Timbuktu

Timbuktu and Premodern Traditions of Learning: A Unesco Heritage Site in Danger 

Anja-‐Silvia Goeing 

Figure 1: Timbuktu (the red flag) in Mali, Africa: google maps, April 5, 2019. 

Introduction 

Timbuktu is today the administrative headquarters of the sixth region (of eight) of the 

Republic Mali in West Africa. In Mali's North, Timbuktu is on the south end of the desert 

Tanezrouft, one of the most desolate parts of the Sahara. Mali is a landlocked country with 

today roughly 18.5 million inhabitants. Its capital is Bamako, a city roughly 1000 miles in the 

south-‐west of Timbuktu. In 2009, Timbuktu as a city had a population of 54,453, about the 

same as it had in the 16th century, a time of great prosperity. Timbuktu is today the site of 

medieval mosques, shrines, a university (madrasa), and the UNESCO made it a cultural 

heritage site in 1988. In addition, Timbuktu was until 2012 the storing place of many 

thousand invaluable manuscripts. 

Recent political wars damaged Timbuktu. While the population in Mali steadily 

increased around 3% per year, the population level in Timbuktu shrunk by 2018 from 54,453 

(in 2009) to 32,460 inhabitants. The causes of this diminution are mostly to do with terror 

attacks in 2012 and 2013 by Islamist groups that declared the region around Timbuktu an

independent state, which led to people fleeing the region. The political situation stabilized 

again, when on April 1, 2013, French warplanes helped Malian ground forces chase the 

remaining rebels out of the city center. But the Islamists had destroyed 14 centuries-‐old 

shrines of local Sufi saints of the 16 that UNESCO had put under their protection, and they 

had set fire to the Ahmad-‐Baba-‐Library, the then home of multiple-‐thousand invaluable 

Islamic manuscripts from medieval times and later. According to the Hamburg Centre for the 

Study of Manuscript culture, about 95% of the manuscripts from Ahmad-‐Baba-‐Library and 

many private libraries in Timbuktu could be rehoused in the State Capital Bamako, and the 

Hamburg Centre gives their count in 2015 as 285.000 individual items. 

Figure 2: Niger-‐Saharan Medieval Trade Routes around 1400: Timbuktu is Located on the 

crossroads between North, South, East and West. 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Niger_saharan_medieval_trade_routes.PNG 

(accessed April 5, 2019) 

Timbuktu's rich history of learning had to do with its situation as a commercial hub 

from the 12th century. It was at the cross-‐roads of trans-‐Saharan trade routes and became 

famous for its supply of gold. The city attracted Muslim scholars and scribes from different 

Islamic beliefs and different geographical regions. Many of them brought manuscripts with 

them and copied other manuscripts while in Timbuktu. Their time of greatest affluence were 

the 15th and 16th centuries. Many legends about Timbuktu were brought to Europe, and 

the 19th century saw the French colonization of the place in 1893. In 1960, the independent 

Republic of Mali was established. Today, Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world, it 

ranks no. 182 in 2017 on the Human Development Index. In addition, Timbuktu, bordering 

the desert, suffers from the danger of desertification.

Figure 3: Location of the three mosques in the city centre: Plan of Timbuktu, made by the 

Africa explorer Dr. Heinrich Barth in 1855, 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Plan_von_Timbuktu_1855.jpg. Source: 

Mittheilungen aus Justus Perthes’ Geographischer Anstalt über Wichtige Neue 

Erforschungen auf dem Gesammtgebiete der Geographie von Dr. A. Petermann. Teil 1, 1855 

Three mosques, of which the two oldest original buildings go back to the early 14th 

century, the Djingareyber Mosque and the Sankore Mosque that included a university, and 

the Sidi Yahia Mosque (from 1400), together with sixteen mausoleums and holy public 

places make up the most important heritage spaces in Timbuktu. The mosques were rebuilt 

and restored in the late 16th century, between 1570 and 1583 (Djingareyber), 1577-‐1578 

(Sidi Yahia), and 1578-‐1582 (Sankore). I am interested in linking the manuscripts back to the 

centre of learning at the Sankore madrasa, or university, and I would like to point to the 

intangible world heritage behind the tangible buildings and manuscripts: What were these 

manuscript cultures exactly? And how can they be preserved? 

Values of Timbuktu's Cultural Heritage 

The urban space containing the three mosques and 16 mausoleums has outstanding 

value as a testimony of historical, architectural, and urban development in a region of the 

Subsahara that does not present many relics of the past. Additionally to the UNESCO 

valuation that is solely geared towards the buildings, the 285.000 manuscripts (still today 

mostly in private possession) have not only tangible, but also intangible value to point to a 

long tradition of Islamic scholarship and learning, and of manuscript and scribal culture from 

1200 to today.

For a historian, the fact that the mosques and other holy places of Timbuktu have been 

recorded from the late sixteenth century in the Arabic chronicles, or "tarikhs" of Timbuktu, 

make the buildings as visualizing component and thus as speaking relics of this past even 

more valuable. The Arabic chronicles record Timbuktu as a centre of West African Sudan 

market and scribal culture. Because Timbuktu was at the crossroads of trade routes, the 

mosques and holy places of Timbuktu were imperative for the development and spread of 

Islam in Africa in late medieval and early modern times. 

Figure 4: Sankore Mosque, Timbuktu. Photo Francesco Bandarin, date 01/02/2005; 

https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/119/gallery/&index=1&maxrows=12 (accessed April 5, 2019) 

The buildings are architectural highlights from an era of great prosperity and intellectual 

importance. The three mosques present a specific style of architecture, working with 

earthen materials. Buildings as old as the mosques from these materials are very rare, but in 

this case they also represent a high point of Islamic learning and cultural and trade exchange 

of this region. How they were restored in the 16th century, which materials were used, how 

the spaces within and outside the mosques were configured, can tell us about West African 

Sudan architectural development, of which Timbuktu was the capital of culture in the 15th 

and 16th century, the time when the mosques were restored. 

As Elias Saad (Saad, p. 108) points out, the topography and thus, the urban space of 

Timbuktu has always been dominated by its mosques: "Their architecture rose above 

everything else in the city and they became the main points of referral and congregation in 

their respective quarters." They served not only as centres for prayers, but also as charities 

and hospitals for the poor. Saad assumes that the mosques determined the directions in

delineation of quarters. For Timbuktu, the mosques had therefore also value as referrals for 

urban planning. With their central situation and integrating tasks, the mosques were the 

main forums of interaction between the various ethnical and social groups of the city, and 

their mixing with marketeers, travellers, migrating scholars. 

Figure 5: United Nations Photo: MINUSMA Support in the Preservation of Ancient 

Manuscripts in Mali, photo taken January 5, 2016: 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/un_photo/30874616233/in/photolist-‐qKptM-‐DCbuxe-‐ 

6okCEy-‐83QteH-‐6okCp7-‐6okCA1-‐6okCgq-‐6ogrit-‐6okC2s-‐6ogrvH-‐6okCdb-‐rYees9-‐P3htKx 

The city of Timbuktu has developed since the 16th century, and is now situated in one of 

the poorest regions of the world, as I have explained above. To keep a tradition alive that 

speaks about its prosperous past, is necessary to retain the value of the place and the 

unique features of its history and greatness. But the tradition has been kept alive, outside 

the valuable efforts of UNESCO. The old families of Timbuktu keep as one of the most 

treasured possessions folders with manuscripts that their ancestors copied from lectures 

and textbooks given at the Sankore University (madrasa) and in the culture of learning that 

surrounded it. Some of these manuscripts are very old and stem from the 14th century. An 

initiative of Timbuktu citizens together with money from South Africa, the Mellon 

foundation and other foundations worked to make these treasure visible to the public and 

at the same time to put them into storage places more adapted to their state of fragility. 

UNESCO officially complained about the site of the Ahmad-‐Baba-‐Museum next to the 

Sankore mosque over many years. And the complaints only ceased with the Islamist burning 

of the Museum in 2012. Although the manuscripts could be rescued through night-‐drives of 

single people to Bamako, the capital of Mali, the collections did not yet get the recognition 

as tangible and intangible heritage from UNESCO that they should have had. Today, the 

manuscripts are curated by a team from Hamburg University in Germany with the help of 

the German Federal Foreign Office Ministry, the German Jutta Vogel Foundation and the 

German Gerda Henckel Foundation.

The key question and task here is to put the two strings together again, the manuscript 

culture and the building culture and show more about the scholars and their habits of 

learning, writing and talking in the spaces of the city and with the other social groups mixing 

on the markets and in the mosques. I want to know how it is that all the old families of 

Timbuktu were able to take part in this writing cultures, and how it is that manuscripts came 

to and were distributed from Timbuktu in olden times. The texts, as well as the buildings, 

together with the history of the houses as storing places, might give answers to these 

questions, also the stories that families were passing on to their children about the 

manuscripts and how they came to possess and cherish them. 

Timbuktu's Cultural Heritage conserved, utilized, and managed 

Figure 6: Islamists set fire to sacred tombs in Timbuktu: Islamist militants destroy an ancient 

shrine in Timbuktu on July 1, 2012 in a still from a video. 

https://www.cnn.com/2012/06/30/world/africa/mali-‐shrine-‐attack/index.html (accessed: 

April 5, 2019) 

There have been two stages of conservation: The first stage started when in 1988 

UNESCO accepted the three mosques and 16 mausoleums of Timbuktu as Cultural Heritage. 

It ended, when in 2012 an islamic war over Timbuktu broke out, with 20.000 people leaving 

the city, cultural heritage was destroyed, and about 95% of the old manuscript were brought 

to safety in temporal spaces in Bamako, the capital of Mali. The second phase of 

conservation started immediately after the war. However, although the war was won by 

Malian forces with the help of French military in March 2013, up to today, the city is still a 

place of military presence, and most of the manuscripts have not been returned to their old 

home. The center space with the three mosques is intact, with fourteen of the sixteen 

mausoleums destroyed and re-‐built again after 2014, and tourism is almost non-‐existent 

because of war threat that is still imminent in the region. 

The UNESCO documents publicly available but tucked away on the UNESCO World 

Heritage Site are my chief source for summarizing the efforts of conservation, utilization and

management of the building site before and after the war. The manuscripts, however, have 

their own narrative which is not so widely documented, because they had not been part of 

the UNESCO World Heritage Site. But the website of the manuscripts' remote curatorial 

place at the University of Hamburg gives some indications what has been done with them 

and how they are managed. 

1. Before the war 

Conservation, utilisation and management of the World Heritage Site before the war 

was directed first and foremost to get the site out of danger created by the climate. Since 

1990 until 2005, UNESCO had put the Timbuktu site on their list of World Heritage in danger: 

the report of 1996 states that "the Mosques of Timbuktu are made of fragile materials which 

are regularly threatened by rare but violent bad weather and have only survived several 

centuries due to the annual maintenance carried out by the local population, under the 

direction of the Imman and the responsibility of the corporation of masons, and with 

funding from the wealthy personalities of the town for the more costly works." Both 

negligence by UNESCO, and also its over-‐ambition could threaten the local traditions and 

lead to the destruction of the mosques. 

A workshop in 1996 was able to connect the international UNESCO conservation teams 

with the local groups and their imam. The workshop had the goal to show to the UNESCO 

officials the old techniques of conservation and was the basis of a future conservation plan 

for the site. (https://whc.UNESCO.org/en/soc/2113). In 2003, the UNESCO report on 

Timbuktu was very positive, declaring that the danger issues such as sand encroachment, 

lack of financial resources, deterioration of the rainwater drainage syste and the need for 

appropriate law have all been resolved. (https://whc.UNESCO.org/en/soc/2680) In 2005, the 

heritage site was taken off the UNESCO List of World Heritage in Danger, after a 

Governmental conservation heritage plan had been accepted. 

(https://whc.UNESCO.org/en/soc/1243) 

UNESCO officials complained in later reports up to 2012 that the state allowed the 

Ahmad-‐Baba-‐Museum, a new building of the 1974 created Ahmad Baba Institute of Higher 

Learning and Islamic Research to be build in the direct vicinity of the Sankore mosque, thus 

changing the surroundings of the mosque from their original structure. It is here that a 

general city heritage management plan would have been of advantage to connect 

stakeholders with interest in the buildin site with those with interest in the manuscripts and 

scholarship (displayed by the Ahmad-‐Baba-‐Museum), wich however did not exist. 

(https://whc.UNESCO.org/en/soc/1161) The interests of UNESCO were overwritten by the 

interests of the Presidents of Mali and South Africa to build the Ahmad-‐Baba-‐Museum 

directly on the old university site at the Sankore mosque to house and display the old 

manuscripts, and for welcoming researchers worldwide. (This is the first time that the 

reports mentioning attention to tourism and utilization of the site, however with a critical 

undertone!)

Figure 7: Rehabilitation of the mausoleums in Timbuktu destroyed by jihadists during the 

occupation of the northern regions of Mali. Program Implemented by UNESCO and its 

partners as the Minister of Culture of Mali and MINUSMA. Timbuktu, April 15, 2015. Photo: 

MINUSMA/Harandane. https://www.flickr.com/photos/minusma/17389128385 (accessed: 

April 5, 2019) 

2. After the war 

All strategies that had been used before the attack by UNESCO and other sponsors such 

as the Mellon foundation were geared towards making the heritage publicly accessible. In 

and after the war, from 2012, the strategies were much more about keeping the manuscript 

storing places a secret and not put too much public attention on the armed conflicts. 

UNESCO inscribed the Timbuktu Heritage Site yet again in their List of World Heritage in 

Danger, this time danger of destruction through occupation of the site by armed groups, 

absence of management, and the destructions of the mausoleums that had already 

happened. (https://whc.UNESCO.org/en/soc/1865). Timbuktu suffered another armed 

conflict, with the destruction of 15 of the 16 mausoleums , as reported on 18 February 2015 

by the State Party. 

Different from before the war and very fortunately for the site, this time national and 

international sponsors pulled together to work on restoration and reconstruction strategies. 

(https://whc.UNESCO.org/en/soc/3218). And the state of deterioration created now for 

the first time a collaboration offered by UNESCO to rehabilitate four private ancient 

manuscripts libraries (that were in existence before the war, but never mentioned). In 2016, 

fourteen of the 16 mausoleums were rebuilt, and several of the private libraries restored. 

The most recent report of 2018 was very positive: most of the war damage could be 

restored, and the local, state and UNESCO officials were finally able to put a 2018-‐2022 

Management and Conservation Plan in action, a meta-‐plan for the whole of Timbuktu and its 

heritage. We note that in the face of war, they have learned to work together. The Ahmed 

Baba Heritage Institute and its many manuscripts is included in this new collaboration. While

the secondary literature consulted does not give hope for the manuscripts ever returning to 

Timbuktu, the UNESCO report of 2018 opens up this new window and we will definitely stay 

tuned to know what of the management and conservation plan will have been realised over 

the next couple of years, seeing the continuing unstable security situation and the notable 

impacts due to military presence in Timbuktu. 

Bibliography 

Centre for the Study of Manuscript Culture, University of Hamburg: 

https://www.manuscript-‐cultures.uni-‐hamburg.de/timbuktu/timbuktu_e.html (March 28, 

2019) 

English, Charlie: The Storied City: The Quest for Timbuktu and the Fantastic Mission to save 

its Past. New York: Riverhead Books, 2017 

Human Development Index: http://hdr.undp.org/en/data (March 28, 2019) 

Hunwick, J.O., “Timbuktu”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. 

Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs. Consulted online on 24 

March 2019 ; First published online: 2012; First print edition: ISBN: 

9789004161214, 1960-‐2007. 

Saad, Elias N.: Social history of Timbuktu: the role of Muslim scholars and notables 1400-‐ 

1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983 

Unesco World Heritage: Timbuktu. https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/119 (March 27, 2019) 

UNESCO World Heritage Centre-‐State of Conservation: Timbuktu (Mali) 1990: 

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https://whc.UNESCO.org/en/soc/3779 (accessed: April 5, 2019)

Timbuktu

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