The Brave Librarians of Timbuktu

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 West African proverb

Ever hear the expression “from here to Timbuktu”? People use the word “Timbuktu” to mean a faraway, remote, and possibly mythical place. But not only is it a real city in the north of Mali, it was once the crossroads of the world. Hundreds of years ago, caravans passed through Timbuktu, trading gold, salt, and other goods between the Middle East and Morocco. Timbuktu became a city of wealth, not just in material riches, but also in learning and ideas.

Until recently, many people, even some scholars, believed that Africa had no written language until the arrival of the European colonizers. But Timbuktu proves that to be false. While Europe was still in the Middle Ages, the scholars of Timbuktu created hundreds of thousands of manuscripts in beautiful calligraphy (decorative handwriting) that discuss every possible subject: astronomy, poetry, mathematics, medicine, botany, religion, law, politics, and history. These manuscripts, which date back to the 1100s, are fragile and written on dried animal skins. The residents of Timbuktu guarded them in their homes for centuries.

In 2012, their existence was threatened by an invading group of jihadis (jee-hah-dees), warriors from a branch of Al Qaeda, the group responsible for the 9/11 attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center in 2001. They set fire to 4,200 manuscripts they found. But thanks to a brave group of librarians and their helpers, all the other manuscripts, 377,000 in total, were evacuated to safety.

Timbuktu lies in a region called the Sahel, which means “shore.” It’s a band of land along the south border of the Sahara Desert, which people thought of as a sea, a sea of sand. The Sahel is a crossroads of ethnic groups. Because Timbuktu sat on the great trading route, scientists, poets, philosophers, and engineers gathered there to exchange and debate ideas. Teachers and students met in the mosques to learn and debate, and together these mosques became one of the world’s first universities. Of the 100,000 people who lived in Timbuktu in the 1600s, one-quarter were students. Everyone could read, including women, children, and enslaved people.

Eventually, Timbuktu was conquered by Morocco and occupied by other civilizations. Trade across Africa declined with the European discovery of America. Timbuktu faded in population, wealth, and importance and was forgotten. But the treasured manuscripts remained in the care of various families.

Abdel Kader Haidara comes from one of those families. His grandfather, a well-known scholar, chose Abdel to take care of all the family’s manuscripts. But Abdel came to see that all the manuscripts of Timbuktu should be collected and placed in a library where they would be stored properly. Many of them were falling apart from water and termite damage.

He raised lots of money and traveled throughout north Mali, asking families if he could buy their manuscripts. He placed them in the newly built Ahmed Baba Institute, named for a great Timbuktu scholar of the 1600s.

In the 2000s, the world began noticing Timbuktu again. This was because of the document collection, which had gained some fame, and because of the new international popularity of the music of the Sahel. The annual Festival in the Desert drew musicians and fans from around the world.

But when Al Qaeda overtook all of north Mali in 2012, they enforced a rigid version of Islamic law. Women had to be completely veiled, and no music was allowed on the radio, only recitations of the Quran, the holy book of Islam. It was only a matter of time before they came to destroy the manuscripts, which didn’t fit with Al Qaeda’s idea of Islam.

Haidara assembled a network of librarians and others they could trust. Secretly, at night, careful not to attract the attention of the Islamic police who patrolled the city, he and his team brought hundreds of footlockers to sneak the manuscripts out of the Institute. Then dozens of volunteer drivers, passing through checkpoints manned by police and jihadis with assault rifles, making many dangerous trips back and forth, sneaked them out of north Mali and south to safety in Bamako, the capital.

Every single one of the 377,000 manuscripts made it through safely. Eventually, the French army came to help drive the jihadis out of Mali. Now the manuscripts are digitized  on computers and cataloged so that people around the world will always be able to see them. This drama also brought world attention to the fact that hundreds of years ago, Timbuktu had a tradition of writing and scholarship as rich as anywhere.