Latest / Timbuktu: Africa's Forgotten Center of Knowledge — Fexingo History / The Timbuktu Scholar Who Fought Slavery with Ink
Transcript
- Lucas: So, Luna, we've talked a lot about Timbuktu's scholars and their libraries, but one thing we haven't really touched on is how some of them used their legal expertise to fight one of the darkest institutions of their time — the slave trade. Luna: Wait, you mean Timbuktu scholars were arguing against slavery? Lucas: Exactly. And the key figure here is someone we've mentioned a few times before — Ahmad Baba al-Timbukti. He's best known for his legal work, but after the Saadian invasion in 1591, he was taken captive and exiled to Marrakech. And it was there, in exile, that he wrote a treatise that basically argued that many people being sold in the slave markets were actually free Muslims. Luna: So he was a slave himself arguing against slavery? That's powerful. Lucas: He was indeed. And his argument wasn't just moral — it was deeply legal. He used the Maliki school of Islamic law, which was the dominant school in West Africa, to show that enslavement was only lawful under very specific conditions. And he wrote a famous response to a question from a merchant in Tuwat, an oasis in the Sahara, who asked whether it was permissible to enslave people from certain regions. That response became known as <i>Mi'raj al-Su'ud</i> — 'The Ladder of Ascent.' Luna: <i>Mi'raj al-Su'ud</i> — that's the treatise you mentioned? Lucas: Yes. And in it, Ahmad Baba systematically lists the regions of West Africa whose inhabitants he considers to be Muslims — and therefore immune from enslavement. He names places like Bornu, Kano, Katsina, Songhai, and Timbuktu itself. He also names specific ethnic groups. He even pushes back against the assumption that black skin was a sign of being non-Muslim, which was a racist prejudice some Arab slave traders used. Luna: That's incredible. So he was literally using legal scholarship to dismantle the justification for the slave trade. Lucas: Precisely. And this wasn't just abstract theory. Ahmad Baba was writing in response to real cases. One of the questions he received was from a judge in Tuwat who had a dispute over a slave woman from the region of Kano. The seller claimed she was a pagan, but the buyer suspected she was Muslim. Ahmad Baba ruled that unless the seller could prove she was a non-Muslim from a non-Muslim region, she should be freed. Luna: So he put the burden of proof on the slave trader. That's a huge shift. Lucas: It was. And his ruling was based on a principle in Maliki law: that freedom is the default state for a person, and anyone claiming someone is a slave has to prove it. He also argued that even if a region had a mix of Muslims and non-Muslims, you couldn't just enslave anyone from that region — you had to know the individual's status. Luna: That must have been controversial among the merchants who made money from the trade. Lucas: Extremely. In fact, when Ahmad Baba was in Marrakech, he got into heated debates with Moroccan scholars who defended the enslavement of West Africans. The Saadian sultan Ahmad al-Mansur had justified his invasion partly by claiming the Songhai were not proper Muslims. So Ahmad Baba's work was a direct challenge to that narrative. Luna: It must have taken a lot of courage to speak out like that, especially while he was a captive in the sultan's court. Lucas: Absolutely. But Ahmad Baba was never one to back down. He was from the prestigious Aqit family of scholars in Timbuktu, and even as a young man he was known for his integrity. When the Saadians first arrived, they tried to win him over, but he refused to cooperate. That's why they exiled him. Luna: And you know, this really highlights something that's true for a lot of these episodes — how the scholars used their knowledge to push for justice. 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. It's the listeners who make it possible to dig into these stories. And speaking of digging in, after his exile, Ahmad Baba eventually returned to Timbuktu in 1608. He lived another 20 years and continued teaching at Sankore. His legal opinions were collected and studied across the Sahara. Luna: Did his work actually change anything on the ground? Lucas: That's a great question. In the short term, it's hard to measure. The trans-Saharan slave trade continued for centuries. But his writings became a key reference for later Islamic abolitionists. In the 19th century, when European colonial powers were pushing to end the slave trade, some Muslim scholars in West Africa cited Ahmad Baba to argue that slavery was not sanctioned by Islam. Luna: So his ideas had a long tail. Lucas: Very much so. And there's also the fact that his work gives us a window into the reality of slavery in the region. He names specific ethnic groups and regions, which helps historians understand the scale of the trade. For instance, he mentions that the 'Bambara' — a non-Muslim group — were often targeted, but that many people from Muslim areas were also enslaved illegally. Luna: So he's not only a moral voice, but also a source of historical data. Lucas: Exactly. And the <i>Tarikh al-Sudan</i>, which we've talked about before, mentions that Ahmad Baba wrote over 50 works. Most are lost, but the ones that survive show a mind deeply engaged with the world around him. He wrote on grammar, theology, law, and even a biographical dictionary of Maliki scholars. Luna: Wait, a biographical dictionary? That sounds like a lot of work. Lucas: It was. And it's incredibly useful for historians. It lists scholars from across the Islamic world, including many from West Africa, which helps us see how connected Timbuktu was to other centers of learning. He included scholars from Fez, Cairo, Mecca, and even India. Luna: So he was truly a cosmopolitan scholar. Lucas: Absolutely. And his fight against slavery was also cosmopolitan. He wasn't just defending his own people; he was defending the principle that Islamic law protects all free Muslims, regardless of ethnicity. And that's a powerful legacy. Luna: It really is. Thanks for bringing this story to light, Lucas. Lucas: My pleasure. It's a reminder that the fight for justice isn't a modern invention — it's been there all along, written in the margins of history.