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Timbuktu's Lost Jurists: Fatwas from the Sahel
Ahmad Baba al-Timbukti was one of the greatest legal minds of the Sahel, a jurist whose fatwas shaped Islamic law across West Africa. After the Saadian invasion of Songhai in 1591, he was taken captive to Marrakech, where he wrote a landmark legal opinion arguing that free Muslims could not be enslaved. This episode explores Timbuktu's rich tradition of Maliki jurisprudence, the role of qadis and muftis in the Niger Bend, and the intellectual networks that connected Timbuktu to Cairo, Fez, and Touat. We also meet earlier figures like the North African jurist al-Maghili, whose…
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