Legacy of Timbuktu:
Wonders of the Written Word Exhibit
Storyline Walkthrough

Okolo Rashid

I. Exhibit Gallery Entrance

Upon entering the museum visitors will encounter a model of the Great Mosque of Djenne of the City of Djenne, Mali, a replica of one is on display at the National Museum of Mali. The mosque is celebrated for its incorporation of conventional architectural styles, aesthetics and materials, such as adobe (or mud bricks and palm wood), which has been used for centuries by the people of Djenne. The Great Mosque is the largest and oldest adobe structure in the world and was designated a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1998. On display also will be one of the rare manuscripts from the collection of the Mamma Haidara Memorial Library.

II. Introduction to the Museum and Theater Experiences

After entering the Museum, visitors will have the option of taking tours of either or both Islamic Moorish Spain: Its Legacy to Europe and the West, the museum’s inaugural exhibition, as well as The Legacy of Timbuktu: Wonders of the Written Word Exhibition, the museum’s latest offering. An interactive map in the entry area will document the spread of Islam from the Middle East across northern Africa to the Iberian Peninsula as well as its movement across the Sahara, covering the geography of both the Moorish Spain and the Timbuktu exhibitions. It will also show the location of the first Muslims to live in Africa, exiles from Makkah to Ethiopia. A timeline overview will place these events in the context of contemporaneous events in world history.

Two orientation videos will be offered for screening in the Museum Theater, and visitors may choose to watch either or both. The first video gives a framework for the central themes of each Moorish Spain exhibit node—the contributions of Muslims to the dissemination of knowledge and learning through exploration and geography, trade and commerce, literacy and language, science and mathematics, art and architecture.

The second video will introduce themes explored in Legacy of Timbuktu: the literacy, scholarship, and intellectual pursuit that brought the people of that region to a culture of peace and great advancement—the Empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai—and the spread of that learning and culture to America through the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The exhibit will highlight the Saharan caravan trade, the rise and decline of the great empires of West Africa, and life in Timbuktu and Mali today. The premiere artifacts throughout the Timbuktu exhibit will be a rare collection of manuscripts, many of which deal with conflict resolution, good governance, and tolerance within the law and social structures.

III. Timbuktu Exhibit Overview

Visitors to The Legacy of Timbuktu Exhibit will enter the exhibit gallery from the theater, the entrance to the exhibit hall proper, or the concluding exhibit node of Islamic Moorish Spain. Here visitors will encounter a dramatic story covering some 1400 years through a series of exhibit nodes and environments featuring displays of rare manuscripts, artifacts, and reproductions, as well as graphic displays, electronic media, and hands-on experiences.

The exhibit will begin with the story of the first African convert to Islam, an enslaved Abyssinian , and the first Muslims to live in Africa, exiles from Makkah who were given refuge in Abyssinia (Ethiopia today). A large tent will tell the stories of the rise of the great West African empires and their leaders, the Saharan caravan trade, and life in the desert today. The next exhibit node will feature the Sankore Mosque and University in the city of Timbuktu on the edge of the southern Sahara, where cultural and intellectual life reached its zenith during the mid-16th century. Rare, ancient African manuscripts rediscovered during the past 20 years, showing the prominence of literacy and culture, will be featured in this exhibit node and displayed throughout the exhibit, with topics appropriate to each node’s themes. The next exhibit area will focus on the reasons for the decline of the last great Malian empire, Songhai—the Moroccan invasion, the transatlantic slave trade, and European colonialism, and how these were met with strong resistance—to include the leaders of the resistance. Here, too, the stories of enslaved African Muslims who brought their knowledge and learning to America will be told, and the differences in the trans-Saharan and trans-Atlantic slave trade will be presented. In the following node, life in Mali today will be shown through the expressions of the people of Timbuktu, who engage in the production of various artistic and utilitarian items using techniques and tools handed down through generations. The varied cultures of the diverse country of Mali will also be shown. The final experience will be a participatory learning laboratory in which visitors may react through writing and artistic expression to ideas they have seen and heard. Here, too, Malian games and musical instruments will be displayed and demonstrated, and visitors will learn of the link between Malian music and America's blues, with its roots in Islam music.

IV. Across the Sahara: The Caravan Trade

A. Caravan Trade

Visitors will enter a large leather tent that tell the story of the caravan trade that contributed to the establishment of some Sahelian cities as wealthy trading and learning centers and important conduits to southern Europe, the Middle East and the Far East will be told here. The trading commodities from West Africa—primarily gold, books, domestic and industrial slaves, and occasionally ivory—were exchanged for salt, textiles, books, horses, exotic birds and feathers, metal goods, ceramics, glassware, and manufactured products.The caravan trade became the economic foundation of the Muslim dynasties for many generations. Reproduction and authentic trade goods, such as gold and salt—still important in Mali’s economy today—will be displayed and interpreted in this node. A map delineating major trade routes and the flow of commodities will be displayed, as well.

B. The Great Empires and their Leaders

Here visitors will also be introduced to the rise of the great sub-Saharan empires that benefited from the caravan trade. The empires, which succeeded one another from the 8th to the 17th century, will include Ghana (700-1075). Ghana was founded and ruled by Soninke, the native people of the area. The Ancient Soninke clans were among the earliest peoples in West Africa to have converted to Islam following contact with Berber and Arab traders from North Africa doing business within the territories of Ancient Ghana.

The empires of Mali (1078-1465) and Songhai (1465-1591) will also be depicted, along with the Islamic influences that these African empires embraced, adding to their long heritage. This heritage included a long history of unification and diversity, peace and tolerance, and wealth and advancement.

Over the years a great number of ethnic groups, including the Serer and Wolof, Malinke and Bambara, Soninke and Kasonke, Fulani and Tukulor, Sosso and Diallonke, Songhai and Tuareg lived together under the same authority in this vast territory. In spite of this diversity, however, Ibn Battuta, the 14th century historian and traveler who visited West African wrote, “complete safety is generalized. Travelers have no more reason to fear brigands, thieves or attackers than settled people do. The Blacks do not confiscate the goods of White men who die in their lands, even though these often represent immense treasures. On the contrary, they confide them to a man of confidence known to the Whites until the heirs come and claim them.” Also, Ibn Battatu was struck by the religious tolerance that existed throughout the empire. He gave a vivid description of the beauty of the women and the relative freedom afforded them. He spoke of the absence of jealousy among couples, and the freedom with which husbands and wives had extra-marital friends and “companions.” Although what Battatu describes relative to this blend of Islamic African cultural, has the feel of “a kind of heaven on earth.” He was, of couse, scandalized by what he saw.

Among the great leaders whose stories will be shared in a series of audio modules and related graphics will be Mansa Musa, who ruled from 1312 to 1332. His lavish pilgrimage to Makkah in 1324-5 was well documented, and accounts say his entourage included 8,000 soldiers and servants (some say 60,000) and 15,000 camels bearing gifts. Mansa Musa became especially well known in Cairo, where his gifts of gold were so extensive that they upset the balance of trade. It is when Timbuktu was integrated into the empire of Mali in 1325 that the city started its spectacular rise. It benefited from the peaceful order and organization of the empire. Timbuktu, Jenne, Gao and Niani, the capital of Mali saw the development of a class of native clerics and scholars. With the traders they were the propagators of Islam to peoples whose languages they spoke and customs they knew.

By 1464, the city of Gao eclipsed Timbuktu and Djenne as a trading center and Songhai began to gain its independence from Mali under Sunni Ali Ber (Ber = The Great) who conquered parts of Mali including Timbuktu (in 1468) and Jenne. Askia Muhammad, a Soninke came to power in April 1493. He founded the new Askia dynasty. In 1496-97 he made the pilgrimage to Mecca with 1,500 people and 300,000 dinars. There, he was appointed Khalife of the Sudan. His conquests added the Hausa states and parts of the western Malian empire to his domain, establishing the Songhai Empire, which lasted for another 100 years.

It was during his and his successors’ reigns that Timbuktu went through the most peaceful and flourishing period of its history. It is at this time that Timbuktu was at its height as a crossroads of international caravan commerce, including the book trade, as well as one of the most celebrated centers of learning in the world. Scholars came to Timbuktu, including thousands of students and teachers from many countries and backgrounds.

Books were brought into the city to be traded, but local scholars also wrote their own works and artisans scribed, decorated and bound them in a sophisticated local book production industry. The culmination of the activities developed into a complex and highly viable socio- economic model.

The vast majority of the ancient African manuscripts of Timbuktu are of local authorship written in Arabic. Important portions of the materials are in the local Songhay, Fulbe or Tamasheq languages transliterated into both Arabic and Hebrew scripts.

Timbuktu was multi-ethnic and through intermarriage it was also very mixed, the Arma, for example, the military and that ethnicity was of no importance in terms of scholarship.

The documentary richness of the manuscripts provide a solid basis for researching the socio-economic and cultural history of West Africa and for revolutionizing long-held perceptions concerning the predominance of oral traditions in Africa.

Leo Africanus, celebrated medieval historian and traveler wrote, "In Timbuktu there are numerous judges, doctors and clerics, all receiving good salaries from the king. He pays great respect to men of learning. There is a big demand for books in manuscript, imported from Barbary. More profit is made from the book trade than from any line of business."

V. Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

From as early as 1440 until the end of the 19th century, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French, Danes, and British slavers, fueled by demand for labor in the Caribbean as well as Central, South, and North America, deported Africans from Africa in staggering numbers, the majority were Central Africans, and not West Africans. It is documented that at least 12.5 million Africans were deported through the transatlantic slave trade. Thirty percent (30%) of West Africans brought to the Americas as slaves are believed to have been Muslims, according to research. Among the enslaved Muslim were leaders and scholars from the ancient city of Timbuktu. Personal accounts of some of the Muslims who were sold into slavery will be told later in this exhibit node.

A. Muslim Roots of Mississippi Blues Tradition

In terms of popular culture, its hard to find a single work—whether it’s a novel, movie, song or other art form—that covers the intersection of Muslim culture, music, and enslaved Africans. Of those 12.5 million Africans bought and sold into bondage in the Americas, the pain felt by those enslaved is evident in America’s blues music—a music that’s often about cruelty, sad times, and a yearning to break free. The blues is a unique American art form, originating out of the Mississippi Delta of hard times—that influenced American and world history.

Dr. Sylviane Diouf, among other scholars, have amassed a large body of research that presents proof of Muslim roots of American blues music. Dr. Diouf presents a case for the Muslim athaan, the Muslim call to prayer that’s heard from minarets around the world, as being connected to an early type of blues song that first came up in the Mississippi Delta more than 100 years ago. This particular blues song has lyrics like the Muslim call to prayer and speaks of a omnipotent or all powerful God. It is also, the song’s melody and note changes that closely resemble one of Islam’s best-known refrains, as heard in the call to prayer. Further, it was the intonations, cadences, song themes and instruments of the early enslaved Muslim’s musical tradition, which included daily prayers and recitation of the Quran, that played roles in the growth of American music, especially the blues, according to research. Demonstrated in the exhibit will be Malian music and instruments that presents the relationship between Muslim music and American blues.