Timbuktu - Fabled African City Of Mystery, Wealth And Romance

posted on: Aug 31, 2016

BY: Habeeb Salloum/Contributing writer

“Have you been to Timbuktu?” my friend asked when I told him that I had travelled to over a hundred countries in a dozen years. Disappointed with myself, I had to respond in the negative. Even though my travel ventures had been many, I had not yet visited that historic fabulous African city of enigma, opulence and romance.

Long associated with mysterious beauty, learning and wealth, this once forbidden town to Europeans, was for centuries a subject of unusual lore and mystery – a place with a near legendary reputation. Tales of that fabled golden city made it, for hundreds of years, the mecca of all the early European explorers. It drew adventurers from that continent who braved mile after mile of burning desert sand, inhabited by hostile tribes, to reach the ultima Thule or El Dorado of desert travellers. Even in our times, the name Timbuktu (also spelled Tombouctou) is still synonymous with travelling to the ends of the earth.

Situated at the most northerly point of the Niger River near the southern edge of the Sahara, this renowned African city is located at the end of ancient trans-Saharan caravan routes, which once criss-crossed that huge desert. The wealth made by the merchants from this trade gave Timbuktu the glamour that fascinated medieval Europe. Yet, due to its geographical position with very little natural protection against invaders, it never became a capital of an African state.

Founded in the 11th century as a seasonal camp for Tuareg nomads, Timbuktu gets its name, according to one legend, from the Berber tim (place of) and Arabic “bouctou” (name of a sand dune)¹. Another story relates that the city’s name is derived from a well, known as Tim which was cared for by an elderly Taureg woman known as Buktu². In the 14th century, under the famous Emperor Mansa Musa, it became an important centre in the Mali Empire for Muslim commerce, scholars and the African gold trade.

After making a historically well-known lavish pilgrimage to Mecca, the Emperor returned back to Timbuktu, bringing with him an Andalusian-Muslim architect-scholar, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim as-Sahili Tuwajjin, who introduced into Mali a new development in architecture, especially in the building of mosques and palaces. In the ensuing centuries, his works influenced architectural styles throughout West Africa³. Burnt bricks, the flat roofs and the pyramidal minaret one sees in West Africa today, are a result of his handiwork⁴. In Timbuktu, the Djingareber (or Djinguereber) Mosque, the oldest surviving house of worship in West Africa, still stands from his time⁵.

The great Moroccan traveller, Ibn Battutah, in the mid 14th century, some 20 years after Mansa Musa’s death, wrote, after visiting Mali, that there was complete security in the country and its people were seldom unjust, having a greater abhorrence of injustice than any other people⁶.

After over a hundred years of being a part of the Empire of Mali, there was some upheaval until, in 1468 Timbuktu was conquered by the armies of the pseudo-Muslim Sunni ^‘Ali, founder of the Songhay Empire. After his death, one of his generals, Muhammad Touré, in 1493, usurped power.

(Askia Muhammad)

Known as Askia Muhammad or ‘Askia the Great’, he ruled until 1529. Unlike Sunni ‘Ali, to show his commitment to Islam, soon after taking power, he set out on a pilgrimage to Mecca with an escort of 500 cavalry, 1000 infantry and carried 300,000 pieces of gold – comparable, but on a much smaller scale, to Mansa Musa’s pilgrimage a century and a half before⁷.

While in Mecca, the Shariff of that holy city invested him with the title ‘Caliph of the Blacks’⁸. This helped him to stabilize his government and expand the Songhay Empire. Under his rule Timbuktu reached its golden age, becoming a fabulous city of learning, trade – especially in gold – and material wealth⁹.

Muslim learned men tended to exaggerate when writing about Askia Muhammad. One scholar compared him to a brilliant light shining after a great darkness and a saviour who drew the servants of God from idolatry and saved the country from ruin¹⁰. No doubt, he was comparing him to his predecessor, Sonni ‘Ali who, being Muslim only in name, persecuted Muslim scholars.

At its peak in the 16th century, Timbuktu was a dynamic city with a population of some 200,000 and was regarded as the economic capital of the western Sudan¹¹. However, some historians dispute the number of inhabitants, claiming the city only had a population of 100,000¹².

In that era, this African metropolis had no equal in the cities of the world. Peace, order and security reigned, commerce boomed and in Timbuktu’s 150 Qur`ranic schools¹³, scholarly activities flourished. The city became a great educational metropolis, shining brightly in the medieval world¹⁴.

The Moroccan traveller, Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan az-Zayyati, better known as Leo Africanus, when visiting Timbuktu during Askia Muhammad’s rule, wrote:

“There are many judges, doctors, and clerics here, all receiving good salaries from the king, Mohamed Askia of the state of Songhay. He pays great respect to men of learning, there is a great demand for books, and more profit is made from the book trade than any other line of business.”¹⁵

For many decades, the University of Sankoré in Timbuktu was the intellectual centre of Africa – famous for the teaching of Islamic law, literature and medicine. With the usual enrolment of some 2,500 students, in its era, it was once one of the largest schools of learning in the world, attracting scholars from all over the Muslim world who either came to teach or to learn¹⁶. Many West African writers and teachers whose names are still remembered and whose books are even today studied, lived and taught in Timbuktu.

From among these countless scholars and chroniclers, a number have left us a detailed chronology of the city. Much of the known history of Timbuktu is due to two of these chronicle-scholars: Mahmud (Mahmoud) Kati (1468-1593) who wrote Tarikh al-Fattash (The Chronicle of the Seeker of Knowledge); and ‘Abd al-Rahman as-Sa’di (1569-1655) who wrote Tarikh al-Sudan (The History of Western Sudan)¹⁷.

Timbuktu’s aura in its time of glory is captured vividly by Mahmud Kati ‘s pen:

“In those days, Timbucktu did not have its equal… from the province of Mali to the extreme limits of the region of the Maghrib (North Africa), for the solidarity of its institutions, its political liberties, the purity of its morals, the security of persons, its consideration and compassion toward foreigners, its courtesy toward students and men of learning, and the financial assistance which it provided for the latter; the scholars of this period were the most respected among the believers for their generosity, force of character and their discretion.”¹⁸

The last of Timbuktu’s renowned scholars was Ahmed Baba (1556-1627) who was the final chancellor of the University of Sankoré. A great African, he authored 40 books – every one with a different theme. His career ended when El Mansur’s Moroccan army, in 1591, occupied and sacked the city and he was taken prisoner and exiled to Morocco.¹⁹

The Moroccans put an end to the Songhay Empire and, in the subsequent centuries, Timbuktu went into decline. However, due to its remoteness and its close association with the gold trade, for Europeans, it still generated mystery. Some historians indicate that between 1588 and 1853, 43 Europeans tried to reach the city, but only five were successful: Adams, Barth, Caillié, Laing and Park²⁰. However only three of these: Caillié, Laing and Barth have left us the accounts of their journeys, describing Timbuktu and how they succeeded in reaching the city²¹. The tales brought back by these travellers made Timbuktu, to Westerners, a mysterious and fabulously rich city, further away than the ‘back of beyond’.

Today, after near 400 years of decline, it is a lack lustre town of grey low flat-roofed mud brick homes, covered with a stucco of grey mud and a population which has plummeted at one point to some 15,000.²² Today, however, its current population is approximately 54,500. Seemingly lost in the middle of the desert, it is gradually being overwhelmed by the encroaching sands. Its mystery and glory are now only found in its past history. Nevertheless, the town remains a modest centre of Islamic learning and its name still invokes the image of remoteness and mystic exotic glory.

Notes

1. Trillo and Hudgens, p. 39
2. Glen, p. 494
3. Bovill, p. 89; Boahen, pp. 20-21
4. Buah, p. 57
5. Glen, p. 70
6. Discovering of Africa’s Past, p. 73
7. Bovill, pp. 105-106
8. Buah, p. 56
9. Boahen, pp. 31-32
10. Buah, p. 77
11. Buah, p. 79
12. Newton and Else, p. 560; Glen, p. 493
13. Boahen, p. 31; Buah, p. 76
14. Boahen, p. 31
15. Asante and Asante, p. 49
16. Newton and Else, p. 562
17. Adu A. Boahen. Ibid, 31; Imperato, p. 169
18. Buah, p. 80
19. Asante and Asante, p. 163
20. Imperato, p. 239
21. Naylor, p. 100
22. Newton and Else, p. 560

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