Ideas as well as goods were exchanged at Jenne and, with its trading partner Timbuktu 220 miles to the north, the city became an important site of Islamic religion and scholarship. The city's first Islamic king, Koi Konboro, constructed its first Great Mosque, of adobe, in the thirteenth century. Although the original structure no longer stands, a remarkable adobe mosque was rededicated in its place around 1906–7.

Because of its strategic location as a trading crossroads, the Inland Niger Delta has been contested and conquered by a succession of empires throughout its long history, including the Mali empire, the Songhai empire, the Bambara of the Segu kingdom, the theocratic Fulani state of Cheikou Amadou, the Tukulor empire, and finally the French in 1893. The country of Mali achieved independence from colonial rule on September 22, 1960.

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