Latest / Timbuktu: Africa's Forgotten Center of Knowledge — Fexingo History / Timbuktu's Astronomical Instruments: Science on the Sahel
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Timbuktu's scholars, its legal traditions, its libraries. But one thing we haven't really touched on is the science these scholars were doing — specifically astronomy, or as they called it, ilm al-falak. Luna: Wait — astronomy in the Sahel? I thought that was more of a Middle Eastern thing. Lucas: That's a common assumption, but it's completely wrong. Timbuktu was part of a vast intellectual network that stretched from the Maghreb to the Hijaz. Scholars in the Sahel were reading the same texts as their counterparts in Cairo and Fez — al-Battani, al-Zarqali, Ibn al-Shatir. And they were building their own instruments, making their own observations. Lucas: One of the key figures here is Muhammad al-Kaburi, a scholar from the town of Kabara on the Niger River. We've mentioned him before in connection with legal scholarship, but he was also an astronomer. He wrote a zīj — that's an astronomical handbook with tables for calculating planetary positions and eclipses. Luna: So he was like a medieval African astronomer? Lucas: Exactly. And his work wasn't just theoretical. Astronomy in Timbuktu had very practical applications. The most important was determining the times of prayer, which depend on the position of the sun. Then there was the beginning of Ramadan, which requires sighting the new moon. And then the qibla — the direction of Mecca — which you need to calculate using spherical astronomy. Lucas: Now, how did they actually do these calculations? They used instruments. The astrolabe was the most versatile — it could tell time, measure altitudes, solve spherical triangles. There's a surviving manuscript from the Mamma Haidara Library that shows an astrolabe with Arabic inscriptions, probably made locally. Luna: Local astrolabes? That's incredible. Where did they get the metal? Lucas: That's a great question. The Sahel wasn't known for metalworking on that scale — but they had trade routes. Brass and copper came from North Africa, possibly from as far as Europe. There's evidence that some instruments were imported, but also that local craftsmen learned to repair and maybe even manufacture them. Lucas: Another instrument was the quadrant, which was simpler but still effective for measuring altitude. Scholars would use it to find the height of the sun or a star above the horizon, then plug that into their tables to get the time or the qibla direction. And this wasn't just done at Sankore — it was part of the curriculum at many of the city's madrasas. Luna: So every legal scholar also had to learn astronomy? Lucas: Not every one, but a solid education in the Maliki tradition included enough astronomy to handle the practical needs of the community. The ijazas — the teaching licenses — from Sankore often mention that a student studied not only fiqh and hadith, but also ilm al-falak and hisab, arithmetic. Luna: I love that — it's such a practical, integrated view of knowledge. Lucas: Absolutely. And it paid off. We have a record from the Tarikh al-Sudan of an eclipse prediction. In 1584, a group of scholars in Timbuktu observed a lunar eclipse and recorded the time and magnitude. That manuscript — it's a single folio, probably a working note — is still in the Mamma Haidara collection. Lucas: It's a humbling thing to think about. In 1584, while Europe was still arguing about Copernicus, here in the Sahel, scholars were methodically observing the heavens. Luna: And that knowledge just got swept away by the Moroccan invasion, didn't it? Lucas: Partly. The invasion in 1591 didn't destroy the city — but it shattered the intellectual community. Many scholars were exiled or killed. Ahmad Baba himself was taken to Marrakesh. The libraries were scattered, and the institutional support for science collapsed. Lucas: That said, some knowledge survived. A few manuscripts from that period have recently been digitized by the Mamma Haidara Library and the Ahmed Baba Institute. They show that even in the 17th and 18th centuries, Timbuktu scholars were still copying astronomical tables and writing commentaries. Lucas: And this is where listener support really makes a difference. A small number of people who listen to this show chip in through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that helps us keep making episodes like this — episodes that dig into these forgotten corners of history. Luna: It's true — we don't run ads, and it's amazing that so many of you help keep this going. Lucas: So if you enjoy these deep dives, think about joining them. And now, back to the science. One of the most fascinating instruments I came across is the so-called 'Timbuktu quadrant', which has markings for both altitude and time, and was probably used for both prayer times and navigation on the Niger. Luna: Wait — navigation on the river? Were they using stars to navigate the Niger? Lucas: Exactly. The Niger River was a highway for trade, and knowing the stars helped boats move at night, especially during the dry season when the days were brutally hot. So the same quadrant that helped a scholar set the evening prayer could also help a boat captain find his way. Lucas: And this is where Timbuktu's astronomy connects directly to its economic life. The caravans that brought salt from Taghaza also brought star charts and instruments. There's a record of a merchant in the late 16th century who imported a brass astrolabe from Tunis and sold it to a scholar in Timbuktu for a small fortune. Luna: So knowledge and trade were completely intertwined. Lucas: Completely. The same routes that carried gold and salt carried ideas. And the scholars of Timbuktu were not passive recipients — they were active participants. They wrote their own commentaries, they made their own corrections to the tables, they trained their own students. Lucas: One of my favorite examples is a manuscript from the Sankore collection that contains a table of astronomical terms in Arabic, Soninke, and Tuareg. It's a trilingual glossary — showing that this knowledge was being shared across linguistic and cultural boundaries. Luna: That's incredible. It's like a Rosetta Stone for astronomy. Lucas: Exactly. And it reminds us that the intellectual history of Africa is not a story of isolation. It's a story of connection, exchange, and innovation. Timbuktu's scholars were part of a global conversation — one that we're only now beginning to reconstruct. Luna: And we get to be part of that reconstruction, one episode at a time.