Despite the numerous voyages undertaken by the Muslims of Spain and North America, their contact remained limited and fairly secretive. The most significant wave of Muslim explorers and traders came from the West African Islamic Empire of Mali. When Mama Musa, the world renowned ruler of Mali, was en route to Mecca during his famous pilgrimage in 1324, he informed the scholars of Cairo that his predecessor had undertaken two expeditions into the Atlantic Ocean in order to discover its limits, Al 'Umari in his Masalik al Absar fi Mamalik al Amsar reported from his information the following: "I asked the Sultan Musa, says Ibn Amir Hajib, how it war that power came into his hands. 'We are,' he told me 'from a house that transmits power by heritage. The ruler who preceded me would not believe that it was impossible to discover the limits of the neighboring sea. He wanted to Find out and persisted in his plan, he had two hundred ships equipped and filled them with men and others in the same number filled with gold, water and supplies in sufficient quantity to last for years. He told those who commanded them: 'Return only when you have reached the extremity of the ocean, or when you have exhausted your food and water.' They went away; their absence was long before any of them returned. Finally, a sole ship reappeared. We asked the captain about their adventures.'

'Prince,' he replied, we sailed for a long time, up to the moment when we encountered in mid-ocean something like a river with a violent current. My ship war last. the others sailed on and gradually as each one entered this place, they disappeared and did not come back We did not know what had happened to them. As for me I returned to where I was and did not enter the current.'

"But the emperor did not want to believe him. He equipped two thousand vessels, a thousand for himself and the men who accompanied him and a thousand for water and supplies. He conferred power on me and left with his companions on the ocean. This was the last time that I saw him and the others, and I remained absolute master of the empire."

This report reveals that the Manding monarch made great preparation for the journey and had confidence in its success. His captain, who reported the violent river mid-ocean, must have encountered a mid-ocean current. Two voyages across the Atlantic by Thor Heyerdahl in papyrus vessels, inscriptions found in Brazil, Peru and the United States, proven linguistic transfer into native Amerindian languages, and numerous cultural evidences of Manding presence have established the contrary.

The Manding made contact with the closest land mass to the West African coast, Brazil. They appear to have used it as a base for exploration of the Americas and traveled along rivers in the dense jungles of South America and overland till they reached North America.

Many of the Manding cities of stone and mortar have been reclaimed by the jungle but a large number of these cities were seen by the early Spanish explorers and banderiristas (land pirates). One of these banderiristas, a native of Minas Geres, has provided many examples of the Manding script and description of the cities in the interior of Brazil.