16°49N 2°59W, pop (2000e) 32 000. Town in Gao region, N Mali, 690 km/429 mi NE of Bamako; settled in the 11th-c; a chief centre of Muslim learning; declined after conquest by Morocco, 16th-c; taken by the French, 1893; airfield; adjoining town of Kabara serves as a port on the R Niger; tourism, salt, power plant; Djinguereber Mosque (13th-c), Sankore Mosque (14th-c), Sidi Yahya Mosque (15th-c).
The city of Timbuktu (Koyra Chiini: Tumbutu, French: Tombouctou) is a city in Mali, West Africa. Its three great mosques, Djingareyber, Sankore and Sidi Yahia, recall Timbuktu's golden age.
Timbuktu is populated by Songhay, Tuareg, Fulani, and Moorish people, and is about 15km north of the River Niger.
Its geographical setting made it a natural meeting point for nearby African populations and nomadic Berber and Arab peoples from the north. Its long history as a trading outpost that linked west Africa with Berber, Arab, and Jewish traders throughout north Africa, and thereby indirectly with traders from Europe, has given it a fabled status, and in the West it was for long a metaphor for exotic, distant lands: "from here to Timbuktu."
Timbuktu's long-lasting contribution to Islamic and world civilization is scholarship . By the fourteenth century, important books were written and copied in Timbuktu, establishing the city as the centre of a significant written tradition in Africa.
Origins
Timbuktu was established by the nomadic Tuareg perhaps as early as the 10th century. Like its predecessor, Tiraqqa, a neighboring trading city of the Wangara, Timbuktu grew to great wealth because of its key role in trans-Saharan trade in gold, ivory, slaves, salt and other goods by the Tuareg, Mandé and Fulani merchants, transferring goods from caravans coming from the Islamic north to boats on the Niger. Thus if the Sahara functioned as a sea, Timbuktu was a major port. It became a key city in several successive empires: the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire from 1324, and the Songhai Empire from 1468, the second occupations beginning when the empires overthrew Tuareg leaders who had regained control.
The leaders of the Songhai kingdom (also spelled Songhay) began expanding their domain along the Niger River. Timbuktu would soon become the heart of the mighty Songhai Empire.
Legendary tales
Tales of Timbuktu's fabulous wealth helped prompt European exploration of the west coast of Africa. Among the earliest descriptions of Timbuktu are those of Leo Africanus, Ibn Battuta and Shabeni.
The place name is said to come from a Tuareg woman named Buktu who dug a well in the area where the city stands today; hence "Timbuktu", which means "Buktu's well".
Ibn Battuta
Ibn Battuta (1304-1368) was a Moroccan Berber traveller born in Tangier. He spent 30 years travelling the Muslim world from Timbuktu to Turkey, Central Asia, China and India. He was probably the first outsider to document his visit to Timbuktu:
Timbuktu...is four miles from the Nile. He then seated him on a shield and he was lifted up by the elders of his tribe on their heads...At Timbuktu I embarked on the Nile (Niger) in a small vessel carved from one piece of wood.
Leo Africanus
Perhaps most famous among the tales written about Timbuktu is that by Leo Africanus aka "Leo the African". As a captured renegade who later converted back to Islam from Christianity, following a trip in 1512, when the Songhai empire was at its height he wrote the following:
The rich king of Tombuto hath many plates and sceptres of gold, some whereof weigh 1300 pounds.
At the time of Leo Africanus' visit, grass was abundant, providing plentiful milk and butter in the local cuisine, though there were neither gardens nor orchards surrounding the city.
Shabeni
Shabeni was a merchant from Tetuan who was captured and ended up in England where he told his story of how as a child of 14, around 1787, he had gone with his father to Timbuktu. A version of his story is related by James Grey Jackson in his book An Account of Timbuctoo and Hausa, 1820:
On the east side of the city of Timbuctoo, there is a large forest, in which are a great many elephants.
Center of learning
During the early 15th century, a number of Islamic institutions were erected.
While Islam was practiced in the cities, the local rural majority were non-Muslim traditionalists.
University of Sankore
Sankore was built in 989 AD and became the center of the Islamic scholarly community in Timbuktu.
The Library of Timbuktu
The collection of ancient manuscripts at the University of Sankore and other sites around Timbuktu document the magnificence of the institution, as well as the city itself, while enabling scholars to reconstruct the past in fairly intimate detail. In testament to the glory of Timbuktu, for example, a West African Islamic proverb states that "Salt comes from the north, gold from the south, but the word of God and the treasures of wisdom come from Timbuktu."
Among the libraries which have been preserving these manuscripts are: Institut des Hautes Etudes et de Recherche Islamique - Ahmed Baba, Timbuktu; These libraries are considered part of the "African Ink Road" that stretched from West Africa connecting North Africa and East Africa. At one time there were 120 libraries with manuscripts in Timbuktu and surrounding areas.
Ravage and decline
The city began to decline after explorers and slavers from Portugal and then other European countries landed in West Africa, providing an alternative to the slave market of Timbuktu and the trade route through the world's largest desert.
In 1824, the Paris-based Société de Géographie offered a 10,000 franc prize to the first non-Muslim to reach the town and return with information about it.
Robert Adams, an African-American sailor, claimed to have visited the city in 1811 as a slave after his ship wrecked off the African coast..
In the 1990s, Timbuktu came under attack from Tuareg people hoping to build their own state.
Timbuktu today
Today, Timbuktu is an impoverished town, although its reputation makes it a tourist attraction to the point where it even has an international airport, in spite of the fact that a recent poll showed that 34% of young British did not believe the town existed, while the other 66% considered it "a mythical place".
Timbuktu is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, listed since 1988.
It was one of the major stops during Henry Louis Gates' PBS special "Wonders of the African World". It is thanks to Gates that an Andrew Mellon Foundation Grant was obtained to finance the construction of the library's facilities, later inspiring the work of the Timbuktu Manuscripts Project. Unfortunately, no practising book artists exist in Timbuktu although cultural memory of book artisans is still alive, catering to the tourist trade.
Attractions
Timbuktu's vernacular architecture is marked by mud mosques, which are said to have inspired Antoni Gaudí. These include
Djinguereber Mosque, built in 1327 by El Saheli Sankore Mosque, also known as Sankore University, built in the early fifteenth century Sidi Yahya mosque, built in the 1441 by Mohamed Naddah.Other attractions include a museum, terraced gardens and a water tower.
Language
The main language of Timbuktu is a Songhay variety termed Koyra Chiini, spoken by over 80% of residents.
User Comments Add a comment…