Interesting African Landmarks. Timbuktoo, an historic center of learning

Greetings.

This is the first in a series of blogs that I will post highlighting some fascinating places in Africa. Not everyone will get a chance to travel and see them but should some of you be able to visit some day, these will be places that I think that most people will find interesting to visit.





Just a short little post with links pertaining to its history...... Above is a picture of the ancient city of Timbuktoo in Mali which is about 20 hours drive from its present day capital Bamako though it is also accessible by air and which is home to one of the worlds longest continuous learning center's, Sankore University.

It was designated as a UNESCO world heritage site in 1988.


Older even than Cambridge and Oxford Universities as an academic institution, it was Africa's greatest intellectual center in the middle ages. It was first established as a Madrassa in circa 988 under the prominent Muslim scholar Al Qadi Aqib ibn Mahmud ibn Umar, who became its first dean, and later extended to its present size during, first, the reign of Mansa (Emperor/King) Kankou Musa and then by the fabled Mansa Musa after him (pictured below).



In its medieval heyday the University catered for upwards of 20 000 students at any given time and courses were taught in law (Islamic), geometry, mathematics, geography, history and philosophy, with four stages of qualification equivalent, relatively speaking, to today's undergraduate degrees to PHD level - relatively speaking that is.


It would go on to become host to one of the largest intellectual libraries, if not the largest ever, in Africa with around 600 000 to 700 00 manuscripts.





Sadly though, many of the original manuscripts are no longer housed there and are now in the hands of private collectors, and even worse, thousands of these splendid ancient scripts were burnt to ashes by mindless Al Quaeda terrorists in 2013 who set fire to two of the libraries specifically established to house them, one of which was off campus and was only constructed in 2009 with South African funding, and the other which was on site.

Still, many more of those manuscripts remain and I would recommend a visit to that ancient city and university, even if only only to marvel at one of the worlds most majestic places.





Wishing you all the best.

Afritude.