Trading with the Arabs didn’t create the Ghana empire, but it certainly made it wealthier. The kings of Ghana taxed gold-salt trade, so they became very rich. During the 700s and later, people called Berbers, who were people who lived on the edge of the Sahara, often traveled, bringing salt south, and gold north. Arab North Americans wanted to make gold coins, and the West African Goldfields had one of the largest supplies of gold. People who lived in West Africa, which was south of the Sahara, did not make enough salt for survival, and often traded with the Berber people. In the end, everyone won. Because of this, Arab merchants would not let anyone pass, The rulers of Ghana and Mali would not Arab or Berber merchant go to the goldfields, and kept the location a secret because they did not wish for competition. There were also scholars and Muslim travelers who went to West Africa. They turned Berbers to Islamic and began to turn other people in West Africa to Islamic too. In the 11th century, Awdaghust was the largest trade city in Ghana. A geographer called al-Bakri told of the massive amounts of gold in the Ghana