Hands that wanted knowledge to outrun the end of time must have crafted the Timbuktu manuscripts a few centuries ago.
Why else would these hands have laid down their writer’s thoughts on paper that equaled its weight in gold? And perhaps they knew future generations would come across the archives of their lives to unveil a world fuelled by scholarly activity. Hands that wanted knowledge to outrun the end of time must have crafted the Timbuktu manuscripts a few centuries ago.
Why else would these hands have laid down their writer’s thoughts on paper that equaled its weight in gold? And perhaps they knew future generations would come across the archives of their lives to unveil a world fuelled by scholarly activity.
‘Timbuktu Script & Scholarship’ is an exhibition of 40 of these manuscripts that traveled South Africa during the last half of 2008. It is opened at the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town and traveled to other major cities.
The glass-encased scrolls are only a glimpse of a few centuries of Timbuktu’s history since its inception in 1050. Thousands more of these manuscripts are housed at the Ahmed Baba Institute in Mali. A museum dedicated to these testimonies is planned to open in Mali in late 2008.
The current installation includes photos from modern Mali’s marketplaces, wooden tablets that are still used as educational books and traditional Mali clothes. It is a soothing sweetness for the soul that hankers after the ancient world. And it alludes to a dreamy period when creative pursuit seemed to have been honoured with more thought and time. The pursuit of making beautiful things seemed regal.
Some of the manuscripts are beautifully decorated with colourful patterns. Others have text in various colours to present a less dull read. It’s the content though that intrigues most.
The manuscripts are written in the Arabic alphabet but not all of them are in the Arabic language. African languages are also recorded in the Arabic alphabet and different styles of writing interestingly showcase the author’s country of origin. There are, for example, texts written in the Ottoman-Turkish, Moroccan and Sudanese handwriting of that time.
Among the diverse topics discussed are guitar lessons, a disputation of tobacco use and details of a 19th century Sufi jihad (holy war) leader. Included in the latter story is evidence that the Sufi leader was challenged by locals who wanted to know why jihad was necessary. Obviously, debate was not a past-time that came along when people learned to speak English.
The manuscripts also reveal the characteristics of Timbuktu society as it progressed over centuries. Shamil Jeppie, a lecturer in historical studies at the University of Cape Town, is part of the international team that has worked to preserve the scrolls.
“European museums want to keep the Africa of masks and drums and not scholarship. Africa has music but we also have books,” elaborates Jeppie of their work.
“We don’t know the percentage of the society that was literate so we’re not saying that everyone was literate. That would be a romantic view. This shows there was a balance between the written and oral education.”
Jeppie talks appreciatively of “education under trees” and believes that just because you don’t see books or schools does not mean that there is no education. The manuscripts are part of various modalities of education that existed then and now.
In some cases, these modes of passing on knowledge have not significantly altered. In Sudan, even in the capital Khartoum, one still finds youngsters studying Arabic texts written on wooden tablets. It is a cultural way of learning that has been preserved alongside the influx of cheap Internet cafes that pollute Khartoum’s streets.
Jeppie also informs that there was also a network of scholarship from West Africa leading to Saudi Arabia. This occurred as Muslim pilgrims migrated to the Islamic centres of Makkah and Madinah in the Middle East.
“Black African religious teachers met students coming from India in Saudi Arabia,” he adds, indicating the multi-national nature of Timbuktu’s reach.
Mohamed Dicko, director of the Ahmed Baba Institute, also refers to the changing perception of Africa that the Timbuktu texts present.
“Nobody can forbid Europe what they think of Africa but the manuscripts show Africa has intellectual activity. It’s not all about dancing. We had people from Asia and Africa meeting in Timbuktu to share knowledge,” plain-speaks Dicko.
Riason Naidoo, the Timbuktu manuscripts project manager, says the South African government has funded preservation of the historical scrolls. He also talks about a “cosmopolitan” Timbuktu – as seen through the revealed texts and what remains.
“Back then, mosques were built in an Andalusian style and the doors were made by door-makers from Yemen. These mosques still stand today and the door-makers descendants still live in Timbuktu and make doors,” says Naidoo from his trips through the texts and Timbuktu’s alleyways.
The texts further reveal that this culture of scholarship was not oppressed by a heavy sense of egotism. Jeppie says some of the manuscripts indicate no authorship. This is perhaps a sign of what writing has become in our times as Jeppie points out that it seems “authors didn’t feel the need to assert their identities by signing their texts”.
Authors expressed individualism simply through their written works. The texts also reveal that there were women who excelled in writing poems for teaching purposes. Rhyming texts eased memorisation.
Another explanation for the lack of known authorship is that there was a stratum of Timbuktu’s society that was dedicated to the copying of thousands of texts. Copyists would not sign texts with their names. These texts would later be sold or traded the length and breadth of existing trade and pilgrimage routes.
Additional writing between the lines of existing texts indicates that vigorous debates also occurred. Jeppie points out that some of the texts have “inter-linear commentary in the margins and in between the lines”. Opposition theories were expressed.
Scholarship was elevated in this old world. Testament to this is found in the ‘Virtues of Scholarship’ written by prominent Timbuktu author, Ahmed Baba. The institute that safeguards the texts is named after him.
Baba “encouraged the quest for knowledge over waging war”, reads the caption with a one of his texts copied in the Sahrawi script during the 18th century. His writing confirmed that, “on the Day of Judgment the ink of the scholars will be measured against the blood of the martyrs and found to be weightier”. These were not idle hands making lightweight threats.
Article by Yazeed Kamaldien.
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