The Timbuktu Manuscripts

Discovery of Timbuktu Manuscripts puts an end to Western "Songs and Dance Theory" of African People. Greatest Find Since Dead-Sea Scrolls.





The Timbuktu manuscripts are a symbolic representation of the impact and influence of the early schools and universities ( XII-XVIth century) that existed in West Africa ( Timbuktu-Gao-Djenné-Kano). However, the manuscripts that remain in Timbuktu are only part of the intellectual heritage of West Africa. Many other manuscripts can be found in other locations in West Africa.

There are 700,000 manuscripts in Timbuktu and surroundings.

These manuscripts represent a turning point in the history of Africa and its people. The translation and publication of the manuscripts of Timbuktu will restore self-respect, pride, honor and dignity to the people of Africa and those descended from Africa; it will also obliterate the stereo-typical images of Tarzan and primitive savages as true representation of Africa and its civilization.

The manuscripts of Timbuktu are a living testimony of the highly advanced and refined civilization in Africa during the Middle Ages.

Before the European Renaissance, Timbuktu flourished as the greatest academic and commercial center in Africa. Great empires such as Ghana, Mali, and Songhai were proofs of the talents, creativity and ingenuity of the African people. The University of Timbuktu produced both Black African scholars and leaders of the highest rank, character and nobility.

Around the 12th century, the University of Timbuktu had an attendance of 25,000 students in a city which had a population of over 100,000 people.

The manuscripts of Timbuktu cover diverse subjects such as mathematics, chemistry, physics, optics, astronomy, medicine, Islamic sciences, history, geography,  government legislation and treaties, jurisprudence and much more.

From the 10th century and onward, Timbuktu became an important port where goods from West Africa and North Africa were traded.

Goods coming from Mediterranean shores and salt were traded in Timbuktu for gold. The prosperity of the city attracted both black scholars, blacks merchants and Arabs traders from North Africa. Salt, books and gold were very much in demand at that time. Salt was came from Tegaza in the north, gold, from the immense gold mines of the Boure and Banbuk and books, were the refined work of the black scholars and scholars of the Sanhaja descent.

In fact, Leo Africanus, a historian of the XVIth century wrote about Timbuktu:

''There are many judges, doctors and clerics here, all receiving good salaries from King Askia Muhammad of the State of Songhay. He pays great respect to men of learning. There is a great demand for books, and more profit is made from the trade in books than from any other line of business.”

The manuscripts provide a written testimony to the skill of African scientists, in astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, medicine and climatology in the Middle Ages.

The manuscripts point to the fact that Africa has a rich legacy of written history, contrary to popular opinion that oral tradition alone has preserved its heritage. This is important, given that written records are believed to be such crucial markers of civilisation.

By the 12th century, Timbuktu became a celebrated center of Islamic learning and a commercial establishment. Timbuktu had three universities and 180 Quranic schools. These universities were the Sankore University, Jingaray Ber University and Sidi Yahya University.

This was the golden age of Africa.

Books were not only written in Timbuktu, but they were also imported and copied there. There was an advanced local book copying industry in the city. The universities and private libraries contained unparalleled scholarly works. The famous scholar of Timbuktu Ahmad Baba who was among those forcibly exiled in Morocco claimed that his library of 1600 books had been plundered, and that his library, according to him, was one of the smaller in the city.


Sankore University


Restoration of the Manuscripts

South African involvement
South Africa came onto the scene when President Thabo Mbeki offered help to the Malian government to preserve the ancient scripts during a state visit in 2001. The two countries have now launched a trust fund to elicit funds from the public to preserve the continent's heritage.

An estimated R36-million is needed over a five-year period, both to upgrade the Ahmed Baba Centre and to finance the building of a new library equipped with the necessary technology to preserve the manuscripts.

The Timbuktu Manuscripts have been earmarked as the first official cultural project of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad), the socio-economic revival plan of the African Union. They have also become a South African Presidential Project, co-ordinated by the Presidency and the Department of Arts and Culture, through the National Archives in Pretoria.

South Africa is now sharing with Mali its own technical expertise on preserving ancient documents. According to project leader Dr Graham Dominy of the National archives, four Malians have just finished part of the  training process.

Interesting stuff really.

I understand that after it's decline, many europeans such as the man, Mungo Park, believed to have 'discovered' the river Niger came in search of Timbuctu's fabled riches. I wonder why little is spoken of this city and the era in Africa's history, which it represents. One can blame our writers whose role as the custodians of history must not be ignored. Other peoples would have come up with loads of writings and scripts (both fictional and non-fictional) aimed at engraving Timbuctu in our minds, so that it's history, culture and all that it represents is not lost to the future generations, and that it is not just associated with 'remoteness' and 'lack of civilisation' as it is today.

The other day, there was a programme on TV where a young Caucasian American gentleman came searching for the trail of Timbuctu's gold. The trail took him to Morocco where it is believed a lot of the gold was cartered to after the city was finally destroyed by the Arabs, where he found some gold coins in a jewellers shop that were said to be from Timbuctu. The young man, however acknowleged that Timbuctu's greatest treasure must have been it's books, hidden away in an attempt to save them by those who valued them. Many many thousands of treasures now left to decay, gradually under the sands of the ever encroaching sahara.

Sad isn't it, the way we allow our valuable things to be violated, discarded and then forgotten.

That is the image outsiders want to retain of africa. And unfortunately, it is the image most of us 'sub saharan' africans have internalised about ourselves. That's why many of us seem so eager to treat the Caucasian and other lighter skinned peoples, as superiors, only to turn round and continue to hold ourselves down with the iron clutches of the rabid tribalism manifest in forums such as this one and in the political discourse of most african nations. A culture which only leaves us vulnerable to the 'altruistic' outsiders who are only to willing to come to our 'aid'. Sad, i say.