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Timbuktu’s Literary Gems Face Islamists and Decay in Fight for Survival

May 27, 2013 By Staff

There is a proverb in Timbuktu, the legendary medieval city in Mali’s desert, that says: “The ink of a scholar is more precious than the blood of a martyr.”

The Ahmed Baba Institute in Timbuktu
The Ahmed Baba Institute in Timbuktu. Photo courtesy of CEDRHAB, Timbuktu.

What Ahmed Baba, the 16th-century intellectual who said it, would make of recent developments is hard to imagine. At the multimillion-dollar Timbuktu institute bearing his name, fragments of ancient texts litter the corridors. The charred remains of not just scholarly ink, but the antique leather-bound covers that protected them against the harsh desert elements are blown by the hot Saharan wind.

Read the rest of the story at The Guardian.

Filed Under: West Africa Tagged With: ahmed baba, documents, heritage, manuscripts, timbuktu

Staff

The staff of Arzouni.com is made up of a group of people who believe deeply in the mission and work of David and Linda and who do what they can to support them in their endeavors for the cause of Christ.

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