Latest / Timbuktu: Africa's Forgotten Center of Knowledge — Fexingo History / The Timbuktu Scholar Who Defended the Rights of the Poor
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Timbuktu's golden age, the great scholars of Sankore, the libraries. But I want to take us into the 19th century, when things had changed dramatically. The Songhai Empire was long gone, the Saadians had come and gone, and Timbuktu was now a city under Tuareg rule—a kind of aristocratic confederation that controlled the trade routes. Luna: So the city was still a center of learning, but politically it was weaker? Lucas: Exactly. And it's in this period that we find one of the most remarkable figures in Timbuktu's history: Ahmad al-Bakayi al-Kunti. He was a scholar from the Kunta tribe, a powerful Sufi lineage that had deep roots in the Sahara. The Kunta were known for their piety, their scholarship, and their role as mediators between different groups—Tuareg, Songhai, Arab, Fulani. Al-Bakayi was the head of the Qadiriyya order in Timbuktu, and he used his position to speak out against injustice. Luna: What kind of injustice? Lucas: Well, one of the things he's most famous for is his defense of the poor against the Tuareg aristocracy. The Tuareg chiefs, like the Kel Tamasheq clans, would often extort money and goods from the settled populations, including the scholars and merchants of Timbuktu. Al-Bakayi wrote a series of letters—we have some of them preserved—where he calls out the chiefs by name. He says, 'You take from the weak what they do not owe, and you call it a gift.' He was fearless in his criticism. Luna: So he was like a public intellectual, using his moral authority to hold the powerful accountable. Lucas: Exactly that. And he did it in a way that was rooted in Islamic law. He was a scholar of Maliki fiqh, and he argued that the Tuareg chiefs were violating the principles of justice that the religion demanded. For example, when a Tuareg chief named al-Ujj tried to seize grain from the poor during a famine, al-Bakayi wrote a public letter denouncing him. He said, 'The Prophet himself said that the best of rulers are those who care for the poor, and the worst are those who oppress them.' And this wasn't just rhetoric—he had the backing of the Kunta tribe's reputation, so people listened. Luna: Did the Tuareg chiefs ever try to silence him? Lucas: They tried, but they couldn't. Al-Bakayi was too revered. He was also a master of the written word. He wrote a famous treatise called 'al-Sa'd al-Abadi'—that's 'The Eternal Happiness'—which is a manual on Islamic governance and ethics. In it, he lays out the duties of rulers and the rights of subjects. He argues that the ruler's legitimacy comes from justice, not just from force. And he specifically condemns the practice of enslaving free Muslims, which was a real problem in the region. Some Tuareg groups would raid villages and sell captives into the trans-Saharan slave trade, even if those captives were Muslims. Al-Bakayi said, 'This is forbidden. You cannot enslave a believer.' Luna: That's interesting, because we often think of slavery in West Africa as a non-racial thing, but here he's making a religious argument. Lucas: Right, and it was a powerful argument. He wasn't against slavery per se—he owned slaves himself, as was common at the time—but he drew a line between legitimate slaves, who were prisoners of war from non-Muslim societies, and the enslavement of fellow Muslims, which he said was a sin. This was a nuanced position, but it had real impact. For instance, when the Emir of Trarza—that's a state in present-day Mauritania—sold some free Muslims into slavery, al-Bakayi wrote him a letter that became famous. He quoted the Quran and the Maliki jurists, and he basically shamed the emir into releasing them. Luna: And this is happening around the same time that European explorers are starting to reach Timbuktu, right? Lucas: Exactly. The 1820s and 30s are the era of the great European expeditions. Alexander Gordon Laing, a Scottish explorer, reached Timbuktu in 1826, but he was killed soon after by Tuareg tribesmen. Then René Caillié, a Frenchman, made it in 1828 by disguising himself as a Muslim pilgrim. He was the first European to return alive. And then Heinrich Barth, a German, spent several years in the region in the 1850s. Barth actually met with al-Bakayi's descendants and wrote about them. So we have these European accounts that give us a window into Timbuktu at that time. Luna: But the city itself was in decline, wasn't it? Lucas: In a way, yes. The trans-Saharan trade was shifting, and the political situation was unstable. But the scholarly tradition persisted. Al-Bakayi's library was vast—he collected manuscripts from all over the Islamic world. And he trained students who carried on his legacy. One of his students, a man named Muhammad al-Shaykh, later became a leader in the Fulani jihad movements in the region. So al-Bakayi's ideas had a long afterlife. Luna: It's amazing that we have so much detail about one man's life from that period. Lucas: It is, and it's thanks to the manuscript collections. The Fondo Kati, the Mamma Haidara library—they contain letters and treatises by al-Bakayi. Scholars today are still studying them. For example, there's a famous letter where he responds to a question about whether it's permissible to curse a tyrant. He says no, because cursing doesn't change anything, but speaking truth to power is a duty. That's very much his approach. Luna: And you know, thinking about how much work goes into these episodes—diving into primary sources like those letters—it reminds me that this show is possible because of listeners like you. If you've been enjoying these deep dives into West African history, a couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these going. There's no ads, no corporate backing. Just people who care about history. So if you can, head to buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It really makes a difference. Lucas: Absolutely. And it's thanks to that support that we can spend time on figures like al-Bakayi, who aren't in the textbooks. So, back to his story—one of the most dramatic moments came in 1845, when the Tuareg chief al-Ujj tried to have al-Bakayi assassinated. The chief sent a group of warriors to the scholar's house at night, but al-Bakayi's students had been tipped off. They gathered and faced down the attackers. There was a standoff, and eventually the Tuareg backed down. Al-Bakayi wrote about it in his diary—he said, 'I put my trust in God, and my students stood with me.' Luna: He had a real community around him. Lucas: He did. And that community extended beyond Timbuktu. He corresponded with scholars in Fez, in Cairo, even in the Hejaz. He was part of a network of Qadiriyya scholars that spanned the Sahara. So when he spoke, people listened. And when he died in 1865, his son, al-Mukhtar, took over the leadership of the Kunta. But al-Bakayi's writings continued to be copied and read. His treatise 'al-Sa'd al-Abadi' is still studied today in some West African madrasas. Luna: So he left a lasting intellectual legacy. Lucas: Definitely. And it's a reminder that Timbuktu's story doesn't end with the Moroccan invasion or the decline of the trans-Saharan trade. The city continued to produce scholars who engaged with the big questions of their time: justice, power, faith. Ahmad al-Bakayi al-Kunti is one of those figures who shows us that even in a period of political fragmentation, the tradition of learning and moral courage persisted. And his voice, speaking across centuries, still challenges us to think about what we owe to the poor and the powerless.