It retraces the entire history of the Songhai Empire until its demise at the hands of the army of the Sultan of Morocco (the Almoravids) in the 16th century. The Tarikh al-fattash manuscript by Mahmoud Kati is a 17th-century copy of a historical reference work. In this blog post, I share why the Timbuktu manuscripts and the writings of African Muslims who were enslaved in America – like Omar Ibn Said and Ibrahim Sori are important to my artistic practice, and why they are an important opportunity for all of us to learn more about ourselves (especially Black people and Muslims) from those who came before us. “Central to the heritage of Mali, they (the Timbuktu manuscripts) represent the long legacy of written knowledge and academic excellence in Africa.” Dr Abdel Kader Haidara, Timbuktu Librarian As an artist who works with archives relating the Black Muslim heritage especially, this is truly exciting for me! There was a world that still persists – where African people like Omar Ibn Said – an African scholar, and Ibrahim Sori – an African prince wrote their own ideas and documented their own history in non-European languages. These ideas, innovations and histories are documented in over 40,000 Timbuktu African manuscripts dating as early as the 11th century and have been digitally preserved and made available to the public for the first time this year. The other is just the kind of vandalism that goes with uneducated barbarians that I have seen these people to be.There was a world before European enslavers came into contact with West Africa and abducted thousands of Africans from their homeland to enslave them in America. You know, we're getting out of here, let's do maximum damage to whatever we can in the city. So there must have been destruction of the building out of spite. They talk of legal issues, social history of the region you have basic mathematics texts and some fairly advanced scientific text."Īsked about the motivation for destroying the library, Jeppie said: "The most beautifully illustrated and illuminated are the old Qurans," he told Morning Edition, adding that there were also "prayers and grammar, and text that would've been used in the educational system in the informal classes held at the feet of teachers and so on. Shamil Jeppie, who teaches at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, was familiar with the library's contents. Kuwait and South Africa are among the countries that have contributed funds to the building, and a new structure was completed just four years ago. Many are from the 14th to the 16th centuries and were written in Arabic. The institute, which was established in 1973, held some 20,000 manuscripts. They imposed their rigid interpretation of Islam on the city's residents and had destroyed many cultural and historic sites, include the mausoleums of saints.Īnd in a final act of destruction, they set fire to the Ahmed Baba Institute, a library and research center that housed ancient texts, including Qurans and other Islamic works, dating back to the 13th century. The Islamist fighters took control of Timbuktu and much of northern Mali last spring. The mayor was in Mali's capital, Bamako, but was preparing to return to his home city after the Islamist radicals fled Timbuktu in the face of advancing French troops who are assisting Mali's government. They are close to my heart, and they belong to the whole world," the mayor said. They are documents about Islam, history, geography, botany, poetry. "These priceless manuscripts are my identity, they're my history. The mayor of Timbuktu, Halle Ousmane Cisse, summed up his feelings in an interview with NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton on Morning Edition: These photos from Timbuktu, Mali, on Tuesday confirmed what many had feared: Ancient books and texts at a famed library were torched by Islamic radicals before they fled. 31: New reports from Timbuktu indicate that " most manuscripts were saved."
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