Timbuktu Manuscripts, also called Tombouctou Manuscripts, is a general term for many important writings that have been kept safe for centuries in private homes in Timbuktu, a city in northern Mali. These collections include writings about art, medicine, philosophy, science, and copies of the Quran. Timbuktu manuscripts are the most famous set of West African manuscripts.
Most of the manuscripts are written in Arabic using the Arabic script. Some are written in African languages using the same script, called Ajami. These languages include, but are not limited to, Fula, Songhay, Tamasheq, Bambara, and Soninke. The manuscripts were created between the late 13th century and the early 20th century. Their topics range from serious studies to short letters.
Before research and digitization efforts began in the 20th and 21st centuries, the manuscripts were stored in the homes of Timbuktu residents.
During the Mali War, the manuscripts and other cultural items in Mali were in danger. Between 2012 and 2013, 4,203 of Timbuktu’s manuscripts were burned or stolen. About 350,000 manuscripts were moved to safety, and 300,000 of them were still in Bamako in 2022.
History
Scribes in Timbuktu translated works from many famous people, such as Plato, Hippocrates, and Avicenna. They also copied a 28-volume Arabic dictionary called The Mukham, written by a scholar from Spain in the mid-11th century. Local authors also wrote books on subjects like history, religion, law, philosophy, and poetry. Legal experts in the city collected information about Islamic law, called fikh, and about zakat, which is the giving of alms required in Islam. Some manuscripts describe the movement of stars in relation to the seasons, which is important for the Islamic calendar and timekeeping. A writer named Mahmud Kati recorded a meteor shower in 1593:
"In the year 991, during the month of Rajab, after half the night had passed, stars moved quickly across the sky in all directions, as if fire had been lit in the entire sky. It looked like a nightly flame lighting up the earth, and people were very frightened. This continued until morning."
Some manuscripts include information about the nutritional value and healing uses of desert plants. Others discuss topics such as polygamy, moneylending, and slavery. These manuscripts also contain lists of spells and incantations; astrology; fortune-telling; black magic; necromancy, which is communicating with the dead by summoning their spirits to find hidden knowledge; geomancy, which is reading patterns on the ground made from rocks, dirt, or sand; hydromancy, which is predicting the future by observing ripples in water caused by a stone; and other occult subjects. One book titled Advising Men on Sexual Engagement with Their Women provided guidance on love potions, treatments for infertility, and advice on how to win back a spouse.
These manuscripts were passed down through generations in Timbuktu families and are mostly in poor condition. Most have not been studied or organized, and their exact number is unknown, with only rough estimates. In the 2000s, about 160 manuscripts from the Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library and the Ahmed Baba collection were digitized by the Tombouctou Manuscripts Project. Starting in 2013, the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) at Saint John's University in Minnesota partnered with SAVAMA-DCI to photograph more than 150,000 manuscripts. This effort was supported by the Arcadia Fund, and the materials are now available online through HMML's Reading Room. In 2017, HMML and the British Library's Endangered Archives Programme began the Endangered Libraries in Timbuktu (ELIT) project to digitize manuscripts still kept in Timbuktu with the three main mosques.
After Arabic education declined in Mali, especially during French colonial rule, interest in the medieval manuscripts decreased in Timbuktu, and many were sold. Time magazine reported that an imam once bought four manuscripts for $50 each. In October 2008, a flood destroyed 700 manuscripts in one household.
Research
In 1970, UNESCO started an organization. One of its tasks was to preserve manuscripts, but it didn’t get money until 1977. In 1998, Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates visited Timbuktu for his PBS series Wonders of the African World. The series increased public and academic interest in the manuscripts, which helped create a funding pool.
The Timbuktu Manuscripts Project was run by the University of Oslo from 1999 to 2007. Its goal was to help preserve the manuscripts, turn them into digital images, create an electronic list of them, and make them available for research. It received money from the government of Luxembourg, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), the Ford Foundation, the Norwegian Council for Higher Education’s Programme for Development Research and Education (NUFU), and the United States’ Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation. Results included: helping to restore the old method of making books, training many local experts, creating an electronic database for manuscripts at the Institut des Hautes Études et de Recherche Islamique – Ahmad Baba (IHERI-AB), turning many manuscripts into digital images, sharing knowledge with experts in Morocco and other countries, reviving the journal Sankoré at IHERI-AB, and publishing the book The Hidden Treasures of Timbuktu: Rediscovering Africa's Literary Culture.
After the Oslo project ended, the government of Luxembourg funded a new project called Timbuktu Manuscripts. This project aims to protect and promote the manuscripts to help the area’s economy, society, and culture. It is managed by Lux-Development. Since 2012, the project MLI/015 has worked with partners in Bamako, including IHERI-AB and the SAVAMA-DCI (a local NGO). By early 2013, these groups had described 10,000 manuscripts using standard forms.
The Timbuktu Manuscripts Project is also run by the University of Cape Town. It started in 2003 with help from the South African government and is still ongoing. It is part of the New Partnership for Africa's Development. The project aims to preserve manuscripts and improve access to libraries in Timbuktu. Its online database is only for researchers. In 2015, the project’s trust fund closed because it received no more money from South Africa.
In 2005, Aluka (which later joined JSTOR) began working with libraries and scholars in Timbuktu. In 2007, Aluka partnered with SAVAMA-DCI and two academic groups: Northwestern University’s Advanced Media Production Studio (NUAMPS) and the Tombouctou Mss Project at the University of Cape Town. Over 300 digitized manuscripts are available to researchers and are part of Aluka’s online archive, which later joined JSTOR.
A book about Timbuktu, published in 2008, includes a chapter discussing some of the texts. Digital images of 32 manuscripts from the private Mamma Haïdara Library are available from the United States Library of Congress and the United Nations’ World Digital Library website.
The Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) at the University of Hamburg has helped SAVAMA-DCI with preserving and listing manuscripts since 2013. This work is done alongside HMML’s efforts to make digital copies. HMML is now leading a major project to organize manuscripts, supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Destruction and evacuation
After the conflict in Northern Mali between 2012 and 2013, militant groups called Ansar Dine took control of Timbuktu. During their retreat, they burned or stole 4,203 manuscripts from the Ahmed Baba Institute and another library, which held thousands of important texts. However, 90% of these manuscripts were saved by local people working with an organization named SAVAMA-DCI. In 2022, about 350,000 manuscripts had been moved to safety, with 300,000 still stored in Bamako, a city in southern Mali.
Stephanie Diakité, a book preservation expert from the United States, and Dr. Abdel Kader Haidara, a librarian from Timbuktu whose family has protected manuscripts for generations, led the effort to move the manuscripts to Bamako. In Timbuktu, it is a tradition for family members to promise publicly to protect their family’s collection of manuscripts for their entire lives. During the evacuation, Haidara asked local families to hide the Ahmed Baba Institute’s manuscripts in their homes before transporting them to Bamako. This effort was supported by groups like the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development, the Doen Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. Dr. Haidara expressed gratitude to SAVAMA-DCI and its partners for helping move the manuscripts and store them safely.
Aboubacry Moussa Lam signed a letter asking others to help preserve the Timbuktu manuscripts. Once in southern Mali, the manuscripts faced new problems, such as mold and dampness. Diakité and Dr. Haidara started a campaign called "Timbuktu Libraries in Exile" to raise money for their preservation. While many organizations provided help, local people played the most important role in the process.
In 2020, an international meeting about protecting, sharing, and promoting ancient manuscripts in the Sahel region was held at the UNESCO office in Bamako.
Media coverage
A movie titled The Ancient Astronomers of Timbuktu about the Timbuktu Manuscript Project was released in 2009. It was supported by the Ford Foundation and the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust.
In 2009, the French/German cultural TV channel ARTE created a long movie about Timbuktu’s manuscript heritage. The movie was titled Tombouctou: les manuscrits sauvés des sables in French and Timbuktus verschollenes Erbe: vom Sande verweht in German. Another movie about the same topic, Manuscripts of Timbuktu, was also released in 2009. This film was directed by Zola Maseko from South Africa. It was produced by the South African Broadcasting Corporation and distributed by California Newsreel.
In 2013, BBC Four made a documentary called The Lost Libraries of Timbuktu.
In 2016, a book titled The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu by Joshua Hammer was published. The book describes how the manuscripts were collected into libraries and moved to safety during a dangerous conflict in northern Mali. During this conflict, Islamist groups threatened to destroy the manuscripts.
In 2017, journalist Charlie English wrote a book titled The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu (also called The Storied City: The Quest for Timbuktu and the Fantastic Mission to Save Its Past). The book alternates between chapters about European explorations to Timbuktu between 1795 and 1860 and the efforts by Haidara and others to save the manuscripts from destruction by jihadists in 2012.