Latest / Timbuktu: Africa's Forgotten Center of Knowledge — Fexingo History / The Timbuktu Scholar Who Called Out a Sultan
Transcript
- Lucas: If you've been coming with us through these conversations about West Africa, you've heard a lot about Timbuktu's scholars and their libraries. But there's one figure who really shook things up — a North African jurist named Muhammad al-Maghili. He arrived in Timbuktu around 1498, and within a few years, he had written a legal opinion that basically told the most powerful ruler in West Africa he was doing Islam wrong. Luna: Wait — he told the Askia he was wrong? That took some nerve. Lucas: It did. Al-Maghili came from Tlemcen, in what's now Algeria. He was a Maliki jurist, part of a tradition that valued the authority of the qadi — the judge — as a check on political power. By the time he reached Timbuktu, he'd already been kicked out of several cities for being too outspoken. But Sankore was a place where scholars could argue without fear, or at least with less fear. And the ruler at the time, Askia Muhammad, had just finished a major pilgrimage to Mecca. He was trying to centralize his empire and present himself as a pious Muslim leader. Luna: So he invited al-Maghili to court to get his blessing? Lucas: Exactly. Askia Muhammad actually wrote al-Maghili a letter — this was around 1499 — asking for guidance on how to rule justly. He probably expected a nice endorsement. Instead, al-Maghili wrote back a treatise called 'The Obligation of Princes' — in Arabic, 'Minhaj al-Salikin fi Siyasat al-Muluk' — and in it, he told Askia Muhammad that he was failing on multiple fronts. He accused him of waging unjust wars, of taking slaves unlawfully from Muslim populations, and of surrounding himself with corrupt officials. Luna: Ouch. And Askia Muhammad didn't just throw him out? Lucas: Remarkably, he didn't. Or if he did, the sources don't say. What we know from the Tarikh al-Sudan is that al-Maghili stayed in Timbuktu, taught at Sankore, and his treatise became a foundational text for how West African rulers thought about Islamic governance. It was copied and recopied by the Kunta and other scholarly families. The Kunta, by the way, were a clerical lineage that later became crucial in preserving manuscripts — they saw themselves as guardians of scholarly independence. Luna: So al-Maghili's critique actually stuck around for centuries? Lucas: It did. And it's really interesting what he focused on. One of his biggest issues was the Songhai practice of raiding neighboring communities — even ones that were Muslim — and enslaving captives. Al-Maghili said that was illegal under Islamic law unless those people had first been properly warned and given a chance to convert or submit. He wrote: 'It is not permitted to fight any people until you have called them to Islam with clear arguments.' And he argued that the ruler's first duty was to establish justice at home before expanding his domain. Luna: Which would have been a direct challenge to Askia Muhammad's whole military strategy. Lucas: Absolutely. Askia Muhammad had built his empire through a series of campaigns — against the Mossi, against the Fulani, against the Tuareg. And the slave trade was a major source of revenue. So al-Maghili wasn't just giving spiritual advice; he was questioning the economic foundation of the state. And he did it in a way that tied back to the Maliki legal tradition — citing precedents from the school's great jurists like Khalil ibn Ishaq, whose 'Mukhtasar' was studied at Sankore. Luna: This is fascinating — but I'm also thinking, how did the people of Timbuktu react? The city was full of merchants and scholars who depended on Askia Muhammad's patronage. Lucas: That's the tension. Timbuktu's scholars were not a monolith. Some, like the qadi Mahmud ibn Umar — who we've mentioned before — were closely allied with the Askia. Others, like the Aqit family, were more independent. Al-Maghili landed somewhere in the middle. He had supporters among the ulama who saw him as a reformer. But there's evidence that his critique also created friction. The Tarikh al-Sudan mentions that after al-Maghili left — he eventually went to Kano and then to Gao — some of his works were suppressed by later rulers who found them too critical. Luna: So he was a controversial figure even in his own time. Lucas: Yes, and that makes him really valuable for understanding Timbuktu's intellectual life. Because it wasn't just a place where everyone agreed. It was a place where scholars could argue about the limits of royal power, about the ethics of war, about what it meant to be a Muslim ruler. And those debates were taken seriously — they were recorded, copied, and passed down. That's partly why the manuscripts survived: because people felt these questions mattered. Luna: And it's also why we're still talking about it today. If today was actually useful to you, the way these stay ad-free is listener support — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Yeah, exactly. Just a small way to keep the show going for anyone who finds value in these deep dives. No pressure at all. Luna: So back to al-Maghili — after he left Timbuktu, his ideas didn't disappear. They actually shaped later debates in West Africa. Lucas: Right. His 'Obligation of Princes' was still being cited in the 18th and 19th centuries by reformers like Usman dan Fodio in the Sokoto Caliphate. Dan Fodio, who also studied Maliki fiqh and was influenced by the Timbuktu tradition, used very similar arguments to justify his own jihad against what he saw as corrupt rulers. So al-Maghili's critique of Askia Muhammad became a template for later movements. It's a direct line from Sankore to Sokoto. Luna: That's a huge legacy for one treatise. But was al-Maghili's view the only one? Were there other scholars in Timbuktu who defended the Askia's policies? Lucas: There were. One of the most interesting counterpoints comes from another qadi, Mahmud al-Kati — not to be confused with Mahmud ibn Umar. Al-Kati wrote the Tarikh al-Fattash, and in it, he seems to portray Askia Muhammad as a just ruler, almost a model king. So you have two different historians, two different qadis, offering competing visions of what justice meant. That debate is part of what makes Timbuktu's intellectual history so rich — it's not a single story. Luna: So al-Maghili wasn't 'the voice of Timbuktu.' He was one voice in a loud argument. Lucas: Exactly. And that argument was happening in a city that was, at the time, one of the most literate and cosmopolitan places in Africa. Students came from all over the Sahel — from Bornu, from the Hausa states, from the Mandé regions — to study at Sankore. And they brought their own perspectives. So when al-Maghili taught there, he wasn't just lecturing to a passive audience. He was engaging with scholars who had their own interpretations of Maliki law and their own political loyalties. Luna: What happened to al-Maghili after Timbuktu? Lucas: He traveled east, to the Hausa city-state of Kano. There, he advised another ruler, Rumfa, and wrote a shorter version of his political advice. Then he went to Gao — the Songhai capital — but by then Askia Muhammad was still in power. We don't know exactly how he was received. He died around 1504, probably in Gao or on the road. But his books stayed. The Kunta family, in particular, preserved copies of his works, and they were still being read when the Saadians invaded in 1591. Luna: So even the invasion didn't erase his influence. Lucas: No. And that's part of the Timbuktu story that's so remarkable. The libraries were scattered, the scholars were exiled, but the intellectual tradition didn't die. It went underground. People like the Kunta and the Haidara family kept those manuscripts hidden for centuries. And when the Ahmed Baba Institute was founded in the 20th century, al-Maghili's works were among the first to be cataloged. Today, you can read his 'Obligation of Princes' in Arabic and in translation. Luna: It's kind of incredible that a legal opinion written in 1499 still feels relevant — the whole question of when war is justified, and whether a ruler can be held accountable by religious scholars. Lucas: Absolutely. And that's why Timbuktu matters beyond its own time. It was a place where people grappled with the same tensions we still face: between power and justice, between tradition and reform, between loyalty to a ruler and obedience to a higher law. Al-Maghili's challenge to Askia Muhammad is a reminder that those debates have a long history — and that the manuscripts of Timbuktu are full of voices that still have something to say.