Latest / Mansa Musa: The Richest Man Who Ever Lived — Fexingo History / Mansa Musa's Library: The Books That Built Timbuktu
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- Lucas: We've talked a lot about Mansa Musa's gold, his army, his building projects — but there's one legacy of his that's a lot quieter, and in some ways more enduring. Luna: What's that? Lucas: His libraries. By the end of his reign, Timbuktu was becoming not just a commercial hub but a centre of learning — and that was very much by design. When Mansa Musa returned from his hajj in 1325, he brought back more than just architects and poets like al-Sahili. He brought scholars. He brought books. And he set up the first state-funded libraries in the Sahel. Luna: So he was deliberately creating an intellectual infrastructure. Lucas: Exactly. The traditional account — and we get this from the Tarikh al-Sudan, the 17th-century chronicle by Abd al-Rahman al-Sa'di — is that Mansa Musa ordered the construction of libraries attached to the mosques in Timbuktu and Djenné. These were stocked with manuscripts he'd bought in Cairo and Fez, some copied on the spot. And he also started a tradition of royal patronage: he paid scribes to copy works of theology, astronomy, medicine, and law. Luna: Was this all in Arabic? Lucas: Mostly, but not entirely. Arabic was the language of scholarship across the Islamic world, so you had works by Ibn Sina, al-Ghazali, Ibn Rushd — the classics. But there was also a growing tradition of writing African languages in Arabic script — what's called Ajami. Mansa Musa apparently commissioned translations of key texts into Mande languages, so that local scholars who weren't fluent in Arabic could still access the knowledge. Luna: That's remarkable — a deliberate effort to make learning accessible. Lucas: It was. And it paid off. Within a generation, Timbuktu had a class of scholars who were producing original works. The most famous later example is Ahmad Baba — he lived in the 16th and early 17th centuries, but his library contained 1,600 volumes, many of them written by West African authors. And that tradition traces back to Mansa Musa's initial investment. Luna: What kinds of things were they writing about? Lucas: Everything. Theology and law were big — Maliki fiqh, since that was the school of Islamic law in the region. But also astronomy, mathematics, medicine, history. The Tarikh al-Sudan itself was written in the 1650s by al-Sa'di, and it's one of our key sources for the Mali Empire. There were also works on grammar, poetry, and even local folklore written in Ajami. Luna: It sounds like a golden age of learning. Lucas: It was. But we have to be careful not to romanticize it too much. Literacy was still limited to a relatively small elite — mostly scholars and merchants. The vast majority of people remained oral. Still, the manuscript culture that Mansa Musa helped launch was extraordinary by any standard. Luna: And you mentioned that patrons paid for scribes. Was that a state function? Lucas: It seems so. There's a term in the sources — farba — which was a kind of provincial governor or official. Some of these farbas were tasked with overseeing libraries and scriptoria. The Tarikh al-Sudan mentions that the farba of Timbuktu was responsible for maintaining the library attached to the Sankore mosque. So it was institutionalized. Luna: I'm curious about the physical books. What were they like? Were they illustrated? Lucas: Most were not illustrated — that was rare in West Africa, unlike Persian or Ottoman manuscripts. But they were beautifully written, often with careful calligraphy. They were written on paper that was imported from North Africa and Europe — papermaking hadn't reached the Sahel yet. The ink was usually carbon-based, made from soot and gum arabic, and the bindings were leather. Some of these books are tiny — pocket-sized — others are huge folios. Luna: How many of these manuscripts survive today? Lucas: That's a complicated question. There are tens of thousands of manuscripts in public and private collections across Mali, mainly in Timbuktu, but also in Gao, Djenné, and Bamako. But many were lost over the centuries — to war, to termites, to the climate. The biggest threat in recent history was the 2012 occupation of northern Mali by Islamist groups, who destroyed some libraries and burned manuscripts. But local librarians and families smuggled many to safety. Luna: I remember hearing about that — the heroic efforts to save the manuscripts. Lucas: Yeah. People hid them in boxes, in false walls, even buried them in the desert. That's how much these books meant. And today there are projects to digitize them, so they're accessible to scholars worldwide. It's a direct line back to Mansa Musa's investment six centuries ago. Lucas: And this is actually a good moment to mention something about how this show works. We're able to dig into these stories because a handful of listeners chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No ads, no sponsors — just people who like what we do. Luna: Totally. And it makes a real difference. So if you've been getting something out of these conversations, that's one way to keep them going. Lucas: Exactly. Okay — so back to the libraries. One of the families that preserved these manuscripts for generations is the Kati family. Mansa Musa's own scribe, a man named Ali Kati, is said to have started a collection that stayed in his family for centuries. Luna: So these were essentially private libraries passed down through families. Lucas: Right. The Kati library is one of the most famous, but there's also the al-Wangari library, the Ahmad Baba library — these are named after scholars, but they were really family collections. And they weren't just hoarded — they were lent out, copied, and studied. It was a living tradition. Luna: What about after Mansa Musa? Did later rulers continue to support the libraries? Lucas: It varied. The Mali Empire declined in the 15th century, and the Songhai Empire took over under Sunni Ali and Askia Muhammad. Askia Muhammad was a patron of learning too — he built more libraries and invited scholars. So the tradition continued, but the golden age of manuscript production really peaked in the 16th and 17th centuries, long after Mansa Musa. Luna: It's amazing that one emperor's vision could have such a long tail. Lucas: It is. And it shows that Mansa Musa's ambitions weren't just about gold or conquest. He wanted to build something that would last intellectually. And in many ways, he succeeded.