Latest / Timbuktu: Africa's Forgotten Center of Knowledge — Fexingo History
The Timbuktu Scholar Who Calculated the Width of the Red Sea
In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the remarkable astronomical achievements of Muhammad al-Wangari, the 17th-century Timbuktu scholar whose work 'Mir'at al-'Alam' (The Mirror of the World) contained sophisticated calculations of celestial phenomena, including the latitude of Timbuktu and the width of the Red Sea. Drawing on earlier Islamic astronomers like al-Zarqali and al-Battani, al-Wangari created original tables predicting lunar eclipses and planetary positions, all while teaching at Sankore University. The episode examines how West African scholars were not mere…
The skinny
The skinny isn't ready yet — notes appear once the transcript is processed.