By: Julia Amanda Norris
Produced & Edited by: Danny Medlock
Timbuktu: The place that many once called “the end of the world”
where artists, learners and traders converged in a medieval melting pot of
culture and scholastic excellence. It was the home of 333 saints, the world’s first
University, and a rich heritage preserved in an array of priceless texts.
Texts, that immortalize not only of this vibrant place, but Africa, Islam, and
of much of the world.
“Historically Timbuktu was an important center of commerce and
learning and, in contemporary times, has become a key symbol of African
literary heritage,” reads the website of the Tombouctou Manuscripts Project, an
ongoing scholarly effort at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
The content of these texts is vast, ranging from copies of the
Quran, to collections of hadith, economic ledgers, treatise on the sciences,
poetry, and writings of Sufi mystics.
History threatened
These manuscripts survived centuries, passed down in small-scale
family
“libraries” entrusted to the next generation with a vow and single
purpose: to preserve. “Crucial to the preservation of the Timbuktu
manuscripts are the libraries that have been established in the town,”
maintains The Tombouctou Manuscripts Project. Yet, in 2012 these libraries were
threatened.
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| (Photo via African Echo) |
“The tradition of scholarship and the manuscripts of Timbuktu are
part of an ancient Islamic tradition that is characterized by tolerance,
plurality, and a deep joy in learning,” said Alexandra Huddleston, creator of
the recently published photography collection 333 Saints: A Life of Scholarship in Timbuktu. The texts, many
written by Sufi scholars, are part of an all-inclusive Islamic tradition, one
that is seen as heretical by some extremist sects.
Shortly after Timbuktu fell to an Al-Qaeda linked group, Ansar
Dine, in the wake of the 2012 Malian coup, Mayor Cisse released a statement to
the world that the texts had been destroyed and the libraries that held them
burned.
Dr. Abdel Kader Haidara’s family has been passing down manuscripts
for more than 700 years. The owner of the largest private library in all of
Africa, he contradicts that claim.
Working tirelessly, he and his team managed to smuggle over
160,000 manuscripts out of Timbuktu. They went by land and by river, under
cloak of darkness, through hostile territory until they and their precious
cargo reached safety in the south of Mali. They did not lose a single
text.
Modern methods to preserving history
Adjusting to the damp climate of southern Mali proved difficult
for the texts, however. Far from their dry, desert homeland they began showing
signs of mold and decay. In response, Haidara teamed up with Dr. Stephanie
Diakite, a lawyer and preservationist, to found T160K, a non-profit dedicated
solely to the continued preservation efforts of the manuscripts.
Together, they sent out pleas for donations to foreign governments
and scholarly organizations, but received little response.
In May of 2013, their desperation led them to turn to less
traditional means. They launched a crowd-funding campaign on the website
indiegogo.com, and an accompanying AMA – Ask Me Anything – thread on the
popular content aggregation site Reddit.com. The result, both their publicity
and donations increased significantly as they raised $67,446 of their $100,000 goal. This enabled them to purchase the archival materials they needed to
continue preserving the priceless manuscripts.
Huddleston faced a similar challenge when it came to getting
traditional outlets involved with the publication of 333 Saints. She took the photographs in 2007, but has been
attempting to publish them since 2008 with little success. “No one was willing
to pick up the story because it was about Mali, which editors perceived as
having little interest in the public at that time.”
She also eventually turned to crowd-funding to accomplish her
task. Thanks to kickstarter.com she was able to raise the necessary funds to
publish her book.
The Djenne Manuscript Library
In central Mali, The Djenne Manuscript Library is also fighting a
preservation battle. Mahamadou Diallo, a preservationist at the Djenne
Manuscript Library, explained that these texts “are exposed to threats such as
rain water, termites among others,” and that “they were not kept in good
condition by their owners.”
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| Djenne Manuscript Library (via http://www.djennemanuscrits.com/) |
This library hasn’t needed crowd-funding to turn their project
around. For the past two years, the British Library’s Endangered Archives Program has funded the project. Despite this funding, the library does not have
everything they need. Diallo expressed gratefulness for their funding, but said
that they still need additional funds to buy more archival boxes to protect the
manuscripts. In light of this, their main priority is digitization.
“The manuscripts are so important. They show that Mali and even
the continent is culturally rich,” said Diallo.
Returning to Timbuktu
As Mali continues to stabilize itself politically it needs
awareness on the part of the global community not only of the conflict that
happened there, but of what it meant for the cultural heritage of that nation
and what this culture needs moving forward.
For T160K, that is the hopeful return of the manuscripts to their
home in Timbuktu, a task that requires complete political and social stability
in the North.
For Djenne that means continued financial support for their
efforts, and increased awareness that Mali’s history is not only of the past,
but that it is very much a part of the present.
“Cultural and intellectual knowledge transmission in Africa has
included both oral and written traditions for centuries,” said Huddleston. “The
manuscripts of Timbuktu are part of a living and continuing tradition of
scholarship. They are still used and studied and created today by the people of
Timbuktu, and they are not relics of a vanished culture.”
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