A Library At The End Of The World

According to a 2006 survey conducted by its Ministry of Culture, 34% of Britons thought this city “no longer existed” and the remaining 66% thought it was “a mythical place.” They were 100% wrong. Timbuktu is a very real city today, and has been since at least the 10th century. According to a January 5, 2010 article in The Washington Post, the impoverished city may be ripe for an economic renaissance: a rebirth based on a wealth of ancient manuscripts, and a desire to make them accessible in libraries and online.

The origins of the name “Timbuktu” are murky, but the most plausible explanation is that it is a combination of two words in the Berber language: “tin” meaning “place” and “buqt” meaning “far away.” So it is that the city has entered folklore as a metaphor for the ends of the earth. But as early as the 12th century it was a center of commerce, and more importantly, a center of learning.

Time Has Taken A Toll On Many Of Timbuktu’s Privately Held Ancient Texts.

The city had flourishing universities by the early 1500’s. The goal of these schools was to build a diverse community of scholars, driven by the creation of manuscripts on a wide variety of subjects. “Astronomy, botany, pharmacology, geometry, geography, chemistry, biology,” said Ali Imam Ben Essayouti, the descendant of a family with a vast private library. “There is Islamic law, family law, women’s rights, human rights, laws regarding livestock, children’s rights. All subjects under the sun, they are represented here.” Soon, the profit earned through the buying and selling of manuscripts was second only to the trade in gold and salt in the ancient city. Books were transported via camel, and calligraphers were paid handsomely in gold for penning exquisite copies. Timbuktu was considered such a center of learning that a West African proverb states: “Salt comes from the north, gold from the south, but the word of God and the treasures of wisdom come from Timbuktu.”

A decline in Timbuktu’s fortunes began with Portuguese slave traders shifting trade to countries located on the West African Coast. An invasion of what is now Mali by the Moroccan army in 1591 continued the area’s economic and intellectual failure. The Moroccan invaders were hostile to the community of scholars, who were seen as subversive nationalists. Facing persecution, many fled, some taking their books with them. Those who remained, however, hid as many as 700,000 manuscripts from Timbuktu’s heyday, which have been passed down as family heirlooms through the centuries. Many were literally buried–or hidden in desert caves– to keep them from falling into the hands of the Moroccans, and later the European colonists. (A wise move considering the fate of the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles.)

Timbuktu has been making a slow comeback since the mid-20th century. Its manuscripts began to emerge as Mali won its independence from France. Beginning in the 1970’s, the nation’s federal government, in conjunction with UNESCO, began efforts to collect, preserve, and archive the texts. In recent years. the governments of Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, Libya, and South Africa, have joined with private foundations to build public libraries which properly house and digitize the deteriorating ancient tomes. Many of Timbuktu’s families have been reluctant to part with their legacies, however, and are determined to found their own, private libraries. Securing funding for the private libraries has been more difficult.

The tradition of keeping precious books in family hands is colliding with the desire to bring a rich history of scholarship to light. Public librarian at the Ahmed Baba Institute, Bouya Haidara, wants the manuscripts to be placed in a central, accessible location for posterity: “Many think black people don’t have history — that it’s all oral. It’s important the world knows black Africans have a written history.” The Director of the Institute, Mohamed Dicko, put it this way: “We want to build an Alexandria for black Africa. This is our chance to regain our place in history.”

A Family’s Collection Of Ancient Manuscripts, Stored For Centuries In A Metal Trunk.

The clock is ticking for Timbuktu, as time, desert heat, termites and sandstorms are taking their toll on the manuscripts. Locked in trunks, stored outdoors, or kept on unprotected shelves for centuries, some pages are brittle, crumbling to dust, others are waterlogged or damaged by vermin infestations. Owners have no way of preserving their precious antiquities, and often resort to copying contents by hand before the printing become illegible.

For the present, there is great interest in collecting, preserving, and restoring Timbuktu’s literary history. An influx of cash has allowed the Malian government to begin training programs, teaching students how to catalog, classify, interpret, translate, and preserve ancient texts. The establishment of public libraries will bring further government and private grants, as well as tourist dollars and income from visiting scholars. It seems money makes the world go around, even at the ends of the earth.