All history as reconstruction of the past is of course myth

By Brent D. Singleton* [Access article in PDF and view references]

Abstract

The West African city of Timbuktu flourished as a center for Islamic scholarship from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries. The social structure of the city was based on wealth, with further stratification by degree of literacy and expertise in interpreting Islamic legal texts. As a consequence, books and libraries evolved into blessed symbols of scholarship, wealth, and power. This essay explores the history of books and libraries during the Golden Age of Timbuktu (1493-1591), followed by a discussion of the divergence of library practices in Timbuktu from those in the greater Islamic world of the time.

Salt comes from the north, gold from the south, and silver from the country of the white men, but the word of God and the treasures of wisdom are only to be found in Timbuctoo.

Sudanese proverb

To many Western minds the name Timbuktu connotes a far-flung, perhaps imaginary locale of indeterminate origin, employable in poetry and colorful expressions. This naïveté notwithstanding, the Sudanese proverb above aptly describes the prominence of Timbuktu in medieval West African and Sudanic history. Established on the rim of the Sahara Desert, it was bounded by several great West African empires. Timbuktu flourished as an autonomous center of trade, commerce, and scholarship and was ruled by Islamic judges and scholars who wielded the book and the pen as instruments of supreme power. Only the most learned could rule, and books and libraries were the source of the requisite erudition the scholars clamored to attain. In this environment books and book collections became invaluable tools that defined the lives and aspirations of Timbuktu’s elite.

Through exploring primary sources such as the two known chronicles, Tarikh al-Sudan and Tarikh al-Fattash, as well as myriad other documents from the period, this essay will shed light on the history of books and libraries in Timbuktu. No previously published work has focused solely on the book culture of Timbuktu, collocating materials on the subject and analyzing their content in conjunction with one another. In doing so, a more accurate picture of the libraries of Timbuktu should emerge from this essay.

Brief Historical Background

Timbuktu, located in the modern West African country of Mali, was founded by members of the Masufa branch of the Sanhaja (Berber) tribe around A.D. 1106 as a seasonal camp for storing salt and other goods. For two centuries Timbuktu persisted as a semi-permanent encampment, populated largely by Masufa and small pockets of Soninke, Malinke, Fulani, and other Sudanese peoples. As a result of its geographic position, Timbuktu eventually became a major trading center and caravan stop for Sudanese Muslims crossing the Sahara en route to Mecca during hajj. In the four- teenth century, significant numbers of Sudanese trader-scholars settled there, transforming the city into an emergent scholarly community.

Two significant rulers, Mansa Musa and Askia Muhammad, facilitated Timbuktu’s rise to scholarly eminence. Around 1324, Mansa Musa, ruler of the Mali Empire, visited Timbuktu upon returning from hajj. Musa brought many non-African Muslims in his entourage and a new zeal for securing the future of Islam in his empire. He distributed Maliki books of law and sent scholars to study Islamic law in the Moroccan city of Fez. More than a century and a half later, Askia Muhammad gained control of the Mali Empire’s successor, the Songhai Empire, in 1493. Askia Muhammad was celebrated in the written chronicles of Timbuktu as a patron of scholars, a true Muslim, and the fosterer of the Golden Age of Timbuktu. During this Golden Age, Timbuktu’s reputation flourished and spread throughout the Islamic world and beyond. However, by the end of the sixteenth century, the Songhai Empire and Askia Muhammad’s family were in fractious disarray, which ultimately led to the Moroccan invasion of 1591.

Following the Moroccan military victory, most scholars fled to nearby cities, were murdered, or were imprisoned in Morocco. Imprisonment was the fate of most members of Timbuktu’s preeminent scholarly families. The mass removal and exodus of scholars from Timbuktu reduced the level of scholarship to a low from which the city would never completely recover, effectively ending the city’s notable scholarly history.

Literacy and Books in Timbuktu

During the sixteenth century, Timbuktu housed as many as 150 to 180 maktabs (Qur’anic schools), where basic reading and recitation of the Qur’an were taught. The schools had an estimated peak enrollment of four to five thousand students; this number includes the transitory population of students from neighboring cities and surrounding nomadic tribes. Basic literacy skills were abundant, but only a select few (two or three hundred individuals) drawn from a small number of wealthy families were able to attain the status of ulama (scholars).

The level of scholarship achieved by the ulama of Timbuktu became well known in many parts of the Muslim world. In the Tarikh al-Sudan,^cAbd al-Rahman ibn ^cAbd Allah al-Sadi included an anecdote related by Sidi Yahya in the fifteenth century. Yahya noted: “Sidi ^cabd al-Rahman al-Tamimi came from the Hijaz. He settled in Timbuktu, and realized that it was full of Sudanese fuqaha. When he saw that they surpassed him in [the knowledge of] fiqh [juris- prudence] he traveled to fas [Fez] to study fiqh, and then returned to Timbuktu to settle there.” Sidi Yahya’s account of the Arabian traveler emphasized that the highest levels of scholarly efforts in Timbuktu matched and in some cases surpassed their brethren in the greater Islamic world.

In Timbuktu, literacy and books transcended scholarly value and symbolized wealth, power, and baraka(blessings) as well as an efficient means of transmitting information. The creation and importation of books was a predominant concern for the literati of Timbuktu. Strangers from distant lands were feted like royalty in the hopes that scholars could gain access to the visitors’ books and copy them. Furthermore, the pious, scholarly society in Timbuktu acknowledged few outlets for displaying wealth, most notably, expanding one’s business, building or refurbishing mosques, patronizing scholars, furnishing one’s home, and purchasing and collecting books. In the historical chronicles of Timbuktu, the acquisition of books is mentioned more often than any other display of wealth, including the building and refurbishment of mosques. While the number of mosques was finite, the number of books was not, leaving books as a continual means for spending wealth. Moreover, the scholars were avid bibliophiles, searching for and clamoring to possess (or compose) great scholarly works.

The importation of books into Timbuktu was brisk and highly regarded. Leo Africanus, a sixteenth-century traveler to Timbuktu, observed: “Here are great stores of doctors, judges, priests, and other learned men, that are bountifully maintained at the king’s cost and charges. And hither are brought diuers manuscripts or written bookes out of Barbarie, which are sold for more money than any other merchandize.” On any list of principal trade items, paper and books are usually noted.

The flow of books into Timbuktu naturally outpaced the number of books Timbuktu exported to the outside world; nonetheless, many notable works owned or penned by Sudanese scholars were traded north. Ahmad Baba, the preeminent scholar of Timbuktu, wrote more than forty works, including a biographical dictionary of Maliki fuqaha (jurists) entitled Nayl al-ibtihaj bi-tatriz al-Dibaj,often referred to simply as the Nayl al-ibtihaj. This workgained popularity throughout the Maghrib (North Africa) and reached every part of the Maliki Muslim world.

Books from the general body of Islamic knowledge were common, but as in all Muslim societies the Qur’an was the most common and most revered book available. Literati as well as the illiterate kept the Qur’an in their households. Still, it was a great occasion when a new copy was commissioned by or donated to a mosque. In the Tarikh al-Sudan it is noted that Askiya al-hajj Muhammad endowed to the Great Mosque a chest containing sixty juz (parts) of the Qur’an or two complete copies of the Qur’an broken into thirty juzeach. The Tarikh al-Sudan further notes that in 1611-12 the worn century-old Qur’ans endowed by Askiya al-hajj Muhammad were replaced by the merchant al-hajj Ali b. Salim b. Ubayda al-Misrati with a newly commissioned set. Al-Sadi’s mention of these events emphasizes the pious act.

In theTarikh al-Fattash, Kati describes the Songhai ruler Askia Dawud as “a king held in awe, eloquent, skillful in his governance, generous, merry, liberal. . . . [H]e had scribes copy manuscripts for him and often offered these works as gifts to scholars.” Giving books to scholars was regarded as a noble act. Through the generosity of Askia Dawud, Mahmud Kati was able to purchase a rare, imported copy of Muhammad ibn Yaqub al-Firuzabadi’s al-Qamus al-muhit for the enormous sum of eighty mithqals. This amount was equal to the purchase of two horses and totaled roughly twelve ounces of gold.

Bookmaking

Manuscripts were plentiful in Timbuktu, and the need for copying them was continual, affording students the opportunity to earn a living during their studies. While copying texts, students were familiarized with the works of their teachers and those of other scholars. Being a copyist was not considered a distinguished position; nonetheless, a copyist had to achieve and maintain a high degree of skill to accurately transcribe religious texts, especially the Qur’an.

The process of commissioning and completing a manuscript was quite laborious and expensive in Timbuktu. The task could require several weeks or even months to complete, depending on the extent of the volume(s) and the opulence of the calligraphy employed. The colophons of six volumes of a sixteenth-century copy of Ibn Sida’s work al-Muhkam wa-al-muhit al-a’zamfi al-lughah describe in detail the schedule of payment and dates of completion for copies of the work. These rather brief notes provide valuable insight into the professional copying network in Timbuktu. For instance, a full-time copyist, Muhammad ibn Sunbir, required 23 days to copy volumes 17 and 18 of the work, totaling 179 folios. Each page contained 19 lines of text, giving this copyist an average of 7.5 folios or 285 lines of text completed per day. Muhammad b. Andudd required an additional 19 days to vocalize (add vowels for proper pronunciation) these same 2 volumes at a rate of roughly 9 folios per day, or nearly 300 lines of text.

For his labors a copyist was usually remunerated one mithqal per month and supplied with the requisite leaves of paper to complete his work. According to Elias Saad, besides a one-mithqal charge for a month’s worth of copying, “[a]n additional half a mithqal had to be expended for remunerating a literatus, usually acquainted with the subject matter, who would proof-read the manuscript and correct its errors. Since paper was imported from North Africa and Egypt, its cost must have been great, and we are inclined to believe that any large volume cost five mithqals or more.”

The cost of copying a set of books was enormous; John Hunwick suggests that the complete set of the Muhkamtotaled as much as 21 mithqals, or 3.15 ounces of gold, in labor alone. But no matter how costly local copying may have been, it was still far less expensive than purchasing most imported books. The 80-mithqal price paid by Mahmud Kati for the imported copy of the Qamus is an extreme example of a high-priced imported book, but a single well-worn volume of an imported work titled Sharh al-ahkam cost Ahmad ibn And-Agh-Muhammad 4 1/6 mithqals.

Libraries in Timbuktu

Reliable figures concerning the size and scope of libraries in Timbuktu are scarce; however, the historical chronicles of Timbuktu and other sources provide a glimpse of a handful of collections. Al-Hashtuki quotes Ahmad Baba’s comment about his library, which had been seized by the Moroccans: “I had the smallest library of any of my kin, and they seized 1,600 volumes.” Baba’s personal collection was extensive and valuable and was completely dispersed to Morocco. To this day, works from the libraries of the Aqit, And-Agh-Muhammad, and other scholarly families of Timbuktu can be found in museums and rare book collections throughout the Maghrib.

Another documented library was that of Ahmad Umar. He took great pride in copying and annotating the works himself. He left behind nearly seven hundred volumes upon his death. Other evidence of the scope of libraries is based upon works cited by Timbuktu scholars. Ahmad ibn And-Agh-Muhammad produced a work on grammar entitled al-Futuh al-Qayumiya in which he cited no fewer than forty grammatical works throughout his treatise. Likewise, Ahmad Baba’s Kifayat al-Muhtaj drew from twenty-three Maliki biographical sources. Baba and And-Agh-Muhammad’s remarkable works are a testament to both the depth and diversity of the book collections they had access to in Timbuktu.

Ahmad Baba’s beloved teacher, Muhammad Baghayogho, also possessed an extensive library, but the number of volumes he possessed is unknown and was in constant flux by any account. In the Nayl al-ibtihaj Ahmad Baba describes Baghayogho’s library collection and his liberality in lending books from his stock:

Add to this his love of learning and his devotion to teaching and study, his love for men of learning and his own total humility, the aid which he gave scholars and the trouble he took for them, giving out the rarest and most precious of his books in all subjects and never asking for them again whatever the circumstances might be. Thus it was that he lost a [large] portion of his books—may God shower His beneficence upon him for this! Sometimes a student would come to the door of his house and send him a note stating the title of the book he wanted and he would get it out of his library and send it to the student without even knowing his name. In this matter he was truly astonishing, doing this for the sake of God, despite the love he had for books and the effort he spent to acquire them by purchase or copying. I came to him one day asking for books on grammar and he searched his house and gave me all he could come across.

Baba’s astonishment is a tribute to Muhammad Baghayogho and his extraordinary willingness to disperse his library voluntarily.

The libraries of Muhammad Baghayogho and the other scholars mentioned above represent only a tiny fraction of the collections that existed during the sixteenth century. However, they encompass the entirety of documented book collections from this era. The historical chronicles of Timbuktu and other sources usually mention the city’s book collections with a mixture of awe and reverence but divulge little detail concerning their actual size and scope.

Libraries in Timbuktu versus the Greater Muslim World

As Timbuktu reached the height of its Golden Age, the major centers of the Muslim world were developing some of the largest and most diverse public library collections of the medieval period. The majority of Muslim libraries maintained a tradition of open access to scholars from around the world. Shafi briefly describes a typical medieval Arab library: “Free access to books for all was the sine qua non of the Arab libraries, where facilities were provided hardly surpassed even in modern libraries. Besides the freedom to use and liberal loan of books, libraries provided free supply of stationery and gave general permission for copying out books. Needy students were supplied, free of cost, copies made by the library copyists, and pecuniary help was given to the poor and deserving students working in libraries.”

Virtually every mosque possessed a library of some size within its confines or nearby. Many larger mosques held multiple libraries, particularly those with affiliated colleges. Prominent mosques possessing multiple libraries included the Masjid Haram in Mecca, the Qarawiyyin mosque in Morocco, the Zaytuna mosque in Tunis, and al-Azhar in Cairo. Al-Azhar possessed one of the most diverse manuscript collections in the medieval Muslim world, numbering in the tens of thousands.

From biographical works such as Ahmad Baba’s Nayl al-ibtihaj, it is clear that many of Timbuktu’s scholars studied in the various mosques mentioned above. These scholars undoubtedly made use of the vast mosque libraries in the Muslim population centers. Egypt was especially influential, hosting countless Sudanese scholars. Hunwick contends that studies of sixteenth-century chains of scholarly communication show a strong relationship between Timbuktu and Egypt as well as Mecca. Egypt was the preeminent center of Islamic scholarship at the time, and Cairo overflowed with mosque libraries.

Interestingly, there is no evidence of the existence of open-access public libraries in medieval Timbuktu. On the contrary, the libraries of Timbuktu all seem to have been private collections of individual scholars or families. This dichotomy with the greater Islamic world raises many questions.

Some have argued that the lack of the endowment institution known as waqf, or habus in North Africa, in the Sudanic societal structure resulted in the absence of colleges and public libraries in Timbuktu. Traditionally, a library waqf paid for new book purchases, stationery, a librarian’s salary, and in some cases lodging for students as well as other expenses. The institution of waqf was not deeply imbedded in Sudanese society, yet the concept was not foreign in Timbuktu and the Songhai Empire. Askia al-hajj Muhammad was known to have initiated a waqf in Medina in order to preserve a few gardens for Sudanese pilgrims on hajj. Moreover, as previously mentioned, he commissioned and endowed two full Qur’ans (sixty juz) to the Great Mosque in Timbuktu.

Likewise, Askia Dawud was known to be a great benefactor of scholars, commissioning books and employing tutors from the ranks of the ulama. The wealthy patrons of Timbuktu clamored to spend money on community projects with an eye toward increasing their baraka. So despite the absence of a formal waqf, funds were available and commonly used for public projects. It is reasonable to deduce that perhaps public libraries in Timbuktu could have developed without the institution of waqf.

In the Tarikh al-Fattash, Askia Dawud is credited with establishing at least one library in the Songhai capital, Gao. It is unclear who had access to this library and how extensive it was. In fact, the library was, most likely, Dawud’s own collection, restricted to his royal entourage and favored scholars. Regardless, there exists no evidence supporting royally funded libraries in Timbuktu. Certainly, the historical chronicles would have mentioned them since they mention the underwriting of single manuscripts. The preferred form of patronage appears to have been bolstering the book collections of individual scholars rather than establishing public libraries.

Timbuktu’s history and societal structure hold the answer to the rationale favoring private over public libraries. The very remoteness of Timbuktu, especially early on in its development, contributed to the staunch private library tradition. The austere displays of wealth permitted in the close-knit pious community and the inability to acquire new books on demand created an environment of acute bibliophilism. Despite their eventual broader contact with the greater Islamic world, the literati of Timbuktu held fast to the private library tradition of their forefathers.

Ironically, further support of private libraries in Timbuktu likely stemmed from the exposure of its scholars to public libraries and librarians abroad. Historically, only scholars of esteem had been appointed as librarians of mosque libraries, and the position was held in high regard. Concerning librarians in medieval Baghdad, Ruth Mackensen notes: “They were figures important in the society of their time and often at court, members, rather than mere servants, of the cultured and learned groups which gathered in the libraries.” Although Mackensen refers specifically to librarians in Baghdad, the description above applies to librarians in the major medieval cities of the Muslim world. The historical records of Timbuktu hold in the highest esteem those scholars with large book collections. By retaining a large private collection, a scholar gained respect and renown similar to librarians abroad.

The most compelling argument against public libraries in Timbuktu stems from a social structure that simply made them unnecessary. In various parts of the Islamic world waqfs and other instruments of social equity allowed students of modest means to climb the social and scholarly ladder of achievement. Unfortunately, in Timbuktu the body of ulamawas drawn exclusively from the city’s wealthiest families. With the exception of a handful of apprentices called alfas, there were no opportunities for the lower classes to join the scholarly elite. It was rare even for financially assisted alfas to join the ulama or become anything more than enthusiastic and respected amateurs. Therefore, public libraries were not necessary when membership in the ulama was restricted to the wealthy. Only they were literate enough to read most of the erudite works available in the libraries of the Muslim world.

The number of ulama available to take advantage of public libraries was relatively small. The fully qualified ulama of Timbuktu were a tight-knit community never numbering more than two to three hundred at any particular time; they were concentrated in discrete quarters and mosques of the city. With the exception of special lectures given in the main mosques, the vast majority of instruction occurred one-on-one or in small group settings at the residence of a scholar. The scholars desired quick and easy access to reference materials and other works with which they were familiar. Virtually every mosque in Timbuktu would have had to possess a sizeable manuscript collection in order to supplant the private libraries.

The closely bound community of scholars lent books among one another; Muhammad Baghayogho, as we have seen, lent out countless books. Ahmad Baba, his biographer, chose to emphasize the fact that he never asked for the return of books he lent out over the act of lending books; Baba placed no emphasis on the act of Baghayogho merely lending books. This implies that it was rare to be so liberal in giving books away but not unusual for a scholar to lend books. This environment of collegiality, combined with the mitigating social factors and biases argued above, allowed the scholars of Timbuktu to hold to their traditions, ignoring the public library model of the greater Islamic world.

Conclusion

Out of humble beginnings, Timbuktu grew into a well-regarded center of Islamic learning in West Africa. Peaking during the fifteenth-century Golden Age, which fostered the emergence of renowned scholars such as Ahmad Baba and his mentor, Muhammad Baghayogho, Timbuktu’s reputation endured for several centuries. The scholars of Timbuktu had a deep hunger for acquiring books to meet their intellectual needs as well as to raise their status in the community. Through inheritance, purchasing, and copying, the practice of book collecting spread, creating library collections numbering in the thousands of volumes.

As Timbuktu’s scholars traveled the Islamic world, the well-stocked public libraries of Egypt, Morocco, and Arabia became known in the Sudan. Nevertheless, Timbuktu’s library tradition of favoring privately owned collections remained unchanged. Public libraries never took root due in large part to historical precedence, common access amongst the close community of scholars, and societal class structure. This remained true until many of the larger libraries were looted and dispersed after the Moroccan invasion in 1591.

This essay has brought together the known sources that describe various aspects of the book culture of Timbuktu. Future research should unearth further evidence of this important aspect of the history of Timbuktu. However, this will require a more extensive search of manuscript collections in North Africa, especially Morocco, as well as the Sudanic region for works that originated in medieval Timbuktu. Furthermore, the Centre de documentation et de recherches Ahmad Baba in Timbuktu, which collects and preserves ancient manuscripts in Mali, should be fully examined for further evidence. Undoubtedly, more documents will arise that will assist in researching this topic and facilitate completing the picture of Timbuktu’s bibliophiles and their unique contributions to African and Islamic history.

*Brent D. Singleton is a reference librarian at the Pfau Library, California State University in San Bernardino. He holds an undergraduate degree in history and a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is interested in all areas of library history, particularly African and Islamic libraries, and has conducted research on slavery and the African Diaspora. His bibliography, entitled “The Ummah Slowly Bled: A Select Bibliography of African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas and the Caribbean,” appeared in the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 22, no. 2 (October 2002): 401-12. He is also a reviewer for Choice.