Timbuktu is a symbol of Africa’s written intellectual heritage long before the arrival of European colonialism. The sheer quantity of its manuscripts bears witness to that indisputable fact. As a metaphor, or symbol, of knowledge, Timbuktu includes both the actual city and settlement of Timbuktu and its surrounding world. From the building of its grand mosque called Djingere-Ber in 1325, it became a centre of knowledge in West Africa alongside the older cities of Jenne and Biru (Walata). And by 1501 it eclipsed both Jenne and Walata to become the centre of Islamic knowledge and the symbol of Islam’s intellectual tradition in West Africa. Timbuktu’s written intellectual tradition is a part of the larger Islamic intellectual heritage. Although much younger than older centres of knowledge such as Iraq, Egypt, Morocco and Andalusia, its contribution to the body of knowledge of the Islamic intellectual tradition is substantial. The manuscripts show that Timbuktu’s scholars were concerned with all the disciplines of the Muslim knowledge tradition such as law, theology, language sciences, Hadith, politics, exegesis, astronomy (and related fields), medicine, music, history, literature, mysticism and philosophy. In short they covered all the so-called ‘argumentative’ or ‘discursive’ (aqli) and ‘historical’ (naqli) disciplines.

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Dr Shahid Mathee is a lecturer in the Department of Religion Studies at the University of Johannesburg. He is also a research fellow on the University of Cape Town ‘Timbuktu Manuscripts Project’.