By Atiq ur Rehman Buzdar
In wildest of imagination, Timbuktu is the most
fictitious human settlement a wanderer can dream off. Mystery and myth have
always surrounded it, in a way so profound that it is widely perceived as the
remotest outpost of humanity on the farthest brim of globe. You open any
vagabond’s diary and you are bound to hit upon Timbuktu on the very first page
.Name Timbuktu per se, produces so mysterious an impact on your eardrums that
you are bound to fall in the trap of curiosity. This impoverished but folkloric
little town of 50,000 or so inhabitants
is couched on the the southern fringe of Great Saharas, in the West-African
nation of Mali. By legend, it has always been thought synonymous with the ends
of the earth or the middle of nowhere. For centuries, Timbuktu surreptitiously
hid its heritage and grandeur from the outer world and vagabond's desire to
snoop about it, kept rising. It always epitomized the farthest and isolated
from the muddle of mundane. So farthest Timbuktu was thought to exist that a
popular phrase, “from here to Timbuktu” ,popped out in daily usage. Whenever I
come across Jack Kerouac’s slogan,
“Further”, restless inside mounts and imagination leads to Timbuktu.
Timbuktu
seems very abstruse and abstract till the time you have gone thru the Timbuktu
experience. Roots of the Timbuktu Enigma trace back to its famous king of the
kings, Mansa Musa who took on an extravagant pilgrimage to Mecca with caravan
laden with huge cache of gold. Entourage of 60,000 that followed The Mansa,
included 12000 slaves all of whom carried 4lb gold bars. Mansa’s generosity
inadvertently destroyed the economy of the region. Huge influx of gold devalued
the gold price across the entire region. Mansa was forgotten soon but the lore
of opulence lived on. Gold is a treasure that homo sapiens always craved and
explored for, hence generated a quest to explore the El Dorado of Africa. Fabled
town earned its first mention in the book when Berber Moroccan explorer Ibn-e-Batuta
travelled to Timbuktu in 1353.
A Tuareg and Saharan Wilderness
Al-Sadi
writes Maghsharan Tuareg tribesmen as the founders, as their summer encampment
soon turned depot to travellers' meeting place. Tuarags are Berber people who are
famous for their blue robes, Camel nomadism and Trans-Saharan trade caravans.
In Rainy season Tuarags roam the desert to find grazing lands and they get back
to the river proximity once the season gets dry. Legend has it that whenever
they camped by the river they got sick from the mosquitoes and the stagnant
water. So they decided to camp few miles away from the river where they dug a
well. Whenever it started
raining in the desert, the Turareg will leave their heavy goods with an old
Tuareg women called Tin Abutut who stayed at the well. In the Tuareg language,
Tin Abutut means "the lady with the big naval". With the wither of time, the name Tin Abutut became Timbuktu.Nomadic summer camp set up in 11th century, became
the obligatory point of passage for the Trans-Saharan trade caravans. 15 km
from the main channel of river Niger , Timbuktu stands tall to Saharan
wilderness in the West-African nation of Mali.
Timbuktu Mosque
Since the 11th
century Timbuktu remained under the folds of mystery and romanticism:
attributes that kept multiplying to its popularity. Trade Caravans and the Afro-Islamic
heritage is the essence of Timbuktu. The
booming economy of Timbuktu attracted the attention of the Emperor of Mali, “Kan
Kan Mussa.” He captured the city in 1325. As a Muslim, Mansa Mussa was
impressed with the Islamic legacy of Timbuktu. On his return from Mecca, Mansa
Mussa brought with him an Egyptian architect by the name of Abu Es Haq Es
Saheli. The architect was paid 200kg of gold to built Jingaray Ber or, the
Friday Prayers Mosque. Mansa Musa also built a royal palace (or Madugu) in
Timbuktu, another Mosque in Djenné and a great mosque in Gao (1324-1325). Today
only the foundation of the mosque built in Gao exists. That is why there is an
urgent need to restore and protect the mosques that remain in Djenné and
Timbuktu.
Famous
Sudanese proverb says: gold came from the south, the salt from the north and
the Divine knowledge, from Timbuktu. Timbuktu is also the cross-road where "the
camel met the canoe".By the 12th century, Timbuktu became a grand
center of Islamic learning and a famous Saharan Caravansary. Timbuktu had three
universities and 180 Quranic schools. These universities were the Sankore University and Sidi Yahya university. Books were
not only written in Timbuktu, but they were also imported and copied there.
There was an advanced local book copying industry in the city. The universities
and private libraries contained unparalleled scholarly works.Timbuktu has always been famous for being the custodian of world’s most
beautiful Mosques. By the end of Mansa Musa's reign (early 14th c. CE), the
Sankoré Masjid had been converted into a fully staffed Madrassa (Islamic school or a
university) with the largest collections of books in Africa since the library of Alexandria.
The level of learning at Timbuktu's Sankoré University was superior to that of
all other Islamic centers in the world. The Sankoré Masjid was capable of
housing 25,000 students and had one of the largest libraries in the world with
between 400,000 to 700,000 manuscripts.
Contd...
P.S: Bash Adventures Pakistan is set to roll on the Road To Timbuktu in near future. God be with us and we shall add lot more to the lore. Stay tuned with Gallabaan Facebook page for the bohemian updates :
http://www.facebook.com/bashadventurespakistan
DEAR GOD.
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