Main Body
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Cynthia Smith; Charlotte Miller; and Mieko Matsumoto
INTRODUCTION
DISCOVERY
Archeological discoveries in the African continent continue to challenge and revise our understanding of human history. The recent recovery of hundreds of thousands of written documents dating back to the heyday of the famed city of Timbuktu have provided new insights into Islamic and African history. An influential center of trade and scholarship during the Mali and Songhai Empires (13th–17th centuries), Timbuktu was home to a university, libraries and museums. Students from across Africa and the broader Islamic world came to this famed city to pursue Islamic studies, as well as learn about sciences, law, politics and philosophy; Timbuktu was the African counterpart to the famed university towns of Oxford and Cambridge. Scholars, mosques, and wealthy families maintained libraries, and centuries later many manuscripts remained in family hands, scattered throughout the region, in some cases secreted away. Written in an archaic form of Arabic illegible to most, knowledge contained in these manuscripts was effectively lost to the world.
In the 1990s, a concerted effort was made to recover and preserve these manuscripts, as well as make them more accessible. Thousands of recovered and translated documents housed in the Ahmed Baba Institute of Higher Islamic Studies and Research represented a vast reservoir of new knowledge that transformed historical understanding. But then Mali’s ancient manuscripts were again threatened in 2012 by political and cultural violence; the city of Timbuktu and surrounding regions were overrun by militant al-Qaeda jihadists intent on imposing a repressive, intolerant form of Islamic rule. Music and other cultural practices were banned, and artifacts and ancient writings deemed ‘pagan’ were destroyed. These documents were under threat despite the fact many were related to ancient Islamic learning. The potential loss of these manuscripts was prevented by individuals who risked harsh punishment, smuggling archived documents out of Timbuktu via car, donkey or boat, to be taken to a safer haven in the city of Bamako. An estimated 200,000 priceless historical records were saved, including Medieval era works on medicine, astronomy, astrology, mathematics, politics and governance, history, physics, law and jurisprudence, poetry, literature, commerce, and social issues such as slavery and the treatment of women and children. These records enhance our understanding of historic Islamic and West African cultures; they also contain and convey influences and ideas brought by travelers from across Africa, Europe and Asia and their impact. Currently, a digitization project is underway, translating these works into English, French, Spanish and modern Arabic, to further increase preservation and accessibility. These writings deeply enrich comprehension of Islamic culture in the Medieval era, with treatises emphasizing religious piety and cultural pride,