Timbuktu madrasas and manuscript trade
Madrasas de Tombuctú y comercio de manuscritos
- Date
- c. 1330 · confidence medium
- Place
- Timbuktu, Mali Empire
- Credited to
- Ulema of Timbuktu under Mali and Songhai
- Field
- Communication
What it is
A network of madrasas (Sankore, Djinguereber, Sidi Yahya) with tens of thousands of manuscripts on astronomy, law, medicine and mathematics, copied and traded across the Sahara. An intellectual centre of West Africa.
The high point came in the 16th century (Songhai), but the institutions arose under Mansa Musa (1312–1337).
What it led to
- Arabic and Ajami literacy in the Sahel
- the trans-Saharan trade in books, gold and salt
- the preservation of family libraries to this day
Built on
- Sijilmasa and the trans-Saharan gold and salt tradec. 800
- Paper in Europe1056
- Sudano-Sahelian mud-brick architecturec. 1240
- Paper in Europe
- Sudano-Sahelian mud-brick architecture
- Islamisation of the Mali Empire