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The Qadi of Timbuktu Who Defied the Saadian Invaders
When the Saadian army of Ahmad al-Mansur conquered Timbuktu in 1591, they arrested the renowned scholar Ahmad Baba al-Timbukti and marched him in chains across the Sahara to Marrakech. This episode follows his seven-year exile, his defiant legal opinions under occupation, and the intellectual community he built in exile. We explore how he used fatwas and ijazas to preserve Sankore's scholarly traditions, how his debates with Saadian jurists challenged the legitimacy of the invasion, and how his eventual return reshaped Timbuktu's intellectual life. Drawing on the Tarikh al-Sudan and…
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