Latest / Timbuktu: Africa's Forgotten Center of Knowledge — Fexingo History / The Fatwa That Ended Timbuktu's Slave Trade
Transcript
- Lucas: So, we've talked a lot about Timbuktu's scholars, its libraries, its gold and salt. But there's one document that I think is among the most remarkable to come out of that city — and it's a fatwa. A legal opinion that basically took on the entire trans-Saharan slave trade. Luna: A fatwa against slavery? In the 1600s? Lucas: Exactly. It's called 'Mi'raj al-Su'ud' — 'The Ladder of Ascension' — and it was written by the scholar we've mentioned before, Ahmad Baba al-Timbukti. But this wasn't some abstract treatise. It was a direct response to a real crisis. Luna: The Moroccan invasion, right? When Judar Pasha sacked Timbuktu? Lucas: Yes. Ahmad Baba was among the scholars taken captive and marched across the Sahara to Marrakesh in 1591. He spent about twelve years in exile there. And during that time, he saw something that deeply troubled him. The Moroccan markets were flooded with enslaved people from the Sahel — people who were clearly Muslims, many of them educated, some of them his own colleagues. And the buyers just assumed it was legal to enslave anyone from 'the Sudan,' as they called it. Luna: So he wrote a legal argument saying they were wrong. Lucas: He wrote a systematic refutation. The full title is 'Mi'raj al-Su'ud fi Hukm asl al-'Abd' — 'The Ladder of Ascension Concerning the Legal Status of the Origin of the Slave.' And his core argument was this: under Maliki law, which was the legal school followed in North and West Africa, you could only enslave someone who was a non-Muslim captured in a legitimate jihad. But the vast majority of people being sold in Marrakesh were Muslims from the Songhai Empire, which had been a Muslim state for centuries. Luna: That seems obvious. But people were doing it anyway. Lucas: Exactly. And Ahmad Baba didn't just state the principle — he named names. He listed specific ethnic groups from the Sahel, like the Fulani, the Songhai, the Mandinka, the Hausa, and he ruled that enslaving any of them was haram — forbidden — because they were known to be Muslim. He even wrote, and I'm paraphrasing, 'Anyone who claims these people are not Muslims is either ignorant or lying.' Luna: Wait, did he actually say that? That's pretty bold for an exiled scholar. Lucas: He did. And what's remarkable is that the fatwa was actually taken seriously. He was consulted by judges in Fez and Marrakesh. His fatwa led to the freeing of many individuals who had been illegally enslaved. It didn't end the slave trade, of course — the economic incentives were too strong — but it created a legal precedent that people argued over for centuries. Luna: So it was controversial even among other scholars. Lucas: Very. Some scholars in Fez pushed back, arguing that Ahmad Baba was biased because he himself was from the Sudan. But he had the weight of Maliki scholarship behind him. He cited earlier authorities, like al-Maghili, who had ruled similarly. And he also pointed out a practical problem: the slave trade was so corrupt that it was impossible to know who was legally enslaved and who wasn't. So his fatwa essentially said: when in doubt, assume freedom. Luna: That's a radical idea for the 17th century — or any century, really. Lucas: Absolutely. And it fits perfectly with what we know about Ahmad Baba's character. He was a scholar of immense integrity. He wrote the 'Nayl al-Ibtihaj,' a biographical dictionary of Maliki jurists, and his own teacher, the great Sankore scholar, had instilled in him this commitment to justice. Even after he was allowed to return to Timbuktu in 1608, he continued to teach and write, and the fatwa was copied and circulated. Luna: Did the fatwa survive? Do we have copies? Lucas: We do. Multiple manuscript copies exist in the Timbuktu libraries — the very libraries that were secretly rescued in the 2010s. So 'Mi'raj al-Su'ud' is still with us. And in recent years, it's been studied by scholars of Islamic law and slavery. It's one of the most important documents we have for understanding how West African intellectuals thought about slavery and freedom. Luna: I love that. A legal argument from four hundred years ago that still speaks to us today. Lucas: It really does. And it reminds us that Timbuktu wasn't just a center of learning — it was a place where scholars engaged with the hardest questions of their time, even when it was dangerous. Ahmad Baba could have kept his head down in Marrakesh, waited to go home, and said nothing. Instead, he wrote a fatwa that challenged the entire economic system of the Moroccan empire. Luna: And he lived to tell the tale. Not many scholars could say that. Lucas: Exactly. He died back in Timbuktu in 1627, buried near the Sankore mosque. And his legacy is not just a library of books — it's a moral stance that still resonates. So next time someone tells you that pre-colonial Africa had no tradition of human rights, you can point them to Ahmad Baba's fatwa. Luna: I'll keep that in my back pocket. Thanks, Lucas. Lucas: My pleasure. And remember — history is full of voices that challenge the stories we think we know.