Mansa Musa said he took Mali's throne because his predecessor sailed into the Atlantic and never came back

In 1324 Mansa Musa of Mali stopped in Cairo on pilgrimage. He told the governor Ibn Amir Hajib how he came to power, and the scholar al-Umari recorded it. Musa said his predecessor sent ships into the Atlantic to find the limit of the ocean. One returned and reported a strong current. The ruler then sailed with a larger fleet, appointed Musa as his deputy, and never returned. Musa kept the throne. Al-Umari is the only source for the voyage; no other Arabic writer or West African oral tradition records it^†. Ibn Khaldun names Musa's predecessor as Muhammad, son of Qu; the name "Abu Bakr II" comes from a 19th-century mistranslation. Some historians suspect Musa seized power and used the voyage to explain the empty throne^†. The succession after Musa was also contested. His son Magha succeeded him first, then Musa's brother Sulayman. Ibn Battuta reached Sulayman's capital on 28 June 1352 and left on 27 February 1353. During his stay Sulayman imprisoned his chief wife, the qasa, a title rather than a name, and accused her of plotting with a royal relative. After Sulayman died around 1360, his son Qasa ruled about nine months before a civil war brought Mari Jata II, son of Magha, to power^†. Musa appears on the 1375 Catalan Atlas, now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.