What is and Where is Timbuktu?

From here to Timbuktu is a well worn saying, I have heard it so many times, in so many different places. Indeed, I recall it as one of the first exotic words that my tongue ever found it’s way around, on a wintry morning in a cold national school classroom in the depths of the bitter midlands of Ireland. Timbuktu – it rings of something otherworldly, before I ever discovered where it was, it evoked images of deserts and palm trees and camels and men in headdresses and witchdoctors and snake charmers and boys riding elephants and just heaven! A million light years from the snow covered fields of Westmeath, Ireland. It would take years before I really found out where Timbuktu actually was. Although I heard the word bandied out over and over again, finally I found out that Timbuktu is located in Mali in West Africa, I was delighted because I was beginning to dread that the whole thing was simply a myth. But what made it capture the imagination of so many people as being the final frontier, the furthest flung corner of our planet, the last place on earth? Well, let’s go right back to the start and find out why. Timbuktu was originally established by the nomadic Tuareg in the tenth century as a base for their supplies when they were travelling further north. Local lore tells the story that a woman named Buktu dwelt there and it was to her that the Tuareg trusted their belongings. However a more academic explanation outlines that in the Berber language buqt means faraway, as it was located at the furthest end of the Sahara.

 Timbuktu is located exactly where the Niger River flows northward into the southern edge of the mighty Sahara. It soon became a central meeting point for the various nomadic tribes who included Songhai, Wangara, Fulani, Tuareg and Arabs. The settlement began to grow and traders from both further north and further south began to make their way to Timbuktu to do business. Goods began making their way from as far as the shores of the Mediterranean to be bartered in Timbuktu in exchange for gold. Salt was transported by camel by Berbers from Taghaza, which lay a thousand miles to the North while gold was hauled into Timbuktu from the great gold mines of the Boure and Banbuk in the South. By the fourteenth century, Timbuktu had become a major centre for the trans-Saharan gold and salt trade as well as Islamic scholarship and culture. The trade was controlled in turn by the three famed West African empires of Ghana, Mali and Songhai. From the early thirteenth century, it was controlled by the Mali Empire, an empire that extended over an area that was larger than Western Europe and which was renowned for its extraordinary wealth. When the Emperor Mansa Mura set out on his now famous pilgrimage to Mecca, the wider world became aware of the unbelievable wealth of the Mali Empire. As he travelled north along the Niger, through Algeria and onto Cairo he was accompanied by a caravan of sixty thousand men, including a personal entourage of twelve thousand slaves all of who were dressed in brocaded costumes of Persian silk. Musa liked to make an impact, he brought a hundred camels each laden down with three hundred pounds of gold, he also placed five hundred slaves at the head of his caravan, each holding a four pound gold staff aloft, what a spectacle it must have been! The caravans that they encountered on their epic journey were completely bowled over by the awesome spectacle but they were also hugely impressed with the courtesy that they received from the mighty retinue.

The Mali Empire flourished mainly due to its immense gold mines, by the beginning of the fourteenth century, Mali was the source of almost half the world’s gold, it also boasted huge reserves of salt and copper. During the decades of the fifteenth century, a number of Islamic institutions were established including the mighty Sankore mosque which became known as the University of Sankore. Timbuktu became a flourishing centre of learning, culture and education; it had three universities and almost two hundred Quranic schools. There were hundreds of books written in Timbuktu, as well as huge numbers imported and copied there, leaving Timbuktu containing an unparalleled amount of scholarly works. On his return from Mecca, Mansa Mura brought with him an Egyptian architect Abu Es Haq Es Saheli to construct the tremendous Jingaray Ber, he also brought a flock of Arab scholars. Timbuktu remained under the protection of the descendants of Mansa Mura until the Tuareg under the leadership of Akil Akamalwal invaded and captured the city in 1434. Akil respected the exalted place that the Ulemas or scholars held in the city, however Tuareg rule became corrupt and unjust, leading the inhabitants of the city to seek the help of Soni Ali Ber, ruler of the Songhai Empire. Soni Ali Ber conquered the city in 1464, he began a policy of re-establishing traditional African cultures and religions in the city and resisting allowing Islamic culture to take over completely. He replaced the Islamic scholars with intellectuals who understood the African traditions of the people, leading many of the scholars to flee to Walata in Mauritania. However, upon Soni Ali Ber’s death, one of his generals, Askia Mohammed established the Aksia dynasty and re-instated the Islamic scholars. The city reached its peak during the Askia dynasty, the city’s population reaching one hundred thousand, a quarter of these been scholars, many of whom had studied in Mecca or Cairo.

The decline of the city began when European explorers and slavers began establishing bases on the West African coast, thereby providing alternatives to the slave market in Timbuktu and the trade route which had to cross the mighty Sahara. The rot was compounded by the successful capture of the city by a Moroccan army under the leadership of Pasha Mahmud ibn Zarquan in 1591. The Moroccan force plundered the city, burned the great libraries, executed many scholars and deported many more to Fez and Marrakech. The city became a shadow of it’s former self, the Moroccans controlling the city were unable to repel the continuous attacks by the Bambara, Fulani and Tuareg. For three centuries, Timbuktu fell into a complete state of chaos, anarchy and lawlessness, as nobody appeared capable or willing to take control; tragically the great city fell into rack and ruin. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, European explorers began searching for the fabled city, encouraged by historical accounts that has being unearthed describing the great wealth that Timbuktu possessed in times past. It is believed that in 1805 the young Scottish adventurer, Mungo Park was the first Westerner to reach Timbuktu but he died on his return and so the report of his findings was never ascertained. In 1824, the Geographical Society of Paris offered a considerable reward for the first European who was to reach Timbuktu and indeed return to provide information of what they had discovered. Another Scotsman, Major Gordon Laing managed to set foot in Timbuktu in 1826, even managing to post a letter from the beleaguered city. Although he wrote in the letter that his situation was dangerous because of the hostility he was encountering from a Fula chief named Bello who was in control of the city at the time, he never made it out of the city alive. The prize was eventually won by the intrepid, young French adventurer named Rene Caille, who disguised as an Arab made it in and out of the city in 1828; rather anti-climatically recording that it was a small, unimportant and poor village that held no indications of it’s once illustrious past. Timbuktu was captured by the French in 1893 and remained in French hands until Mali gained independence in 1960. The decline of the town continues down to the present day, it remains an impoverished place of little more than thirty thousand souls. I wonder do they realise that hundreds of school children are presently gazing out their classroom windows and dreaming about the mythical city of golden roofs hidden deep in the deserts of time…