How Timbuktu Protected Its Trove of Manuscripts

In the spring of 2012, Islamist fighters seized the city of Timbuktu. Nearby, Libya was in upheaval after the toppling of long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi. A military coup was plunging Mali into chaos. In that vacuum, bands of Tuareg rebels and Islamist militants wrested control of much of northern Mali, including the ancient and much-storied city.

Like the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the militants sought to impress their austere and severe piety on Timbuktu. Ansar Dine, the Islamist group that took over the city, imposed sharia law, ordering the veiling of women, the mutilation of thieves, and the stoning of adulterers. They banned music through much of northern Mali, a preposterous move in a region steeped in diverse and beloved musical traditions.

But an amazing discovery awaited. Officials soon learned that the vast bulk of Timbuktu’s manuscripts were already safe, far from the reach of the militants. Led by the collector and Timbuktu-native Abdel Kader Haidara, a team of scholars, librarians, and smugglers had secretly removed nearly 350,000 manuscripts from Timbuktu.   

The textual heritage of Timbuktu is testament to a rich period in the city’s history. English-speakers are in the habit of invoking Timbuktu to conjure some place remote, at the edge of the world. But for centuries, the city was an extraordinary centre, at the heart of networks of trade, pilgrimage, and scholarship.

The city’s commercial and intellectual richness drew the attention of Saadian dynasty of Morocco. A Moroccan army captured and pillaged the city in 1591, carting off manuscripts and some of Timbuktu’s esteemed scholars. But while the city never really regained the stature and centrality it enjoyed before the Moroccan conquest, its traditions of learning persisted.

When the French conquered Timbuktu in 1893, they also plundered texts from the city’s libraries. But many scholarly families preserved manuscripts in secret, passing them down over generations. Thanks to this practice of custodianship, Timbuktu’s vast trove of documents survived.

That probing and eclectic tradition of Islamic inquiry stands in stark contrast to the rigidity of the militants who occupied Timbuktu for ten months in 2012. The north of Mali remains tumultuous; four years after the recapture of Timbuktu, security concerns have prevented organizers from convening the Festival in the Desert, Timbuktu’s world-renowned music festival last held in January 2012. 

If there is a silver lining to the depredations of Ansar Dine in Timbuktu, it’s that the city’s manuscripts and history have now won international attention. There may be many more ancient texts in the region in private hands or buried under the sand. Their incorporation into the great archive of city’s textual history remains a task for the next generation of Timbuktu’s scholars.