In a fabled city at the end of the earth, lies a treasury of ancient manuscripts

Fida ag Muhammad holds up the remains of a centuries old manuscript which has been eaten away by termites. Similar texts have been found in the villages around Timbuktu. Photograph: Xan Rice

Xan Rice in Timbuktu
The Guardian,UK
Monday 2 July 2007

A hot wind stirred up the desert sand. Fida ag Muhammad, a wispy man with a blue-grey turban, hurried across the street. Reaching a mud-brick building, he quickly unlocked its corrugated iron door and pushed it open. A beam of soft early-morning light pierced the darkness. On a metal table covered with a red bath towel sat half a dozen leather-bound manuscripts. Carefully untying the string around a small weathered pouch, Mr Muhammad pulled back its flaps to reveal a sheaf of yellowed papers. Their edges had crumbled away, but the neat Arabic calligraphy was still clear.
"A Qur'an," he said. "From the 1300s."

For an outsider, such a remarkable find might seem extraordinary. In Timbuktu and its surrounding villages like Ber, where Mr Muhammad lives, it is commonplace. After centuries of storage in wooden trunks, caves or boxes hidden beneath the sand, tens of thousands of ancient manuscripts, covering topics as diverse as astronomy, poetry, music, medicine and women's rights, are surfacing across the legendary Malian city.

Their emergence has caused a stir among academics and researchers, who say they represent some of the earliest examples of written history in sub-Saharan Africa and are a window into a golden age of scholarship in west Africa. Some even believe that the fragile papers, which are now the focus of an African-led preservation effort, may reshape perceptions of the continent's past.

"It has long been said that there was only oral history in this part of the world," said Salem Ould Elhadje, 67, a historian in Timbuktu. "But these manuscripts come from an African city, a city of black people."

The Timbuktu of myth is a place at the end of the earth. In reality its location was the key to its development nearly a thousand years ago. With the Sahara directly north and the Niger river south, it was established as a rest stop for travellers and a trading post for gold and salt. By the late 1500s, however, when it formed part of the powerful Songhai empire, it had become known as a centre of great learning.

Books became hugely prized. Travellers from as far as the Middle East brought manuscripts to Timbuktu to sell. Using paper manufactured in Europe, scholars in the town produced their own original work, which was then copied by their pupils. Commercial transactions were recorded - slaves and ostrich feathers were among the goods traded - as were the pronouncements of learned men on everything from the environment to polygamy and witchcraft.

"Every manuscript contains surprises," said Shahid Mathee, part of a University of Cape Town team studying the manuscripts. "We have even found texts where scholars offer advice on overcoming erection problems."

Timbuktu's decline began in 1591 with a Moroccan invasion. But the practice of writing, copying and storing manuscripts lived on here and in other west African cities such as Gao and Kano.

It was not until 1964, at a Unesco conference, that Timbuktu's literary wealth was recognised. Still, it took a further 37 years for the campaign to document and preserve them to gain momentum.

On visiting Timbuktu in 2001, the South African president, Thabo Mbeki, was shown some of the manuscripts held at the Ahmed Baba Institute, named after the city's most famous scholar, including a copy of Islamic law dating to 1204. Mr Mbeki was so impressed he declared them to be among the continent's "most important cultural treasures" and pledged to set up a project to help properly conserve the manuscripts.

After centuries of exposure to the harsh desert climate, abrasive sands and hungry termites, many of the manuscripts are badly damaged. Even those intact, such as Mr Muhammad's Qur'an, are so fragile the pages may disintegrate when handled. "Every minute, every second, part of a manuscript is being lost," said Mahmud Muhammad Dadab, a scholar who compares their value to the works of Victor Hugo and William Shakespeare.

With South African money, a £3.5m home for the Ahmed Baba Institute, featuring a museum, archive and rooms for scholars, is being built in the heart of the city, and will open next year. Meanwhile workers are trying to safeguard the institute's growing stock of 30,000 manuscripts.

In a large room with fans whirring overhead, a team is building made-to-measure cardboard boxes for every manuscript that will provide protection from the dust. Fragile pages are being carefully affixed to special Japanese paper to stop them crumbling.

Across the courtyard, researchers sit in front of computers documenting the contents of each manuscript. Then, with the help of computer scanners, ancient knowledge is uploaded into the 21st century. "We are creating a virtual library," said Muhammad Diagayete, 37, a researcher who was busy documenting a 1670 text on astronomy written in blue, red and black ink. "We want people all over the world to be able to access these manuscripts online."

Private collections are also being restored. Outside interest, and funding, has helped to create more than 20 libraries in Timbuktu, from tiny collections with a few hundred documents to Ismael Haidara's Fondo Kati Bibliothèque, which has more than 7,000 leather-bound manuscripts dating back to 1198. Many were brought from Andalucia, Spain, by his ancestors, who came to Timbuktu in the 15th century.

A few doors down is the Mama Haidara library run by Abdel Kader Haidara, no relation to Ismael, the best-known curator in the city. With funding from US foundations, he is also digitizing his 9,000-document collection, and is building extra rooms for scholars and tourists, as well as an internet cafe.

Before opening the family library, he helped to build up the Ahmed Baba Institute's collection, travelling all over the region by camel, canoe and car to try to persuade families to part with their manuscripts in exchange for livestock or printed books.

It was a difficult task. Though many families cannot read Arabic, the manuscripts are regarded as precious heirlooms that cannot be sold.

In Ber, a two-hour drive from Timbuktu, Fida ag Muhammad spoke of valuable caches of manuscripts buried in the desert by families fearful that outsiders would try to prise them away.

As a result, experts believe that hundreds of thousands of manuscripts remain in private homes across the region, and the quest to find and conserve them will go on for many years.

"We have to persuade people that they need to be protected and documented," said Abdel Kader Haidara. "If we don't read what our ancestors said, we cannot know who we really are."

SOURCE - 2007

Treasures in Timbuktu - 2008

Timbuktu Foundation (USA) 2008


part 1


part 2

The Lost Libraries of Timbuktu - BBC 2009

part 1


part 2


part 3


part 4



part 5


part 6

Timbuktu Timeline

TIMBUKTU History & Timeline

400 B.C.E. Berber middlemen establish early trans-Saharan trade between West Sudan and North Africa.

100 B.C.E. Trans-Saharan trade expands with growing use of camels in place of horses and donkeys.

400 C.E. The Kingdom of Ghana, the first major trans-Saharan state in West Africa, is founded.

800 Beginning of the diffusion of Islam to West Africa from Morocco and Central Maghreb.

c. 1000 Ghana at the height of its power in West Sudan, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to Timbuktu. Islam accepted as a state religion in important towns of the empire.

c. 1100 Timbuktu settled as a summer camp of the Tuareg nomads. Timbuktu eventually becomes a permanent place of residence and a market—the meeting place of those who travel by water on the Niger and those who travel across the sands of the Sahara.

1250 Sundiata becomes king of the small state of Kangaba and founds early Mali. Begins conquering land to build empire.

c. 1300 Timbuktu has become an important trading center, its communications extending from the West Coast to the Mediterranean Sea. Guinea gold is exported to Europe via the caravans starting from Timbuktu.

1312 Mansa Moussa becomes king of Mali, which continues to expand in west and central Sudan, and develops new techniques of literacy and trade adopted from Islam.

1324 Mansa Moussa stays at Timbuktu with his famous caravan of great wealth. He founds a mosque in the city. Dies in 1337 after expanding Mali far across both western and central regions of West Africa.

1336 Timbuktu becomes part of the Mali Empire, now at the height of its power, and starts its own era of prosperity.

c. 1375 Rise of Songhay power at the expense of Mali.

The Kongo Kingdom in Zaire, Central Africa is founded c. 1380s.

c. 1400 Tuaregs gain control of the city from the declining Mali Empire. Mali-Songhay wars begin.

The Kingdom of Great Zimbabwe in southern Africa flourishes c. 1400.

1468 Songhay conquers Tuaregs and gains control of Timbuktu.

1493 Songhay expansion. Askia dynasty founded by al-Hajji Muhamed. Songhay dominates the central Sudan. Under Askia the Great, Timbuktu reaches its height as a center of trade and Muslim scholarship. Mali continues to decline.

1526 Leo Africanus visits Timbuktu, in a mission from the Sherif of Fez, and describes the city.

1546 Songhay defeats Mali.

1591 Moroccan Army expedition to Timbuktu. Timbuktu becomes part of the Moroccan Empire. Songhay Empire in ruins.

c.1600 Timbuktu starts to decline.

1650 c. 1650, Tuaregs assume control of the city for more than 200 years.

1824 After of a variety of attempts by Europeans to reach the city, the Geographical Society of Paris offers prize, valued at 10,000 francs, to the first person to return to Europe with a firsthand account of Timbuktu.

1828 Frenchman Réné Caillié enters the city in disguise, and returns to Europe with an account of the decline of the city, which had begun over two centuries previously.

1884-5 Congress of imperialist powers at Berlin partitions Africa. French gain West and Central Sudan.

1893 French Army enters Timbuktu. French colonial rule begins.

1960 Republic of Mali gains independence. Timbuktu returns to Mali rule after five and a half centuries.

In 1960, the former Belgian Congo (Zaire) gains independence.

1988 Timbuktu is inscribed on the World Heritage List. Two years later the city is inscribed on the World Heritage List in Danger.

In 1990, Nelson Mandela is released from prison, after serving 27 years.

Mansa Musa - Lion King of Mali

From the fourth to the sixteenth century, three empires controlled much of West Africa and several key cities of the Saharan trade route. Between the empires of Ghana and Songhai, Mansa Musa reigned over the empire of Mali during its golden years. His control of gold mines and key cities in the Saharan trade route gave him the wealth he needed to attract the attention of the world.



This attention was directed towards Mali because of his devotion to Islam and his generous giving while on a hajj to Mecca. During his hajj, Mansa Musa came in contact with important architects that would establish a construction tradition that would last for centuries.

About seventy years before Mansa Musa took the throne, his grandfather, Sundiata, conquered the great Ghana empire in 1240 AD. In his childhood, Sundiata had been crippled and was forced into exile for fear of assassination by his brother who had become Mansa (king). Following Sundiata's magical healing and his brother's deaths by the foreign king of Soso, Sundiata returned to claim the throne. He conquered the king of Soso and the Ghana empire, and establish the empire of Mali. Following Sundiata's death, no less than six weak rulers claimed the throne of Mali. It was in this climate that Mansa Musa was born. It is unclear exactly when he was born or when he became king. Two spans of time have been suggested for his reign, 1307 to 1332 AD or 1312 to 1337, either way spanning a total of twenty-five years. Furthermore, very few facts have survived concerning his childhood, and the first important mention of his life was his famous hajj.

Mansa Musa's famous hajj (pilgrimage) placed him in history and in the attention of the entire European and Islamic world. About the time that the Aztecs began building Tenochtitlan, the and the Ottoman Turks began the creation of their empire, Mansa Musa began his obligatory hajj to Mecca in 1324 with an impressive company. In his caravan he brought sixty-thousand people dressed in fine silk and eighty camels carrying two tons of gold. Among this throng Mansa Musa had twelve-thousand servants, five hundred of which carried staffs of gold. If this entourage had not caught the attention of the countries he crossed through, his generous giving would.
Wherever he went he gave gold to the needy as given is required by a pillar of Islam. One writer even suggests that on every Friday during his travel he erected a mosque in the city that he found himself in. In Cairo he gave so much gold that in Egypt its value did not recover for twelve years. Before he returned to Mali, he had given away or spent so much that he was forced to borrow money from a merchant in Cairo for his return trip.

While most of the inhabitants of Mali were not Muslim, and although he allowed them to maintain their religious diversity, Mansa Musa remained distinctly Muslim. His pilgrimage to Mecca was a clear illustration of his devotion, but he showed his religious beliefs in several other ways. His grandfather before him had converted to Islam, and Mansa Musa established Islam as the national religion. He also built mosques and important Islamic centers of learning. Under his rule Timbuktu rose to become not only an important city in the trans-Saharan trade route but also the center of Islamic scholarship. Muslims came from distant countries to receive an education at the Sankore University that he built in Timbuktu. And it was because of his fulfillment of the hajj and his wealth of gold that these important sites were constructed.

Al-Omari, an ancient Muslim historian, described Mansa Musa as "the most powerful, the richest, the most fortunate, the most feared by his enemies and the most able to do good for those around him" in all of West Africa. Some of this wealth and power directly relates to the unique position of his empire along the Niger River basin and the crossroads of many major trans-Saharan trade routes. Two of these traded commodities were salt and gold; they were so important that in the fourteenth century they were used as currency. The salt trade originated from the North of Mali in the mines of Taghaza. The gold mines of Bambuk, on the other hand, laid within Mali territory. This gold was the source of half of the world's supply and greatly contributed to Mansa Musa's wealth. During his life, Mansa Musa also gained control of Timbuktu which stood at the crossroads of the Niger, an important means of transport, and the Saharan desert trade routes. This was the city where the Saharan salt merchants and the gold laden caravans converged. This provided Mansa Musa control of these two major commodities, and with this control his wealth increased. Interestingly, some of the construction of Timbuktu and other important cities can be directly linked to Mansa Musa's famous hajj.

While returning from Mecca, Mansa Musa brought back many Arab scholars and architects. Abu-Ishaq Ibrahim-es-Saheli, one of these architects, introduced new ideas into Mali architecture. With his help Mansa Musa constructed a royal palace, libraries, and mosques, and brought his trade city into international acclaim. This architect introduced to Mali a new mud construction technique that would establish a building tradition for centuries. With this technique he built the great Djingareyber Mosque at Timbuktu that stands to this day. He also built the great mosque at Jenne and a mosque in Gao that remained important for four centuries.

When Mansa Musa went on his hajj, he paraded his great wealth before the world. His generosity was quickly noted by European and Islamic nations alike. One contemporary, Spanish mapmaker depicted Mansa Musa seated on his thrown, gazing at a gold nugget in his right hand, holding a golden scepter in his left, and wearing a golden crown on his head. The Islamic world took notice because of his encouragement of Islam and his construction of Islamic centers of learning. These centers attracted Muslims from all over the world, including some of the greatest poets, scholars, and artists of Africa and the Middle east. This greatly increased the fame of Mali.

In the long run, partly due to Musa's conspicuous flaunting of wealth, when the ships of Portugal's Prince Henry captured Cuenta (in Morocco) in 1415, Moorish prisoners told more details of the gold trade. Henry set his explorers down the African coast to find a route across subSaharen Africa in order to contain Islam. Containment failed as Constantinople fell in 1453 and after the successful reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula to push out Islam, Europeans turned toward the Americas. However, it had been Mali gold that provided the initial material for exploration and conquest.

Mansa Musa died around 1337, leaving the throne to his son Maghan I. About this time the empire began to unravel. Songhai, a province in the east, left the empire. Mansa Maghan spent excessive amounts of Mali's wealth, leaving a weakened empire at his death around 1341 to his uncle Mansa Sulayman. While several of Mansa Musa's famous mosques remain to this day, the empire of Mali lasted no longer than two centuries following his death. By 1400 Timbuktu had been conquered by the Tuaregs, and war had broken out between the emerging Songhai empire and Mali. Following the reign of several weak kings and civil wars, the empire of Mali fell to the Songhai empire in 1546. By the 18th century Mali had completely disappeared.

SOURCE
This page has a good bibliography

More about Mansa Musa

Mansa Musa - King of Mali

Mansa Musa - An African Builder

A new home for ancient texts in Timbuktu

The Timbuktu Manuscripts - or Mali Manuscripts - some of which date back to the 13th century, are Arabic and African texts that hark back to city's glorious past, when Muslim merchants traded gold from West Africa to Europe and the Middle East in return for salt and other goods.

Written in a variety of styles of Arabic calligraphy by scholars and copyists who were part of an African Islamic intellectual tradition centred in Timbuktu, the manuscripts have shattered the historical view of Africa as a purely "oral continent", pointing to the fact that Africa has a rich legacy of written history.

While most are in Arabic, some are in indigenous languages such as Songhai and Hausa, written using Arabic script.

Their subject matter ranges from philosophy and religion to medicine, astronomy and mathematics, as well as history and literary forms. It also includes manuscripts covering legal judgements and commercial transactions that give a sense of the daily life of the people of Timbuktu.

Some of the manuscripts are beautifully decorated with gold illumination and kept in finely tooled leather covers.

Long-since a symbol in Western popular imagination for remote and exotic destinations, Timbuktu 500 years ago was not only a wealthy trading port, but also a centre for academics and scholars of religion, literature and science.

Timbuktu was founded in around 1100 by ethnic Tuareg nomads near the northern-most bend of the Niger River. Their caravans took salt from Saharan mines to trade for gold and slaves, transported along the river from the south, and by 1330 Timbuktu was part of the Malian empire.

The Tuareg are an ancient nomadic tribe who have traversed the harsh stretches of the Sahara for centuries. It was the tribe's people who came upon a woman by the name of Buktu who had access to a drinking well or 'Tim', and so the 'Well of Buktu' came to be known as 'Timbuktu'.

Two centuries later the city was at the height of its grandeur under the Songhai empire. Timbuktu was described by Spanish Moor Leo Africanus as a centre for "doctors, judges, priests and other learned men [who] are bountifully maintained at the king's expense".

It was also a centre of learning, where thousands of students were taught and large private libraries kept.

But Timbuktu's fortunes sank in 1591 when Songhai was defeated by a Moroccan army. When Portuguese explorers discovered new trade routes along the West African coast, Mali was sidelined. Under France's rule the country continued to slide into poverty and isolation.

While Timbuktu remains a poor, dusty city, visitors still flock there today to experience the aura of mystique and legend that surrounds it.

And it is still home to many philosophers and scholars of Islam, with Sankore University catering to some 15 000 students.

January 22, 2009
SOURCE

Ibn Battuta

Setting out in 1352, lbn Battuta went by way of Fez and Sijilmasa

It is a lovely city. In it there a great deal of sweet dates. The town of Basra is like it for the abundance of its dates, but the dates of Sijilmasa are sweeter. …We arrived after 25 days at Taghaza. It is a village with no good in it. Amongst its curiosities is the fact that the construction of its houses and its mosques is of rock salt with camel skin roofing and there are no trees in it, the soil is just sand. In it is a salt mine. It is dug out of the ground and is found there in huge slabs, one on top of another as if it had been carved and put under the ground. …The blacks exchange the salt as money as one would exchange gold and silver. They cut it up and trade with it in pieces. …We stayed in it but ten days in miserable condition, because its water is bitter and it is of all places the most full of flies.

This desert is a travelling distance of ten days and there is no water in it except rarely. But we found much water in it in pools left by the rains. One day we found a pool of sweet water between two hillocks of rocks. We quenched our thirst from it and washed our clothes. In that desert truffles are abundant. There are also so many lice in it that people put strings around their necks in which there is mercury which kills the lice …They we arrived at Tásarahlá where water is exuded by the ground.

From there they travelled to Iwalatan (Walata or Oualata in Mauritania) and on to Malli a journey of twenty four days for a person who exerts himself.

That road has many trees which are tall and of great girth: a caravan can find shade in the shadow of one tree … Some of those trees have rotted inside and rainwater collects in them... Bees and honey are in some and people extract the honey from the trees. I have passed by one of these trees and found inside it a weaver with his loom set up in it - he was weaving. I was amazed by him.... There are trees whose fruits are like those of plums, apples, peaches and apricots, though they are not quite the same as these. There are trees that bear fruit like the cucumber, when it ripens it bursts uncovering something like flour, they cook it and eat it and it is sold in the markets. They dig out from the ground a crop like beans and they fry it and eat it. Its taste is like fried peas. Sometimes they grind it and make from it something like a sponge cake, frying with gharti; gharti is a fruit like a plum which is very sweet and harmful to white men when they eat it. The hard part inside is crushed and an oil is extracted from it. From this they derive a number of benefits. Amongst these are: they cook with it, fuel the lamps, fry that sponge I mentioned with it, they use it as an ointment, and they mix it with a kind of earth of theirs and plaster the houses with it in the way whitewash is used.

.... After a distance of ten days' travel from Iwalatan, we arrived at the village of Zaghari, which is a big place with black merchants living in it.

Then we went from Zaghari and arrived at the great river, the Nile. On it is the town of Karsakhu. The Nile (Niger) descends from it (Karsakhu) to Kabara, then to Zagha.

Then the Nile (Niger) comes down from Zagha to Tunbuktu (Timbuktu), then to Kawkaw (Gao), the two places we shall mention below. Then the river flows to Yufi, which is one of the biggest cities of the blacks. A white man cannot go there because they would kill him before he arrived there. Then the river comes down from there to the land of the Nubians who follow the Nasraniyya (Christian) faith, and on to Dunqula (Dongola), which is the biggest town in their land. …Then it descends to the cataracts. This is the last district of the blacks and the first of Uswan (Aswan) in Upper Egypt.

I saw a crocodile in this place on the Nile (Niger) near the shore like a small canoe.

Then we went from Karsakhu and reached a river called Sansara, which is about ten miles from Malli.

My entry into Malli was on the fourteenth of the first month of Jumada in the year '53 (i.e., 753 A.H., 28th June A.D. 1352), and my going out from there was on the twenty-second of Muharram in the year '54 (i.e. 754 AH., 27 February A.D. 1353). I was accompanied by a merchant known as Abu Bakr ibn Yacqub. We set out on the Mima road. I was riding a camel because horses were dear, costing about one hundred mithqals apiece. We reached a large arm of the river which comes out of the Nile (Niger) and which cannot be crossed except in boats. That place has many mosquitoes and nobody passes through except at night. We arrived at the arm of the river in the first third of the night and it was moonlight ... I saw on its bank sixteen beasts with enormous bodies. I was astonished by them. I thought they were elephants because there are plenty there. Then I saw them entering the river and said to Abu Bakr ibn Yacqub. 'What beasts are these?' He said 'These are horses of the river (hippopotami), they have come out to graze on the dry land.' They are more thickset than horses and they have manes and tails, their heads are like the heads of horses and their legs like the legs of elephants. I saw these horses another time when we were travelling on the Nile (Niger) from Tunbuktu to Kawkaw: they were swimming in the water and raising their heads and blowing. The boatmen feared them and came in close to the shore so as not to be drowned by them.

…Then we departed from this village which is by the branch of the river I mentioned, and we arrived at the town of Quri Mansa. There my camel which I was riding died. When I was told by its keeper I came out to look at it. I found the blacks had eaten it as their custom is in eating a dead animal. I sent the two boys I had hired to serve me to buy me a camel at Zaghari which was a distance of about two days journey. Some of the friends of Ibu Bakr son of Yacqub stayed with me while the latter went ahead to receive us at Mima. I stayed there for six days and was entertained by one of the pilgrims in this town until the two boys arrived with the camel.

…Then I departed for the town of Mima. In its neighbourhood we dismounted by some wells. We travelled then from there to the city of Tunbuktu, which is four miles from the Nile. Most of its inhabitants are Massufa, people of the veil. Its governor is called Farba Musa. I was present with him one day when he appointed one of the Massufa as amir over a company He placed on him a garment, a turban and trousers, all of them of dyed material. He then seated him on a shield and he was lifted up by the elders of his tribe on their heads.

…At Tunbuktu I embarked on the Nile (Niger) in a small vessel carved from one piece of wood. We used to come ashore every night in a village to buy what we needed of food and ghee in exchange for salt and perfumes and glass ornaments. Then I reached a town whose name I have been caused by Satan) to forget. This town had as its amir an excellent man, a pilgrim called Farba Sulaiman, well known for his bravery and tenacity, no one was able to bend his bow. I did not see among the blacks anyone taller than he nor more massive in body.

Then I travelled to the city of Kawkaw (Gao). It is a big city on the Nile, one of the best of the cities of the blacks. It is one of the biggest and most fertile of their places, with much rice. milk, chicken and fish. In it there are inani pumpkins which have no rivals. The transactions of its people in buying and selling are carried out by means of cowries—as is the case among the people of Malli. I staved there about a month and was the guest of Muhammad ibn cUmar of the people of Miknasa. He was a gentle person, fond of making jokes, a man of merit. He died there after I left.

…Then I travelled from there in the direction of Takadia (Takidda) in the hinterland with a large caravan of the men of Ghadamas (Ghadames in Libya), whose guide and leader was al-Hajj Wujjin.

I had a camel for riding and a she-camel for carrying provisions. When we set out on the first stage the she-camel broke down. AI-Hajj Wujjin took what was on her and divided it among his companions. They shared out the burden. There was in the caravan a Maghribin of the people of Tadala who refused to carry any of it in the way other people had done. My servant lad was thirsty one day. I asked the Maghribin for water; he did not give it.

Then we arrived at the land of the Bardama people, a tribe of the Berbers. The caravan cannot travel except under their protection; and amongst them the protection of a woman is more important than that of a man. They are nomads, they do not stay in one place. Their dwelling places are strange in form: they set up poles of wood and place mats around them, over that they put interwoven sticks and over them skins or cotton cloth. Their women are the most perfect of women in beauty and the most comely in figure, in addition to being pure white and fat. I did not see in the land anyone who attained to their standard of fatness. These women's food is cow's milk and pounded millet; they drink it mixed with water, uncooked, morning and evening. A man who wants to marry among them has to settle with them in the country near them, and not take his spouse farther than either Kawkaw or Iwalatan.

…We exerted ourselves in travelling till we reached the city of Takadda…The houses of Takadda are built of red stone. Its water supply flows over the copper mines and its colour and taste are changed by that fact. There is no cultivation there except a little wheat which is eaten by the merchants and visitors. It is sold at the rate of twenty of their mudds for a Mithqal of gold.

…The people of Takadda carry on no business but trading. Every year they travel to Egypt and bring from there everything there is in the country by way of fine cloths and other things. For its people ease of life and ample condition are supreme; they vie with one another in the number of slaves and servants they have—as likewise do the people of Malli and Iwalatan. They do not sell educated women-slaves, except very rarely and at a great price.

…There is a copper mine outside Takadda. The people dig for it in the earth, bring it to the town, and smelt it in their houses. This is done by their men, and the women-slaves. When they have smelted it into red copper, they make it into rods about the length of a span and a half: some are of fine gauge and some thick. The thick are sold at the rate of four hundred rods for a mithqal of gold, the fine for six or seven hundred to the mithqal it is their means of exchange. They buy meat and firewood with the fine rods: they buy male and female slaves, millet, ghee, and wheat with the thick. Copper is carried from there to the city of Kubar in the land of the unbelievers, to Zaghay and to the country of Barnu which is at a distance of forty days from Takadda. Its people are Muslim; they have a king whose name is Idris, who does not appear before the people nor speak to them except from behind a curtain. From this country are brought beautiful slave women and eunuchs and heavy fabrics. Copper is also taken from Takadda to Jujuwat and to the land of the Murtibin and to other places.

...I wanted to travel to Tuwat. I carried provisions for seventy nights since food is not to be found between Takadda and Tuwat, only meat and milk and ghee which are bought in exchange for cloth. I left Takadda on Thursday, the eleventh of Shacban in the year '54 (AH. 754, 11th September A.D. 1353) in a big caravan which included Jacfar al-Tuwati, who is an eminent person, and the faqih Muhammad ibn cAbd Allah, qadi of Takadda. In the caravan there were about six hundred slavewomen. We arrived at Kahir in the land of the sultan of Karkari. It is a land of plentiful grass. The people buy sheep therefrom the Berbers and cut the meat into strips. This is carried by the people of Tuwat to their country.

From that land we entered into a wilderness with no buildings in it and no water: it is three days journey. Then we travelled after that fifteen days through a wilderness which has no buildings but there is water. We reached the place from which the road to Ghat and the road to Tuwat. And there are there water-beds whose water flows over iron; when white cloths are washed in it, their colour becomes black. We travelled from there for ten days, and arrived at the country of the Hakkar who are a tribe of the Berbers and wear face-veils. There is no good in them… We journeyed a month in the land of Hakkar: it has a scarcity of plants and an abundance of stones, the road too is rough.

Then we reached Buda which is one of the biggest villages of Tuwat. Its soil consists of sand and saline swamp. Its dates are plentiful but not sweet; yet its people prefer them to the dates of Sijilmasa. There is no cultivation there, no ghee, no olive oil. These things are brought to it from the land of the Maghrib. The food of its people is dates and locusts which are plentiful in their area. They preserve them as they store dates and feed on them. They go out to hunt locusts before sunrise when they cannot fly because of the cold.

We stayed at Buda some days, then we travelled in a caravan and in the middle of Dhu al-Qada we arrived at the city of Sijilmasa. I went out from it on the second of Dhu ' al-Hijja (29 December A.D. 1353) during a period of fierce cold. A lot of snow came down on the road. I have seen many rough roads and much snow in Bukhara and Samarkand and in Khurasan (in Persia), and in the land of the Turks, but I have never seen anything more difficult than the road of Umm Janaiba.

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