- Mali
- the West African kingdom built on the salt and gold roads of the Sahara
- the Sahara
- the Great Desert that served the caravans as a sea instead of ships
- the salt
- the northern goods the caravans carried down from the Algerian mines
- the gold
- the southern wealth that made Mali the richest kingdom in Africa
- Mansa Musa
- the pilgrim king who built Djinguereber and flooded Cairo with gold on his Hajj
- Djinguereber
- the city's most famous mosque, which Mansa Musa built on his return
- Sankore
- the great university that held thousands of students in its day
- the manuscripts
- her handwritten books, which families kept in chests for generations
- Marrakesh
- the Moroccan city to which her scholars were carried after the conquest
- 1591
- the year of the Moroccan occupation that ended her golden age
- the caravans
- the desert roads that carried trade and books together across the sands
- the families
- the learned families that inherited the manuscripts and guarded them
