#ANCIENT TIMBUKTU MANUSCRIPTS FULL#
We only have one of the pages, but it’s actually a full manuscript, and it’s quite amazing.” “I think it’s the oldest piece, the 11th century Koran sheet. It stands out as one of the most beautiful in the collection and it is project manager Kathleen Louw’s favourite. Haidara libraryĪmong the tracts on human rights, astronomy and medicine is an excerpt of the Koran. Holy Koran with gilt writing on fish skin.
Therefore we’d like to translate this and to publish it in English and send it to Nigeria and in French and send it to Europe and in local languages in Africa, we can send it all over for people to understand that we have to return to reality”, says Haidara. “Yes, this is a good example to settle problems. “These manuscripts were never published, never translated and they can perhaps help us resolve a big part of today’s problems, which is conflict”, he adds.Ĭould this reveal a way to deal with Boko Haram, the current Islamic insurgency in northern Nigeria? “And when it was finished, when the war was over, al Hajj al Martel wrote about everything he used, such as diplomacy, the arguments he took from the Koran, the arguments he took from tradition, the ancient examples that he learned from old manuscripts he wrote all of this here", says Haidara, pointing to the document.
So what secrets, if any, can be unlocked by these manuscripts? Haidara points to a tract sheathed in leather, written by Al Hajj al Martel, a Mali sage who, while on his way to Mecca for a pilgrimage, found that a war had broken out between Borno state and Sokoto state in present-day Nigeria. So they adopted Arabic as their first alphabet”, says Luffin. “In West Africa in the middle ages, you had no writing tradition. Xavier Luffin, professor of Arabic literature at the Université Libre du Bruxelles, worked as a consultant with Bozar reading the selected manuscripts and adding some missing information.Īlthough there were some alphabets for African languages most were passed down through oral tradition. Some seven percent are in Ajami, an Arabic script from the African languages of Fulani, Swahili, Wolof, Soninke, Songhai, Tamasheq and Hausa. “They arrive and we don’t have to organize a special transport independently from him, he’s their guardian”, says Louw. “He came with them in his suitcase so he carries them personally, they travel business class with him”, she laughs. Louw says that Haidara in his capacity as the president of SAVAMA DCI, a non-governmental organization for safeguarding and valuing manuscripts for the defence of Islamic culture, made this special trip across the Sahel to Brussels with the pieces. Diallo met with Kathleen Louw the project manager for Africa at BOZAR and the idea to hold an exhibition was launched. Last June Mali’s Cultural Minister N'Diaye Ramatoulaye Diallo visited Belgium as part of her initiative to revive the country’s economy and mood and spirit through culture. And here’s one about philosophy”.Ībdel Kader Haïdara in his library in Timbuktu, 2007 Alexandra Huddleston And here is one that speaks about human rights. “And here is a manuscript that is about mathematics. Look at the designs here”, Haidara tells RFI as he walks through the display cases. Here you see two that speak of astronomy. “We chose these manuscripts to show the different subjects in the texts. The manuscripts from the 11th to the 18th century are a sampling of works handed down from generation to generation in the learned city of Timbuktu, Mali. Human rights tracts and beautiful Korans are among 16 ancient texts from northern Mali on display in a new exhibition "Timbuktu Renaissance" curated by Haidara at BOZAR, the Center for Fine Arts in Brussels, Belgium. All but 4,202 of the manuscripts were saved. These were the same Timbuktu families who had originally given the ancient manuscripts they had in their possession to Haidara.
And that is what we did at the beginning”, he says about spearheading the operation. “We agreed to put the manuscripts from the libraries into metal cases and then bring them to different families. Haidara spoke with other librarians in Timbuktu and sprung into action. Abdel Kader Haidara, the General Director of the Mamma Haidara Manuscript Library in Timbuktu. I saw lots of important administrative papers all over the town and that really, really shocked me and I thought automatically of the manuscripts because those manuscripts are also made of paper,” says Dr. “I went to some buildings, administrative offices which were pillaged.
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