Black Lens - October 2021

Page 4
October 2021
www.blacklensnews.com
The Black Lens Spokane
YOU SHOULD KNOW
(Or Things You Probably Didn't Learn In School)
ART AND HISTORY
Ahmed Baba
by Bertoni Jones Bey
From her beginning, Europe referred to Africa
as the “Dark Continent”. “Dark” more
than a reference to the complexion of its
people, it referenced what was seen as intellectual
inferiority – Forgetting their own
Dark Ages. Europe missed the intellectual
glories of Western Sudan – a world-renowned
center for learning boasting three
major intellectual institutions – The Jingaray
Ber, Sidi Yahya, and The University of
Sankore founded in 989 AD. At the University
of Sankore the last scholar/chancellor
named Ahmed Baba maintained the
scholarly standard.
Ahmed Baba was born October 26, 1556
near Timbuktu. His father Ahmad bin al-
Hajj Ahmad bin Umar bin Muhammed
Aqit was a teacher. Reading, learning, and
study were requirements of the culture for
every young man and in Timbuktu books
were symbols of blessings, wealth, and
power. When citizens built a home, not
having a library in the blueprint was unthinkable.
They knew that just as you need
a kitchen to feed the body, you need a library
to feed the mind.
Imam Baba himself authored more than
forty books each on entirely separate subjects.
He oversaw a university system,
which at its zenith boasted twenty-five
thousand scholars in a city of one-hundred
thousand. The university structure had no
central administrative system but was a series
of individual schools run by a single
headmaster.
In his book, “Timbuctoo the Mysterious”,
author Felix Dubois quotes – “They [the
scholars of Timbuktu] astounded the most
learned men of Islam by their erudition.
That these Negroes were on a level with
the Arabian savants is proved by the fact
that they were installed as professors in
Morocco and Egypt. In contrast to this, we
find that Arabs were not always equal to
the requirements of Sankore.”
Its vast offerings presented great opportunity
for all scholars – law, literature,
medicine and surgery, Qur’anic studies,
geography, history, etymology, mathematics,
and art to name a few. A “PhD” required
a ten-year commitment. There were
trade classes for students to learn business,
farming, leatherworks, tailoring, fishing,
construction, metal works, and shoe making.
Once a student committed to a trade
they were taught business codes and ethics
for that profession. Each guild craftsman
was responsible for upholding a quality of
work that was up to par with his peers in
that guild guaranteeing a certain standard
of quality for the trade as a whole and a
chance to build a name and reputation for
the individual craftsman.
In 1592 Timbuktu was invaded by Morocco.
Ahmed Baba was the first to openly
protest Moroccan occupation leading to
his arrest, as well as his family, and the
leading scholars of Timbuktu. They were
exiled to Morocco in shackles, his house
was ransacked, and his library of more than
sixteen-hundred books destroyed and forever
lost. Yet in Morocco, Ahmed Baba’s
reputation preceded him. He scolded the
Sultan of Morocco, Al Mansur for his bad
manners and their poor treatment while detained
and said – “I had the smallest library
of any of my friends, and your soldiers
took from me sixteen-hundred volumes.”
Though his exile lasted twelve years he
and his family were released to a high post
in the Mosque of Kerifs as a teacher of law,
rhetoric, and theology. Upon his departure
back home in 1608, he stated to Moroccans:
“May God never bring me back to
this meeting, nor make me return to this
country!”
Ahmed Baba died in his homeland in
1627 as one of Africa’s great intellectual
scholars.
Sources:
Timbuctoo The Mysterious – Felix DuBois.
Christopher Columbus and the African Holocaust
– Professor John Henrik Clarke.
The Destruction of Black Civilization – Chancellor
Williams.
muslimheritage.com/the-university-of-sankore-timbuktu/kentakepage.com/ahmed-baba/
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