Editing Mansa Musa (section)

==Early reign==

Musa was a young man when he became ''Mansa'', possibly in his early twenties.{{sfn|Gomez|2018|p=104}} Given the grandeur of his subsequent ''[[hajj]]'', it is likely that Musa spent much of his early reign preparing for it.{{sfn|Gomez|2018|p=105}} Among these preparations would likely have been raids to capture and enslave people from neighboring lands, as Musa's entourage would include many thousands of slaves; the historian Michael Gomez estimates that Mali may have captured over 6,000 slaves per year for this purpose.{{sfn|Gomez|2018|p=107}} Perhaps because of this, Musa's early reign was spent in continuous military conflict with neighboring non-Muslim societies.{{sfn|Gomez|2018|p=107}} In 1324, while in Cairo, Musa said that he had conquered 24 cities and their surrounding districts.<ref>{{harvnb|Al-Umari}}, translated in {{harvnb|Levtzion|Hopkins|2000|p=267}}</ref>