Latest / Timbuktu: Africa's Forgotten Center of Knowledge — Fexingo History / The Fatwa That Saved Timbuktu's Libraries
Transcript
- Lucas: So, we've talked a lot about the manuscripts of Timbuktu—how they were written, traded, hidden, and sometimes lost. But there's one document that stands out, not because of its content, but because of what it did. It's a fatwa, a legal opinion, issued by Ahmad Baba al-Timbukti in 1599, while he was in exile in Marrakech. And that fatwa became a weapon of cultural defense for centuries. Luna: Wait, a fatwa against what? Lucas: Not against something—in favor of something. It declared that books, like people, could not be taken as war booty. That might sound obvious to us, but back then, when the Saadian army invaded Songhai in 1591, they carted off thousands of manuscripts to Marrakech. Ahmad Baba himself was taken. And while he was imprisoned there, he wrote this fatwa, arguing that under Islamic law, the sack of Timbuktu's libraries was illegitimate. Luna: So he was basically arguing that the manuscripts were stolen property, and the Moroccans had to give them back. Lucas: Exactly. But the fatwa had a life beyond that moment. It became a precedent, a legal tool that later generations could use to protect their own collections. And that's what we're going to explore today—the afterlife of that fatwa and how it helped save Timbuktu's libraries again and again. Luna: It's like a legal shield that keeps getting passed down. Lucas: And you know, it's funny you say that, because this idea of passing something down, of preserving knowledge for the future, is exactly why listener support matters for this show. We're able to keep making these deep dives because people who care about history chip in a little something. If you've been coming with us on these journeys through West Africa, and you want to help keep the archive growing, you can do that at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Every bit helps, and it keeps us ad-free. Luna: Yeah, it's a small way to keep the stories alive. Lucas: Right. So, back to that fatwa. To understand its power, we need to see how it was used. The first test came just a few years later, when the Moroccan authorities actually allowed some families to redeem their manuscripts. But the real test came in the 19th century, when Seku Amadu and the Fulani jihad took control of Timbuktu. He was a reformer, and he didn't trust the old scholarly families. He ordered his soldiers to seize any books that contradicted his own interpretation of Islam. Luna: So they were doing the same thing the Moroccans did, but in the name of purification? Lucas: Pretty much. And the families that had copies of Ahmad Baba's fatwa used it. They argued that their libraries were not war booty, but legitimate property, and that seizing them would be a violation of sacred law. It was a risky move—Seku Amadu was a respected Islamic scholar himself, so he couldn't just ignore a fatwa. He ended up returning many of the manuscripts. Lucas: But the fatwa wasn't just a piece of paper. It was embedded in a broader tradition of legal practice. The qadis of Timbuktu had always ruled on matters of property and inheritance, and they were known for their fairness. So when a qadi cited Ahmad Baba's fatwa, it carried weight. It was like citing a Supreme Court precedent. Luna: And that tradition continued even under French rule, right? Lucas: Yes, and this is where it gets really interesting. The French colonial administration didn't pay much attention to what they called 'native law.' But the local families still used the fatwa among themselves. They had a system called hidn, which means 'deposit.' You'd officially deposit your manuscripts with a trusted friend or a mosque, so that if something happened—a fire, a raid, a war—your books would be safe. And the legal basis for that system was exactly what Ahmad Baba had outlined. Lucas: The hidn system was crucial during the chaos of French conquest and the rebellions that followed. But it really proved its worth in 2012, when Islamist militants occupied Timbuktu and started burning libraries. That's when Abdel Kader Haidara, a descendant of those old scholarly families, organized a massive rescue operation. He used the hidn system to hide thousands of manuscripts in private homes throughout the city and even smuggled many out to Bamako. Luna: And he was directly citing the fatwa? Lucas: He didn't need to literally wave it around, but the principle was in his memory. He knew that the books were not property of the state or the militants—they were family heirlooms, protected by centuries of legal custom. And he also relied on oral tradition. The older women in his family knew the hiding places that had been passed down through generations. That's how they saved over 350,000 manuscript pages. Luna: It's amazing that a fatwa written in 1599 could still be protecting books in the 21st century. Lucas: It's a testament to the power of law and memory. But it also makes you wonder—what other legal opinions from that era are still shaping the world today?