Timbuktu Manuscripts: A Treasure Hidden from Grip of French Occupiers in Africa
In a report, the Arabic Post elaborated on this heritage. According to the report, Sultan Songai Askiya Muhammad, known as ‘Askiya the Great’, was the ruler of the Islamic Empire of Songai on the west coast of Africa at the end of the 15th century, which was one of the most prosperous Islamic regions in history.
There are some 400,000 manuscripts by hundreds of authors on the sciences of the Quran, mathematics, astronomy, and astrology found in the Timbuktu heritage. These are among the most important historical documents that form an important part of the heritage of human, Arabic, and Islamic written knowledge.
If it were not for the personal efforts of the inhabitants of Timbuktu who preserved these documents from extinction during the French occupation and from modern-day looting, the valuable Timbuktu manuscripts, archived by renowned international institutions such as UNESCO and whose contents are studied by European universities, would not have survived to this day.
Timbuktu lies on an ancient trade route where salt from North Africa was exchanged for gold and slaves from sub-Saharan Africa. According to popular legend, the name Timbuktu means "Well of Boko," a Tuareg woman for whom the place is named. The site was once a stopover for several Tuareg tribes passing through on their summer and winter journeys.
Timbuktu, along with Wolat and Shanguit in Mauritania, were the most important Islamic capitals and caravan stations in West Africa during a period when caravans were laden with dates, salt, cloth, books, gold, silk, ostrich feathers, and other desert goods.
The city flourished in the 16th century as an Islamic center of learning and home to clerics, judges, and writers.
The city then became a vibrant center for trade, science, knowledge, and Sufism, and was called the ‘City of 333 Righteous Saints’.
In addition to being a trading city, Timbuktu was also known as a city of learning, with a population of over 100,000, many of whom were writers and scholars.
The ruling dynasties came and went, but the country maintained its position until the arrival of the French colonialists at the end of the 18th century. The people resisted the French colonial rule fiercely, led by Muhammad Ali al-Ansari, nicknamed Anquna, who was martyred in 1897 while facing the fire of the French invaders.
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During the French occupation, Timbuktu and its inhabitants suffered from the brutality of French soldiers, who targeted the strong spirit of resistance shown by the city’s inhabitants against foreign invasion. The French also targeted libraries and manuscript collections, stealing many of Timbuktu’s Islamic works and manuscripts and transferring them to French libraries.
Due to the French occupation of Mali, most educated people in the country studied in French and did not speak Arabic, so these manuscripts were ignored by the country’s educated class.
However, some families in the city hid the manuscripts from the French as best they could, preventing them from being lost. When Mali was liberated from French occupation in 1960, these families were able to put the manuscripts on public display in private libraries.
These libraries contained approximately 400,000 manuscripts of scientific and religious texts in Arabic and other local languages, most of which were written in Arabic script.
Over the following decades, Timbuktu became increasingly popular with Western tourists, due to media publicity that Western tourism agencies exploited to portray the city as a city of wonders.
Due to the high demand for this historic city, the city’s first airport was built in the mid-1990s, increasing its tourism potential. The city also boasted several modern hotels, and these manuscripts and their contents were later taken into consideration.
UNESCO declared Timbuktu a World Heritage Site in 1990, recognizing its importance as a place of African architecture and its scientific and intellectual past.
The South African-Mali Manuscripts Project officially began in 2003 and has made significant achievements, most notably the new library building inaugurated in Timbuktu in January 2009 to properly preserve and archive the manuscripts.
Google has digitally archived over 40,000 Timbuktu manuscripts, and the originals are a priceless treasure trove. Some Timbuktu manuscripts are written in gold, such as those in the Imam al-Suyuti Library, one of the most important libraries in Timbuktu.
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The library houses valuable manuscripts, including a 16th-century copy of the Holy Quran, written in pure gold and considered a very rare copy. The oldest manuscripts in the library date back to the 12th century.
In addition to a rare astronomical manuscript explaining eclipses and the Earth’s rotation around the Sun, the library also contains manuscripts on mathematics, history, medicine, and philosophy. The vast number of manuscripts covers topics ranging from philosophy to economics, medicine, agriculture, astronomy, mathematics, and religion.
In addition to revealing how thinkers interpreted the political and social environment, the content of these books also describes everyday life, such as how to treat diseases and do business.
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