Latest / Timbuktu: Africa's Forgotten Center of Knowledge — Fexingo History / Leo Africanus: The Man Who Wrote Timbuktu for Europe
Transcript
- Lucas: So, we've talked a lot about Timbuktu from the inside—its scholars, its manuscripts, its legal traditions. But I want to step back and look at how the city was seen from the outside, especially by Europeans. And there's one figure who's absolutely central to that story: a man named Leo Africanus. Luna: Leo Africanus—I've heard that name. He wrote something about Africa for Europe, right? Lucas: Exactly. His book, The Description of Africa, was published in 1550 and became the go-to source for Europeans who wanted to know about the continent—especially Timbuktu. For centuries, if you were an educated European and you wanted to picture the fabled city of gold, you were picturing Leo Africanus's version of it. But here's the thing: his real name wasn't Leo Africanus. He was born al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan, in Granada, around 1494. Luna: Wait—Granada? That's in Spain. So he was a Muslim from the very end of Al-Andalus? Lucas: Exactly. His family fled to Fez in Morocco after the fall of Granada in 1492. So he grew up in Fez, which was a major scholarly and commercial hub. He studied law, history, and languages. And by his early twenties, he was traveling widely as a diplomat for the Saadian sultan. He went to Timbuktu around 1510, during the height of the Songhai Empire under Askia Muhammad. So he actually saw the city at its peak. Luna: That's a pretty solid credential. He wasn't just repeating rumors. Lucas: No, he had firsthand experience. But the story gets wilder. In 1518, on his way back from a mission to Constantinople, his ship was attacked by Christian pirates near the island of Djerba. He was captured and taken to Rome, where he was presented as a gift to Pope Leo X. The pope was fascinated by this learned Muslim diplomat. He convinced al-Wazzan to convert to Christianity and baptised him as Giovanni Battista Ramusio—literally John the Baptist. But he's best known by the name the pope gave him: Leo Africanus, or 'Leo the African.' Luna: So he wrote his book for the pope? That must have colored what he said. Lucas: That's the key tension. The Description of Africa is a remarkable work—detailed, vivid, surprisingly accurate in many places. He describes Timbuktu as a city with a thriving book trade, where 'many hand-written books imported from Barbary are sold, and more profit is made from them than from any other merchandise.' He notes that the city has a university, a king, and a wealthy court. But he also includes some questionable claims—like that the king of Timbuktu had a treasure of gold so vast he could pay the salaries of all his officials from it. And he repeats stories he'd heard secondhand, like the existence of a race of dog-headed people in the interior. He was writing for a European audience that wanted to hear about exotic wonders, and he had to satisfy his patron. Luna: So how do historians separate what he actually saw from what he made up or embellished? Lucas: That's a great question. Scholars compare his account with local sources from Timbuktu—like the Tarikh al-Sudan and the Tarikh al-Fattash—and with other travelers' reports. For example, Leo Africanus claims that Timbuktu had no gardens or orchards and that its food was imported. That matches what we know from later travelers and from the chronicles: the city was dependent on grain from the Niger River valley. But he also says the city had a 'great abundance of doctors, judges, priests, and other learned men'—that checks out with the manuscript evidence. It's a mixed bag. He saw some things clearly, but he also filtered everything through his own cultural lens and his audience's expectations. Luna: Did anyone after him try to correct or verify his account? Lucas: Yes, and that's another fascinating chapter. In the 18th century, a Moroccan merchant named Shabeni—also known as El-Hadj Abd Salam Shabeni—was captured by Europeans and gave a detailed account of Timbuktu. He described a city that was much smaller than what Leo Africanus had depicted—only about a mile in circumference. He also said there was no great treasure, just a bustling market town. Then in the 19th century, the French explorer René Caillié became the first European to return alive from Timbuktu, in 1828. He was bitterly disappointed: he found 'a mass of ill-looking houses' and 'nothing but a wretched place.' But by then, the legend of Timbuktu as a golden city was so entrenched that people accused Caillié of lying or of not having actually reached the real Timbuktu. Luna: It's like the myth had become more real than the actual city. Luna: So in a way, Leo Africanus is as much a creator of Timbuktu as its actual builders. Lucas: He created a version of Timbuktu that lived in European minds, and that version had enormous consequences. It inspired explorers, adventurers, and colonialists. It shaped how Africa was seen from the outside. And yet, al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan—the man behind the myth—was a real person with a complex identity, torn between worlds. He never returned to Africa. He died in Tunis around 1554, still hoping to go home. So his story is also a story about how history gets written: by outsiders, by captives, by people who have to please patrons. And we have to read those accounts carefully. Luna: It makes you wonder what else we think we know about the past that's actually a single, biased source. Lucas: That's the historian's job: to question every source. But also to appreciate them for what they are—like Leo Africanus's Description of Africa, which, for all its flaws, gives us a rare window into a world we'd otherwise have no access to. It's a reminder that every account is a partial truth, and that the stories we tell about history are as much about the storyteller as the story itself.