History of Timbuktu visited the governor, Farba Musa, and the grave of the poet Al Sahili. Timbuktu was peacefully annexed by King Musa I when returning from his pilgrimage in 1324 to Mecca. The city became part of the Mali Empire and Musa I ordered the construction of a royal palace. Both the "Tarikh al-Sudan" and the "Tarikh al-fattash" attribute the building of the Djinguereber Mosque to Musa I. Two centuries later in 1570 Qadi al-Aqib had the mosque pulled down and rebuilt on a larger scale. In 1375, Timbuktu appeared in the Catalan Atlas, showing that it was, by then, a commercial
History of Timbuktu young Scottish adventurer named Mungo Park, who made two trips in search of the Niger River and Timbuktu (departing first in 1795 and then in 1805). It is believed that Park was the first Westerner to have reached the city, but he died in modern-day Nigeria without having the chance to report his findings. In 1824, the Paris-based Société de Géographie offered a 10,000 franc prize to the first non-Muslim to reach the town and return with information about it. The Scotsman Gordon Laing arrived in August 1826 but was killed the following month by local Muslims who were fearful