About Timbuktu

7/28/2019 About Timbuktu

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About Timbuktu | Early History | Mansa Moussa | Golden AgeInvasion to Independence | Threats to Timbuktu | Bibliography

Timbuktu, Mali: Intellectual and Spiritual CapitalFew places in the world have an air of mystery as alluring asTimbuktu. The name of this city in the West African country of

Mali is so wrapped in legend that many people think of Timbuktuas a mythical, timeless land rather than a city with a real history.

In many cultures, Timbuktu is used in phrases to express greatdistance and to suggest something beyond a person'sexperience. Popular sayings such as "I'll knock you clear toTimbuktu" suggest that, for many people, Timbuktu has existedmore as an idea of the remote and mysterious than as an actualplace.

For West Africans, however, Timbuktu was an economic andcultural capital equal in historical importance to acclaimed citieslike Rome, Athens, Jerusalem, and Mecca. Beginning in the

thirteenth century, Timbuktu became the center of a thrivingtrade in Africa. Prosperity made by the trans-Saharan traderoutes brought great wealth to the city. This wealth attracted notonly merchants and traders but also men of academic andreligious learning.

Timbuktu was founded around 1100 C.E. as a camp for itsproximity to the Niger River. Caravans quickly began to haul saltfrom mines in the Sahara Desert to trade for gold and slavesbrought along the river from the south. By 1330, Timbuktu waspart of the powerful Mali Empire, which controlled the lucrativegold-salt trade routes in the region. Two centuries later,Timbuktu reached its grandeur under the Songhay Empire,

becoming a haven for scholars.

Photo Credits:top: C. & J. Lenars/CORBISbottom: UNESCO

From the early part of the fourteenth century to the time of theMoroccan invasion in the late sixteenth century, the city ofTimbuktu became an important intellectual and spiritual center ofthe Islamic world, attracting people from as far away as SaudiArabia to study there. Great mosques, universities, schools, andlibraries were built under the Mali and Songhay Empires, someof which still stand today.

Timbuktu's golden age ended in the late sixteenth century, whena Moroccan army destroyed the Songhay Empire. Portuguesenavigators ensured Timbuktu's decline by establishing reliable

trade with the West African coast and undercutting the city'scommercial power. Around 400 years ago, European merchantships began trading along the West African coast, and the cross-Saharan trade routes lost their importance. Having lost thesource of its wealth, Timbuktu declined and became known as alost city.

Today, the very fabric of Timbuktu today is threatened by whatonce contributed to the city's successthe Sahara Desert. The


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desert, which for centuries brought wealth to the city, now bringsonly drifting sands, driven by the dry wind of the harmattan, thatthreaten to smother the city and its monuments. Thisdesertification has destroyed the vegetation, water supply, andmany historical structures in the city. In response to the threat ofencroachment by desert sands, Timbuktu was inscribed on the

World Heritage List in Danger in 1990 and UNESCO establisheda conservation program to safeguard the city.


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From Trading Post to Commercial EmpireAround 1100 C.E., a Tuareg woman called Buktu the settledTimbuktu as a seasonal camp. Grazing her herds and flocksduring the dry season not far from the Niger River, shediscovered an oasis and decided to set up a tented camp anddig a well there. Very soon, the little seasonal camp, calledTimbuktu (literally Buktu's well) became an important stop forother nomads as well as the caravans travelling along the trans-Saharan route.

Although the Tuaregs founded Timbuktu, it was merchants whoset up markets and built fixed dwellings in the town to establishthe site as a meeting place for people travelling by camel. Thecaravan trade had existed long before the founding of Timbuktu.Most likely by around 400 B.C., Berbermiddlemen had alreadyestablished early trans-Saharan trade routes between West andNorth Africa. Three hundred years later the trade expanded withthe growing use of camels in place of horses and donkeys.


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Towards the end of the first millennium C.E., the West Africankingdom of Ghana, the region's first great empire, had organizedand taken control of the long-distance trade of gold and salt,along with slaves and valuable goods such as kola nuts. Fromthe north, thousands of camels in caravans carried salt fromdeposits to the city where merchants would transport it down the

Niger to other parts of Africa. At the same time, goodsthe mostimportant being goldcame along the river from the south. Inancient Africa, salt was sometimes worth more than gold!

Photo Credits:

UNESCO

Although the Tuaregs founded Timbuktu in the early twelfthcentury, they were nomads who kept only loose control over thecity. As the town became increasingly important to the gold andsalt trades, it was captured from the Tuaregs and brought underthe reign of the Mali Empire, the second great West Africankingdom, and the first great Muslim kingdom, in the Sudan.Timbuktu, which began as a modest Tuareg trading post,eventually developed into a major trading center that connectedNorth Africa with West Africa.

Trade routes on the African continent transported more than justgoods like salt and gold. With the commercial trade came theexchange of religious ideas. Islam was introduced to West Africaby Arab merchants travelling along the Saharan caravan routesin the early ninth century and gradually influenced West Africathrough the migration of Muslim merchants, scholars, andsettlers.

By trading with North Africa, the states of West Africa becameimportant players in the activities of the region, since it was theywho provided the gold on which so many countries depended.Without losing their own African character, these states

eventually became part of the Islamic world.




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Mansa Moussa: Pilgrimage of GoldIn 1312 Mansa Moussa, the most legendary of the Malian kings,came to the throne. Mansa Moussa was a devout Muslim whobuilt magnificent mosques throughout his empire in order tospread the influences of Islam. During his reign, Timbuktubecame one of the major cultural centers of not only Africa but ofthe entire Islamic world.

When Mansa Moussa came to power, the Mali Empire alreadyhad firm control of the trade routes to the southern lands of goldand the northern lands of salt. Under Moussa's reign, the gold-salt trade across the Sahara came to focus ever more closely onTimbuktu. The city's wealth, like that of many towns involved in

the trans-Saharan trade route, was based largely on the trade ofgold, salt, ivory, kola nuts, and slaves.

Mansa Moussa expanded Mali's influence across Africa bybringing more lands under the empire's control, including the cityof Timbuktu, and by enclosing a large portion of the westernSudan within a single system of trade and law. This was a hugepolitical feat that made Moussa one of the greatest statesmen inthe history of Africa. Under Moussa's patronage, the city ofTimbuktu grew in wealth and prestige, and became a meetingplace of the finest poets, scholars, and artists of Africa and theMiddle East.

Mansa Moussa brought the Mali Empire to the attention of therest of the Muslim world with his famous pilgrimage to Mecca in1324. He arrived in Cairo at the head of a huge caravan, whichincluded 60,000 people and 80 camels carrying more than twotons of gold to be distributed among the poor. Of the 12,000servants who accompanied the caravan, 500 carried staffs ofpure gold. Moussa spent lavishly in Egypt, giving away so manygold giftsand making gold so plentifulthat its value fell inCairo and did not recover for a number of years!

In Cairo, the Sultan of Egypt received Moussa with great respect,as a fellow Muslim. The splendor of his caravan caused asensation and brought Mansa Moussa and the Mali Empire fame

throughout the Arab world. Mali had become so famous by thefourteenth century that it began to draw the attention ofEuropean mapmakers. In one map, produced in 1375, Moussa isshown seated on a throne in the center of West Africa, holding anugget of gold in his right hand.


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Photo Credits:(top to bottom)1. E. Condominas/UNESCO2. Nik Wheeler/CORBIS3. C. & J. Lenars/CORBIS

After visiting the holy cities of Mecca and Medina on hispilgrimage, Moussa set out to build great mosques, vast libraries,and madrasas (Islamic universities) throughout his kingdom.Many Arab scholars, including the poet and architect, Abu-IshaqIbrahim-es-Saheli, who helped turn Timbuktu into a famous cityof Islamic scholarship, returned with him.

Moussa had always encouraged the development of learningand the expansion of Islam. In the early years of his reign,Moussa had sent Sudanese scholars to study at Moroccanuniversities. By the end of his reign, Sudanese scholars weresetting up their own centers of learning in Timbuktu.

He commissioned Abu-Ishaq Ibrahim-es-Saheli to construct hisroyal palace and a great mosque, the Djingareyber Mosque, atTimbuktu. Still standing today, the Djingareyber Mosque consistsof nine rows of square pillars and provides prayer space for2,000 people. Es-Saheli introduced the use of burnt brick andmud as a building material to this region. The Djingareyber's

mud construction established a 660-year-old tradition that stillpersists: each year before the torrential rains fall in the summer,Timbuktu's residents replaster the mosque's high walls and flatroof with mud. The Djingareyber Mosque immediately becamethe central mosque of the city, and it dominates Timbuktu to thisday.

During Moussa's reign Timbuktu thrived as a commercial centerand flourished into a hub of Islamic learning. Even after the MaliEmpire lost control over the region in the fifteenth century,Timbuktu remained the major Islamic center of sub-SaharanAfrica.






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The Songhay Empire: The Golden Age of TimbuktuAs Timbuktu enjoyed unprecedented success under Moussa,another developing West African kingdom, the Songhay Empire,

was increasing its influence over the western Sudan. In about1464, King Sonni Ali Bercame to the Songhay throne. An ableand ambitious ruler, he sent his army to capture the valuable cityof Timbuktu in 1468.

In spite of his political achievements, Sonni Ali Ber was not apopular ruler. Although he was a Muslim, he distrusted andmistreated Islamic scholars and did not support the intellectuallife of Timbuktu. A few months after the king's death, one of hisgenerals seized the throne, with the support of the people. Thegeneral was a devout Muslim called Mohamed Toure, and hetook the title of Askia, becoming known as Askia Mohamed.

Askia Mohamed's first ambition was to establish a state and astable government for the empire. Unlike his predecessor, AskiaMohamed took full advantage of the scholars centered inTimbuktu and used them as advisors on legal and ethicalmatters. Under his reign, religion and learning once againassumed a primary place in the Songhay Empire.

Leo Africanus, a famous traveler and writer who visited Timbuktuduring the reign of Askia Mohamed, wrote the following of thecity's intellectual life: "In Timbuktu there are numerous judges,doctors and clerics, all receiving good salaries from the king. Hepays great respect to men of learning. There is a big demand forbooks in manuscript, imported from Barbary. More profit is made

from the book trade than from any line of business."

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UnderAskia Mohamed's rule, scholarship and Islam were once againrevered and supported, ushering in a new era of stability that ledto Timbuktu's sixteenth-century golden age.

Askia Mohamed had created the largest and the wealthiest of allthe kingdoms of the Sudan. He had a well-administered state,probably the most highly organized of all the African states. Witha stable and efficient government and with the support of theMuslim scholars, religious leaders, and traders, Askia Mohamedhad made Songhay a great trading empire and a center ofMuslim scholarship and learning.


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Photo Credits:

(top to bottom)1. Nik Wheeler/CORBIS2. M. Kone/UNESCO3. C. & J. Lenars/CORBIS

Scholars from all over the Islamic world came to the University ofSankore (as well as the city's over 180 madersas) wherecourses as varied as theology, Islamic law, rhetoric, andliterature were taught. The university was housed in the SankoreMosque built with a remarkably large pyramidal mihrab in thedeclining years of the Mali Empire. The university, one of the first

in Africa, became so famous that scholars came to it from allover the Muslim world. At this period in African history, theUniversity of Sankore was the educational capital of the westernSudan, where 25,000 students studied a rigorous academicprogram.

In the book, Timbuctoo the Mysterious, French author FelixDubois describes the intellectual accomplishments of the ancientAfrican university: "The scholars of Timbuctoo yielded in nothing,to the saints in the sojourns in the foreign universities of Fez,Tunis, and Cairo. They astounded the most learned men of Islamby their erudition. That these Negroes were on a level with theArabian savants is proved by the fact that they were installed as

professors in Morocco and Egypt. In contrast to this, we find thatArabs were not always equal to the requirements of Sankore." 2As a center of intellectual achievement, Timbuktu earned a placenext to Cairo and other leading North African cities.

1Davidson, Basil. The Lost Cities of Africa. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), p. 93.

2Dubois, Felix. Timbuctoo the Mysterious. (London: W. Heinemann, 1897), p. 285.






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Five Hundred Years of Instability: From Invasion toIndependenceThe wealth and power of Songhay had been the envy ofneighboring Morocco for some time. In 1590, El Mansur, thepowerful and ambitious sultan of Morocco, decided that hewanted control of the West African gold trade badly enough to

send his army all the way across the Sahara to attack theSonghay Empire. The spears and swords of the Songhaywarriors were no match for the cannons and muskets of theMoroccan army. The Moroccan invasion destroyed the SonghayEmpire. It contributed, along with such other phenomenon as thegrowing Atlantic trade, to the decline of the trade routes that hadbrought prosperity to the region for hundreds of years.

Continuous Moroccan raids emptied the schools at Timbuktu ofteachers and students. Trade routes fell under local control anddeteriorated beyond recovery. The Moroccans took Timbuktu in1591 and ruled over the city until about 1780, supervising itsultimate decline. During the early nineteenth century, Timbuktu

passed into the hands of a variety West African groups, includingthe Tuaregs and the Bamabra who founded the BamabraKingdom of Sgou farther to the south. In the late nineteenthcentury, as European powers invaded parts of Africa, Frenchcolonizers took over the city.

Before European explorers reached Timbuktu, the city wasknown mainly through a myth that beyond the vast andinhospitable Sahara stood a great city covered in gold. It was aplace, people said, where gold was as common as sand andwhere wealth, beauty, and culture combined to create a greatcivilization. European rulers spread this myth to encourageexplorers to fulfill Europe's economic ambitions for West Africa,

which was producing two-thirds of the world's gold supply. Thefact that before the nineteenth century no European had survivedthe journey to Timbuktu only helped secure its reputation as alegendary place of wonder and wealth. By the sixteenth century,Timbuktu had become legendary in the European imagination,representing all the wealth of Africa.

Many European explorers had been trying to reach the fabledcity of Timbuktu since the sixteenth century, most of them dyingalong the way. Getting to Timbuktu alive was nearly animpossible feat that involved crossing the brutal Sahara twiceand putting one's life in continual danger from heat, disease,thirst, and hostile desert nomads. By 1824, however, a race to

reach Timbuktu, fueled by growing interest in colonizing Africa,had begun.


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Photo Credits:(top to bottom)1. Wolfgang Kaehler/CORBIS2. Wolfgang Kaehler/CORBIS

3. UNESCO

The Geographical Society of Paris had offered a prize of 10,000francs to the first explorer who could bring back accurateinformation about the fabled city. Despite the dangers, manyadventurous and ambitious young men jumped at the opportunityto influence world geography and win the big reward. RnCailli, a French wine clerk by trade, was the first to reach

Timbuktu alive. Disguised as an Arab he arrived on April 19,1828 only to be disappointed by the fallen city he discovered.

Rather than finding golden palaces and markets overflowing withtreasure, Cailli found a desolate town on the edge of the desert,without a trace of visible wealth. "I had a totally different idea ofthe grandeur and wealth of Timbuctoo," he wrote. "The citypresented, at first site, nothing but a mass of ill-looking houses,built of earth. Nothing was to be seen in all directions, butimmense quicksands of yellowish white colourthe mostprofound silence prevailed."3

By the eighteenth century, the once flourishing trans-Saharan

trade was greatly diminished, due in part to a shift of the goldand slave trade to the new European trading stations establishedon the West African coast. Despite Timbuktu's economic decline,the intellectual and spiritual life of the city continued to thrive.When the French colonized the region over fifty years afterCailli's arrival, two dozen scholastic centers still flourished inTimbuktu.

It was not until more than seventy years later that West Africansgained their emancipation from colonial control. Since 1960,Timbuktu has been part of the independent Republic of Mali, itslandscape and monuments still standing in affirmation of thecity's golden age and powerful cultural heritage.

3Cailli, Rn. Travels through Central Africa to Timbuctoo. (London: H. Colburn & R.

Bentley, 1830), vol. II, p. 49.





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Threats to the Survival of TimbuktuToday, Timbuktu may still appear to be the disheveled town thatCailli reached, but its great mosques and private libraries standas testimony to the city's past glory. From its past only a few,rare architectural vestiges have survived Timbuktu's troubledhistory. The religious monuments of Timbuktu, including themagnificent Djingareyber and Sankore mosques, played anessential role in the diffusion of Islam in Africa as centers ofreligious practice and academic study and remain the essentialelements of reference to the past. Since Timbuktu's inclusion onthe World Heritage List in Danger in 1990, UNESCO and theMalian government have worked to protect these preciousmonuments from the harsh desert environment.

Possibly the most precious legacy of Timbuktu is the survivingmanuscripts from its ancient libraries. The collection of ancientmanuscripts at the University of Sankore attests to themagnificence of the institution and the achievements of scholarsthat studied and taught there. The libraries of Timbuktu grewthrough a process of hand-copying. Scholars requested thatlearned travelers permit their books to be copied, and studentshand-copied texts borrowed from their mentor's collections,studying the material as they reproduced it.

Photo Credits:top: Wolfgang Kaehler/CORBISbottom: UNESCO

At the height of the city's golden age, Timbuktu boasted not onlythe impressive libraries of Sankore and other mosques, but also

the wealth of private ones. For centuries, local families havebeen gathering and preserving religious texts, trade contracts,legal decrees, and diplomatic notes exchanged among rulers ofthe region. In closets and chests throughout the southernSahara, thousands of books from Timbuktu's ancient librariesare hidden, their disintegration delayed by the dry desert air yetthreatened by insects and the annual humidity of rainy seasons.

In 1974, the Malian government received both Arab funding andhelp from UNESCO to open the Ahmed Baba Center, namedafter a fifteenth-century Timbuktu scholar, for gathering thesevaluable manuscripts. The center, a simple building, now keeps14,000 volumes reasonably secure but cannot yet afford much inthe way of scientific preservation. Continued efforts to preserveTimbuktu's ancient manuscripts and monuments will help the cityto remain a bold symbol of Africa's great spiritual and intellectualaccomplishments.



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Photo Credit:Wolfgang Kaehler/CORBIS

BibliographyCailli, Rn. Travels Through Central Africa to Timbuctoo; andAcross the Great Desert to Morocco Performed in the Years1824 1828. Colburn and Bentley, 1830.

Davidson, Basil. Africa in History. Simon&Schuster, TouchstoneBooks, 1996.

The Lost Cities of Africa. Little, Brown, 1970.

West Africa Before the Colonial Era: A Historyto 1850. Addison Wesley Longman, 1998.

Dubois, Felix. Timbuctoo the Mysterious. (Trans. Diane White),Heinemann, 1897.

Gardner, Brian. The Quest for Timbuktu. Cassell, 1968.

Jackson, John G. Introduction to African Civilizations. CitadelPress, 1994.

Shillington, Kevin. History of Africa. St. Martin's Press, 1995.

Shinnie, Margaret. Ancient African Kingdoms. Edward Arnold,1965.



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