Timbuktu

Renowned for its mosques and centers of learning, Timbuktu (Tombouctou) also served as an important commercial center throughout the 16th century.

Founded in the 11th century by TuAREG nomads as a summer camp nine miles from the northwest bend of the Niger River, Timbuktu gained prominence as a trading center by the 14th century. In 1325 Mali conquered Timbuktu, incorporating the city into its expanding empire. Under the reign of Mansa MuSA I (1307-1337), Timbuktu grew into the region’s intellectual and spiritual center with the establishment of several mosques. Mansa Musa brought Andalusian architect and poet Abou-Ishaq Ibrahim Es Saheli to Mali to build Timbuktu’s great Dyingerey Ber mosque. The chronicler Ibn Battuta visited the city in 1353, providing an excellent account of the city and of its male inhabitants’ custom of winding a turban around the head and face, a Tuareg practice called veiling. He also described the relative peace the city enjoyed under the auspices of the Mali Empire. During Mansa Musa’s reign Timbuktu’s already lucrative position on the trans-Saharan trade routes increased due to better protection against raiders. Copper, salt, sword blades, and, later, Venetian beads (see Venice) were brought into Timbuktu in exchange for GOLD and slaves (see SLAVERY) from the interior.

Mali controlled Timbuktu and its markets until 1433, when the Tuaregs regained control of the city. In 1468 it became part of the growing SONGHAI Empire, and its importance as a commercial and intellectual center continued to increase. Timbuktu reached its apex during the reign of ASKIA Muhammad I (d. 1538), who took the

Songhai throne in 1493. Askia Muhammad was a devout follower of Islam and welcomed the many Islamic scholars who settled in Timbuktu. During Askia Muhammad’s reign and throughout the 16th century Islamic scholarship flourished in the city, making it one of the Sudan’s leading intellectual and spiritual centers. Indeed, scholars, especially the Aqit family, made up part of the ruling class of the city.

Although appearing on European maps as early as 1375, Timbuktu came to the wider attention of Europeans in the 1550s through the writings of the Venetian geographer Giovanni Battista Ramusio, who exhorted its possibilities as a trading center to Italian merchants. He based his recommendations on the descriptions of the kingdoms of West Africa and the Sudan left by the Venetian Ca’ da Mosto, who traveled to the Guinea coast in 1455, and by Leo Africanus, the chronicler of the Mali and Songhai Empires in the early 16th century. Leo Africanus described the city and its inhabitants, its government, and its physical environment, providing a valuable source on Timbuktu’s history and its connections to the Songhai Empire. Mahmud al-Kati (1468-1593), a Muslim judge and scholar who accompanied Askia Muhammad on his hajj to Mecca (see Islam), also chronicled the history of the Sudanic empires of Mali and Songhai. Ibn al-Mukhtar, al-Kati’s grandson, completed the Ta’rikh al-fattash, which included a history of Timbuktu and biographies of its resident scholars and jurists in the mid-17th century. The most comprehensive contemporary document on the history of Timbuktu remains the Ta’rikh al-Sudan written by ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn’ Abd Allah ibn ‘Imran al-Sa’di (b. 1594), a native of the city. In the Ta’rikh al-Sudan, al-Sa’di chronicled the history of the region, detailing the Mali, Songhai, and Moroccan conquests and focusing on Timbuktu, Gao, and Djenne-Djeno. Al-Sa’di also provided biographies of Timbuktu’s scholars and religious leaders.

In 1591 Moroccans, interested in controlling the gold trade, attacked and conquered Timbuktu. Two years later, under the direction of the city’s literati, Timbuktu’s residents rebelled against the invaders. The next year Mahmud ibn Zargun, the pasha of the region under the Moroccans, deported many of the scholars, including Ahmad Baba (1556-1627), to Marrakech. The Moroccan invasion effectively ended the Songhai Empire as well as Timbuktu’s prominence as a center of learning.

Further reading: Basil Davidson, “Kingdoms of the Old Sudan,” in The Lost Cities of Africa, Basil Davidson (Boston: Little, Brown, 1987); “The Majesty of Mali,” and “Songhai Achievement,” in West Africa before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850, Basil Davidson (London: Longman, 1998); John O. Hunwick, Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-

Sa’di’s Ta’rikh al-Sudan down to 1613 and Other Contemporary Documents (Boston: Brill, 1999); Elias N. Saad, Social History of Timbuktu: The Role of Muslim Scholars and Notables, 1400-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

—Lisa M. Brady