Beyond Timbuktu

Timbuktu is famous as a center of learning from Islam’s Golden Age. Yet it was one among many scholarly centers to exist in precolonial West Africa. Ousmane Kane charts the rise of Muslim learning in West Africa from the beginning of Islam to the present day and corrects lingering misconceptions about Africa’s Muslim heritage and its influence.

Timbuktu is famous as a center of learning from Islam’s Golden Age. Yet it was one among many scholarly centers to exist in precolonial West Africa. Ousmane Kane charts the rise of Muslim learning in West Africa from the beginning of Islam to the present day and corrects lingering misconceptions about Africa’s Muslim heritage and its influence.

Describes how a group of Timbuktu librarians enacted a daring plan to smuggle the city's great collection of rare Islamic manuscripts away from the threat of destruction at the hands of Al Qaeda militants to the safety of southern Mali.

With the fabled city of Timbuktu as his goal, author Rick Antonson began a month-long trek. His initial plan? To get a haircut. The second edition of this important book outlines the volatile political situations in Timbuktu following the spring 2012 military coup in Mali and the subsequent capture of the city by Islamic extremists.

Muslims beyond the Arab World explores the tradition of writing African languages using the Arabic script 'Ajami and the rise of the Muridiyya order of Islamic Sufi in Senegal. The book demonstrates how the development of 'Ajami and the flourishing of the Muridiyya are entwined.

Over the course of the last 1400 years, Islam has grown from a small band of followers on the Arabian peninsula into a global religion of over a billion believers. How did this happen? The usual answer is that Islam spread by the sword-believers waged jihad against rival tribes and kingdoms and forced them to convert. Lamin Sanneh argues that this is far from the whole story. Beyond Jihad examines the origin and evolution of the African pacifist tradition in Islam, beginning with an inquiry into the faith's origins and expansion in North Africa and its transmission across trans-Saharan trade routes to West Africa. The book focuses on the ways in which, without jihad, the religion spread and took hold, and what that tells us about the nature of religious and social change. At the heart of this process were clerics who used religious and legal scholarship to promote Islam. Once this clerical class emerged, it offered continuity and stability in the midst of political changes and cultural shifts, helping to inhibit the spread of radicalism, and subduing the urge to wage jihad. With its policy of religious and inter-ethnic accommodation, this pacifist tradition took Islam beyond traditional trade routes and kingdoms into remote districts of the Mali Empire, instilling a patient, Sufi-inspired, and jihad-negating impulse into religious life and practice. Islam was successful in Africa, Sanneh argues, not because of military might but because it was made African by Africans who adapted it to a variety of contexts.

Salt comes from the north, gold from the south, but the word of God and the treasures of wisdom are only to be found in Timbuktu." 15th-century Malian proverb. In a joint project between South Africa and Mali, a library to preserve more than 200 000 Arabic and West African manuscripts dating from the 13th to the 19th centuries is currently under construction. It is the first official cultural project of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad), the socio-economic development plan of the African Union, and when the library is built, the cultural role of Timbuktu will be revived, as it becomes the safehaven for the treasured manuscripts. The manuscripts prove that Africa had a rich legacy of written history, long before western colonisers set foot on the continent. This volume, authored by leading international scholars, begins to sketch the 'meaning' of Timbuktu within the context of the intellectual history of West Africa, in particular, and of the African continent, in general. The book covers four broad areas: Part I provides an introduction to the region; outlines what archaeology can tell us of its history, examines the paper and various calligraphic styles used in the manuscripts; and explains how ancient institutions of scholarship functioned. Part II begins to analyse what the manuscripts can tell us of African history. Part III offers insight into the lives and works of just a few of the many scholars who achieved renown in the region and beyond. Part IV provides a glimpse into Timbuktu's libraries and private collections. Part V looks at the written legacy of the eastern half of Africa, which like that of the western region, is often ignored. A fascinating read for anyone who wishes to gain an understanding of the aura of mystique and legend that surrounds Timbuktu. The Meanings of Timbuktu strives to contextualise and clarify the importance of efforts to preserve Timbuktu's manuscripts for Mali, for Africa and for the intellectual world."--Abstract

The first book for general readers about the storied past of one of the world’s most fabled cities. Timbuktu — the name still evokes an exotic, faraway place, even though the city’s glory days are long gone. Unspooling its history and legends, resolving myth with reality, Marq de Villiers and Sheila Hirtle have captured the splendour and decay of one of humankind’s treasures. Founded in the early 1100s by Tuareg nomads who called their camp “Tin Buktu,” it became, within two centuries, a wealthy metropolis and a nexus of the trans-Saharan trade. Salt from the deep Sahara, gold from Ghana, and money from slave markets made it rich. In part because of its wealth, Timbuktu also became a centre of Islamic learning and religion, boasting impressive schools and libraries that attracted scholars from Alexandria, Baghdad, Mecca, and Marrakech. The arts flourished, and Timbuktu gained near-mythic stature around the world, capturing the imagination of outsiders and ultimately attracting the attention of hostile sovereigns who sacked the city three times and plundered it half a dozen more. The ancient city was invaded by a Moroccan army in 1600, beginning its long decline; since then, it has been seized by Tuareg nomads and a variety of jihadists, in addition to enduring a terrible earthquake, several epidemics, and numerous famines. Perhaps no other city in the world has been as golden — and as deeply tarnished — as Timbuktu. Using sources dating deep into Timbuktu’s fabled past, alongside interviews with Tuareg nomads and city residents and officials today, de Villiers and Hirtle have produced a spectacular portrait that brings the city back to life.