Latest / Timbuktu: Africa's Forgotten Center of Knowledge — Fexingo History / The Timbuktu Scholar Who Defied a Plague
Transcript
- Lucas: So you know how we've talked a lot about Timbuktu as a center of learning, of law, of astronomy — but there's one thing we haven't touched on yet, and it's something that hit every city in the medieval world sooner or later. Luna: The plague? Lucas: Exactly. The Black Death. And here's the thing — when we think of the plague, we think of Europe, of the 1340s, of bodies piled in carts. But the pandemic was global. It reached West Africa, and Timbuktu was not spared. Luna: I've never heard about that. How did it get there? Lucas: Along the same trade routes that brought books and salt and gold. The plague entered West Africa through the trans-Saharan caravans, probably from the Maghreb or Egypt, around the 1340s. And it hit Timbuktu hard. A contemporary chronicler, Mahmud al-Kati, wrote about it in his Tarikh al-Fattash. He said the city lost so many scholars that the teaching circles at Sankore were silent for months. Luna: Mahmud al-Kati — he's the one who also wrote about the Songhai Empire, right? Lucas: Yeah, he was a qadi and historian, born around 1468, so he wasn't alive during the first outbreak. But he interviewed survivors and recorded oral traditions. His grandfather was supposedly one of the few who lived through it. So al-Kati's account is our best window into how Timbuktu understood and responded to the plague. Lucas: And honestly, if today was worth a coffee to you, that's the link — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's what keeps these conversations ad-free. Luna: Yeah, and it lets us dig into stories like this that don't get told elsewhere. Lucas: So like I said — al-Kati's Tarikh al-Fattash describes the plague as a 'great mortality' that killed 'three out of every ten' people in the city. That's a staggering death toll. And what's fascinating is how they tried to deal with it. Luna: Did they have any idea what caused it? Lucas: They had two competing frameworks. On one hand, the Islamic tradition saw plague as a mercy and a martyrdom for believers — the Prophet Muhammad said that whoever dies of plague is a shahid, a martyr. So many scholars advised acceptance and prayer. But on the other hand, there was a strong medical tradition in Timbuktu, rooted in Ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine and humoral theory. They believed the disease was caused by corrupted air, miasma, and they prescribed fumigation with fragrant woods and herbs. Luna: So they were recommending things like burning incense? Lucas: Exactly. They burned frankincense, myrrh, and local plants like balanites — that's the desert date tree — and acacia nilotica. The smoke was meant to purify the air. They also advised avoiding crowds, isolating the sick, and even quarantining caravans before they entered the city. That's something Europe wouldn't do systematically for another two hundred years. Luna: Wait — so Timbuktu had a form of quarantine in the 14th century? Lucas: It seems that way. Al-Kati mentions that the qadis of the city ordered that anyone arriving from the north had to wait outside the walls for forty days — and forty days is a direct echo of the Islamic concept of arba'in, the forty-day isolation period for leprosy. It's strikingly close to the later Venetian quarantine, which was also forty days — quaranta giorni. But Timbuktu was doing it earlier. Lucas: Now, not everyone agreed. Some Sufi mystics, particularly from the Qadiriyya order, argued that fleeing the plague was a lack of trust in God. They cited hadith that said 'If you hear of plague in a land, do not enter it; if it breaks out in a land where you are, do not leave.' So there was a real theological debate — do you stay and trust God, or do you take practical steps to protect yourself? Luna: What did the common people do? Lucas: Many did both. They prayed, they gave charity, they performed the dhikr — the rhythmic repetition of God's names — and they also burned herbs and avoided the sick. Al-Kati says the mosques were nearly empty during the worst weeks, because people were afraid to gather. But the scholars who stayed, like his grandfather, continued to teach small groups outdoors, in the shade of the Djinguereber mosque, keeping knowledge alive. Luna: So the intellectual life didn't completely stop. Lucas: No, but it was transformed. The plague killed many of the older generation of scholars, and that created a vacuum. In the decades after, a new generation emerged, less tied to the old traditions, more open to new ideas. And that's partly what set the stage for the golden age under Askia Muhammad in the late 15th century. The plague broke the old guard, and the Sankore university system was rebuilt by younger, more dynamic thinkers. Luna: It's almost like a reset button. Lucas: In a way. But it also left deep scars. Al-Kati writes about the psychological toll — people who survived lost entire families. He mentions a famous jurist, Muhammad al-Kaburi, who lost his wife and three children in one week and then retreated into seclusion for years. The city's identity as a place of learning was shaken, but it recovered. Lucas: And there's one more layer to this. The plague also affected Timbuktu's relationship with the wider Islamic world. Because travel became dangerous, fewer scholars came from the Maghreb and Egypt. That meant Timbuktu had to become more self-sufficient in producing its own scholars. And that's exactly what happened — by the 1500s, the city was producing its own jurists, theologians, and scientists, without relying on imports. Luna: So in a strange way, the plague made Timbuktu more independent? Lucas: Exactly. And that independence shaped the city's intellectual culture for centuries. The scholars of Timbuktu developed their own interpretations of Islamic law, their own medical recipes, their own astronomical tables. They weren't just copying what came from Cairo or Fez — they were innovating. Lucas: So when we talk about Timbuktu as a center of knowledge, we have to remember that it was forged in part through catastrophe. The plague didn't destroy it — it forced it to adapt and grow stronger. Luna: I think that's a really important point. Often we romanticize these cities as if they were always golden, but they faced real crises. Lucas: Absolutely. And the fact that Timbuktu survived the Black Death, rebuilt its scholarly community, and went on to produce figures like Ahmad Baba and al-Wangari — that's a testament to its resilience. It's a story that deserves to be told alongside the more familiar European narratives. Luna: And it's a story we almost never hear. So thank you for bringing it up. Lucas: My pleasure. And if you want to read more, al-Kati's Tarikh al-Fattash has been translated into French and parts into English. It's not easy to find, but it's worth the hunt.