The hidden treasures of Timbuktu Elizabeth Cox
On the edge of the vast Sahara desert,
citizens snuck out of the city of Timbuktu
and took to the wilderness.
They buried chests in the desert sand,
hid them in caves,
and sealed them in secret rooms.
Inside these chests was a treasure
more valuable than gold:
the city’s ancient books.
Founded around 1100 CE
in what is now Mali,
the city of Timbuktu started
out as an unremarkable trading post.
But its unique location
soon changed that.
Timbuktu marked the intersection
of two essential trade routes,
where caravans bringing
salt across the Sahara
met with traders bringing gold
from the African interior.
By the late 1300s, these trade routes
made Timbuktu rich,
and the city’s rulers,
the kings of the Mali Empire,
built monuments and academies
that drew scholars
from Egypt, Spain, and Morocco.
The city’s prime location also made
it a target for warlords and conquerors.
As the Mali Empire declined,
one of its domains, Songhai,
began to gain power.
In 1468, the Songhai king
conquered Timbuktu,
burning buildings and murdering scholars.
But in time, intellectual life
in the city flourished again.
The reign of the second king
of the Songhai Empire,
Askia Mohammed Toure,
marked the beginning of a golden age
in Timbuktu.
He reversed his predecessor’s
regressive policies
and encouraged learning.
The Songhai rulers and most of Timbuktu’s
population were Muslim,
and the scholars of Timbuktu
studied Islam
alongside secular topics
like mathematics and philosophy.
In the libraries of Timbuktu,
tracts of Greek philosophy stood
alongside the writings
of local historians, scientists,
and poets.
The city’s most prominent scholar,
Ahmed Baba,
challenged prevailing opinions
on subjects
ranging from smoking to slavery.
Gold and salt trade had funded
the city’s transformation
into a center of learning.
Now, the products
of that intellectual culture
became the most sought-after
commodity.
With paper from faraway Venice
and vibrant ink from local plants
and minerals,
the scribes of Timbuktu produced
texts in both Arabic
and local languages.
Written in calligraphy and decorated
with intricate geometric designs,
the books of Timbuktu were in demand
among the wealthiest members of society.
In 1591, the golden age
came to an abrupt end
when the Moroccan king
captured Timbuktu.
Moroccan forces imprisoned
Ahmed Baba and other prominent scholars
and confiscated their libraries.
In the centuries that followed, the city
weathered a succession of conquests.
In the mid-1800s,
Sufi Jihadists occupied Timbuktu
and destroyed many non-religious
manuscripts.
1894, French colonial forces seized
control of the city,
stealing even more manuscripts
and sending them to Europe.
French became the official language
taught in schools,
and new generations in Timbuktu
couldn’t read the Arabic manuscripts
that remained.
Through it all, the literary tradition
of Timbuktu didn’t die—
it went underground.
Some families built secret libraries
in their homes,
or buried the books in their gardens.
Others stashed them in abandoned caves
or holes in the desert.
The priceless manuscripts of Timbuktu
dispersed to villages
throughout the surrounding area,
where regular citizens guarded
them for hundreds of years.
As desertification and war
impoverished the region,
families held on to the ancient books
even as they faced desperate poverty
and near-starvation.
Even today, the struggle to protect
the books continues.
From the 1980s to the early 2000s,
Timbuktu scholar Abdel Kader Haidara
painstakingly retrieved hidden manuscripts
from all over northern Mali
and brought them back to Timbuktu.
But in 2012, civil war in Mali
once again threatened the manuscripts,
most of which were evacuated
to nearby Bamako.
Their future remains uncertain,
as they face both human
and environmental threats.
These books represent our best—
and often only—
sources on the pre-colonial history
of the region.
Many of them have never been
read by modern scholars,
and still more remain lost
or hidden in the desert.
At stake in the efforts to protect
them is the history they contain—
and the efforts of countless generations
to protect that history from being lost.