitations of the Sunjata epic reveals some fascinating details. The versions referred to here are Banna Kanute’s and Bamba Suso’s, in the Penguin publication (1999). Banna Kanute’s narrative opens with an account of Sunjata’s noble lineage. At the time that Sunjata is born, Susu Sumanguru, of the smith class (Mande culture is strongly hierarchical), is king of Manding. Banna Kanute tells the listener how, at that time, Manding was divided into 12 parts (the number is symbolic). Each clan lived in a separate division, but “They did not seek the kingship. They had their Islamic faith” (p. 36). Here is a juxtaposition of a pre-Islamic institution—monarchy—coming up against Islamic values of equality.

In this version of the narrative, Sunjata’s pious mother, Sukulung Konte, bears her husband 40 sons in 20 pregnancies before Sunjata, her last child. Sunjata’s brothers are all shuhadah (martyrs).

The forty sons whom his father had begot

Had perished in the Prophet’s war at Haibara [Khaybar].

After the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) sends a messenger named Sorakhata to Sunjata’s father, to announce the deaths of his 40 sons, Sunjata’s father cries, “Al-hamdu lillah, Rabbi-l-‘alameen!” (Praise be to God, Master of the worlds). Then

Sorakhata returned
And delivered this report to God’s Messenger;
God’s Messenger went into retreat at night
And performed twelve rak`ah.
He begged God
To send down good fortune upon Sunjata’s mother and father.

After this, Sunjata’s mother becomes young again and she conceives Sunjata. Very like the Biblical story of Herod and ‘Isa (Jesus—peace and blessings be upon him), Susu Sumanguru is warned that the child who will destroy his kingship has been born in Manding (the kingdom of Mali).

Sumanguru gathered together all the women of the town of Manding,
And for seven years
He kept them within a walled town.
A man and a woman did not lie on the same bed,
And a man and woman did not come near each other.
As for those women who did become pregnant,
If they gave birth to a child and that child was a male,
Its throat was cut.

This continues for 7 years, but Sunjata’s mother is pregnant with him for 14 years. Susu Sumanguru determines to employ magic to destroy the child who is destined to overthrow him. He sends one of his diviners into retreat for 40 days and nights, as was practiced by Musa (Moses—peace and blessings be upon him), `Isa (peace and blessings be upon him), and as is practiced by some Muslim ascetics. The diviner comes out of retreat and says,

I saw the seven layers of the sky,
Right to where they finish;
I saw the seven layers of the earth,
Right to where they finish.

This is an obvious reference to the seven heavens mentioned so often in the Qur’an, and the diviner even acknowledges the qadar (destiny) of Allah.

God declares that by his grace,
Whomsoever he has created king
He has made his own likeness [he has noble and majestic attributes]
And nothing will be able to injure that person.

In other words, just as the Qur’an says, when Allah decrees something for someone, nobody can take it away from him.

Sunjata is born a cripple, and when he is 13, a circumcision ceremony is held and he cries because he cannot go with the other boys into the bush where they are circumcised and spend time away from the community before they return as men. So the smiths fashion two rods of iron to help him to stand, but he is so strong that when he stands, he buckles both of them.

The people were afraid, and they went and told Susu Sumanguru Baaamagana.
That day he summoned diviners by stones,
He summoned diviners by cowries,
He summoned diviners by sand,
He summoned Muslim diviners,
And they looked into matters concerning Sunjata.

The diviners confirm that Sunjata is the one who will destroy Susu Sumanguru. Sunjata goes into the bush to be circumcised, and Susu Sumanguru summons his sorcerers to use Islamic elements for magical spells:

When they wrote on the writing-board,
For one month and fourteen days
They wrote on the board—the bisimalato pattern.
They prepared names,
They made calculations from God’s names.

A psychological and magical battle begins. Sunjata returns from the bush and Susu Sumanguru continues to try to use magic to protect his own kingship, but with the help of a spirit, Sunjata manages to destroy the spell. Then Sumanguru torches the house of Sunjata’s mother, and Sunjata is forced into exile. He takes refuge with a mansā called Farang Tunkara.

In the meantime, Sunjata’s clever and courageous elder sister Nene Faamaga goes back to Manding and offers herself in marriage to Susu Sumanguru, but on the night of their wedding, she agrees to consummate the marriage only if he reveals the magic trick that will kill him. Stupidly, he does—the spur of a white cockerel filled with gold and silver powder, fired from a gun. Before he can consummate the marriage, however, she informs him that she has her hayd (period) until the next day. In the middle of the night, she escapes and goes back to Sunjata to pass him the information.

Banna Kanute’s version includes much more magic than Bamba Suso’s. In Banna Kanute’s version, only three men support Sunjata, and when he goes back to Manding, armed with a sword, a spear, and a shotgun, the whole of Manding comes out in support of Susu Sumanguru, until Sunjata fires the cockspur and kills Susu Sumanguru, crying “Death is better than disgrace, Sumanguru.”

In Bamba Suso’s version, Sunjata’s right to the throne is usurped by one of his half-brothers and he is forced to go into exile. Then Susu Sumanguru, through either magic or war, kills all of Sunjata’s brothers. While Sunjata is in exile in the desert, he has with him only his griots (genealogists/praise singers). After what must be some considerable time, he decides to return to fight Susu Sumanguru, and there is a long and dramatic passage in which he summons his army, which he must have accumulated over the years. According to Levtzion, “The power of Mali depended on its military strength, and this enhanced the importance of the army commanders in the king’s court” (p. 111).

In this scene Sunjata says to one of his griots, “Haven’t you called the horses for me?” This is followed by an extended song of praise for the horse:

Come horses! oh horses! mighty Sira Makhang,
A person who could argue with him.
Oh horses! mighty Sira Makhang,
Being dragged does not humiliate a great beast.
A long, long way through the bush, an outstanding stallion and a saddle,
Go quickly and come back quickly,
Giver of news from far away. (pp. 17–18)

And then, Sunjata told his griot, “You must summon my leading men.”

A dramatic battle breaks out between Sunjata and Susu Sumanguru. All day the armies fight one another, but once again, it is Nene Faamaga who really saves the day. In this version, too, she approaches Susu Sumanguru’s palace and is invited in. There, she extracts from him his secrets, including the secret of his destruction, and, while pretending to go to the washroom, leaps over the wall, returns to Sunjata, and passes him the information. Sunjata’s army goes into Manding and manages to destroy Susu Sumanguru.

Sunjata is an oral narrative, and the pattern of narration, particularly where the tension builds between Sunjata and Sumanguru as they first use magic against each other, and then draw up their armies, can be compared to that of Pharaoh and Moses in Deuteronomy. The story follows what Dr. Stefan Sperl has called “the imperial paradigm,” which is common to most epics. This is a tripartite structure, in which the hero is first usurped from his position, goes into exile where he gains knowledge and strength, and comes back in triumph to claim his rightful heritage.

Sunjata is also a story of self-sacrifice, for when in exile, Sunjata cuts off a piece of the flesh of his own leg in order to feed his starving griots. This epic also demonstrates the support that men and women in Mande society gave each other. As a young man, Sunjata depends upon his mother’s piety and strength in order to establish his own honor, and it is due to Nene Faamaga’s courage to enter enemy territory that he is able, finally, to defeat Susu Sumanguru.