 |
|
 |
Threats to the Survival of Timbuktu
Today, Timbuktu may still appear to be the disheveled town that
Caillié reached, but its great mosques and private libraries
stand as testimony to the city's past glory. From its past only
a few, rare architectural vestiges have survived Timbuktu's troubled
history. The religious monuments of Timbuktu, including the magnificent
Djingareyber and Sankore mosques, played an essential role in
the diffusion of Islam in Africa as centers of religious practice
and academic study and remain the essential elements of reference
to the past. Since Timbuktu's inclusion on the World Heritage
List in Danger in 1990, UNESCO and the Malian government have
worked to protect these precious monuments from the harsh desert
environment.
Possibly the most precious legacy of Timbuktu is the surviving
manuscripts from its ancient libraries. The collection of ancient
manuscripts at the University of Sankore attests to the magnificence
of the institution and the achievements of scholars that studied
and taught there. The libraries of Timbuktu grew through a process
of hand-copying. Scholars requested that learned travelers permit
their books to be copied, and students hand-copied texts borrowed
from their mentor's collections, studying the material as they
reproduced it. |
Photo
Credits:
top: Wolfgang Kaehler/CORBIS
bottom: UNESCO |
|
At
the height of the city's golden age, Timbuktu boasted not only
the impressive libraries of Sankore and other mosques, but also
the wealth of private ones. For centuries, local families have
been gathering and preserving religious texts, trade contracts,
legal decrees, and diplomatic notes exchanged among rulers of
the region. In closets and chests throughout the southern Sahara,
thousands of books from Timbuktu's ancient libraries are hidden,
their disintegration delayed by the dry desert air yet threatened
by insects and the annual humidity of rainy seasons.
In 1974, the Malian government received both Arab funding and
help from UNESCO to open the Ahmed Baba Center, named after a
fifteenth-century Timbuktu scholar, for gathering these valuable
manuscripts. The center, a simple building, now keeps 14,000 volumes
reasonably secure but cannot yet afford much in the way of scientific
preservation. Continued efforts to preserve Timbuktu's ancient
manuscripts and monuments will help the city to remain a bold
symbol of Africa's great spiritual and intellectual accomplishments.
|
|
