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Mansa Musa
Written by Khephra Burns and Illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon
An excerpt from Mansa Musa:
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Illustration from
Mansa Musa copyright2001
by Leo andDiane Dillon
by permission from Harcourt
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Kakan Musa had never seen such intense activity. In al-Qahira
he met people from the far corners of the world; many were black,
but there were some whose skins were the color of copper or
amber, and some who were the color of old ivory. They came from
the Mediterranean and beyond, from Greece and Rome, and from
farther east of al-Khemia. They were Muslims, Christians, and
Jews. Al-Khemia was a land of many prophets, Kankan
discovered, and some were shared by Muslims, Christians, and
Jews alike.
One such prophet, he learned, was known by a name that is
the same as Musa. "In our tongue, you would be called Kankan
Moses," said one old woman of the Nile. It means "unfathered son
of a princess." Kankan felt the familiar sting--the unfulfilled longing
to know his own father. But he listened and the old woman
continued. "It also means 'drawn out of the water,'"she said, "as in
acient times the infant Moses was found floating in a basket in the
Nile. Moses didn't know his father, but in time he learned the truth
about his own identity and later led his people into the desert and
onto the Path, the siyahat of self-discovery."
"It is the same everywhere," Kankan remarked that night as he
and Tariqu supped on lamb, dates, and sun-raised bread in a small
inn. "Whether man, woman, or nation, we are born into the world
and, once born, must set out on a journey to discover just who we
are and where we have come from."
• Read an excerpt from Traveling
Man by James Rumford
• Read an excerpt from The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis |
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