Award winning actress Nokuthula Mabika in traditional beadwork
The African continent overall has a very rich history of beadwork, but nowhere is it so ingrained as in the beautiful beadwork of Southern Africa, which for centuries has had a rich tradition of dress and adornment.
Centuries before colonialisation, the Indian Ocean travel routes went to Southern Africa for its materials, bringing glass beads to the continent. As the people there were already very familiar with dressing up and adorning themselves in colourful clothing, glass beads quickly became used to elevate this niche.
While it had always been a status symbol, in the 19th and 20th centuries it became more readily available, and the Ndebele tribe started using them to mark stages of life. For example below is a lighabi, an apron worn by small girls around the waist, made of colourful beads and hide.
A girl's lighabi from the Ndebele tribe in South Africa, MET museum
According to the MET, the lighabi is made from a canvas strip tied around the waist, with an upper band of beads that were embroidered directly into the surface. Hanging from this is a lace-like cloth that was constructed from individual bands of beadwork. It was intended to fall in front of the thick row of white seed beads, incrasing the dimensionality of the garment and encouraging the play of light when seen in motion.
An ijogolo made for married women of the Ndebele tribe
However once a woman gets married, they would stop wearing a lighabi and start wearing an ijogolo, as seen above. The less colourful and white palette brings a more refined and dignified look to the apron suitable for a married woman, except for the bright pink and green beam symbol in the middle. It was built on top of a piece of goatskin prepared by the husband, along with grass taken at a certain time of year, which since before beads had associations with fertility and health.
Many other elements were made of beads too, most famously collars and capes, all with intricate patterns that they would use in houses and other adornments. These became part of the colourful heritage of many tribes, including Xhosa and Zulu peoples, and today is more powerful than ever before.
A family at a Zulu wedding, sporting many pieces of traditional Zulu beadwork
The 24th of September is an observed public holiday in South Africa officially called Heritage Day, where people are urged to celebrate the cultural diversity of the country, their heritage and peoples. It is celebrated through various events hosted, from community barbecues (hence the nickname National "Braaing" Day), to festivals and performances since 1996. Its origins however lay in the commemoration of a great Zulu king.
Shaka kaSenzangakhona (1787–1828) was one of the most influential monarchs of the Zulu kingdom, his name roughly translates to "intestinal beetle," a reference to a childhood illness that nearly claimed his life. Despite the name, he rose to power as a formidable military strategist and nation-builder. Through his reforms, Shaka revolutionized warfare in southern Africa by introducing new tactics, regimental systems, and weapons such as the short stabbing spear (iklwa). He also consolidated smaller clans into a powerful centralized Zulu kingdom, leaving a legacy that shaped the region’s political and cultural landscape.
The original Shaka Day was observed on September 24th in KwaZulu-Natal to honor his memory and contributions. When South Africa transitioned to democracy in 1994, the government sought to unify the public holiday calendar. Instead of removing the day completely—something that drew strong opposition from Zulu groups—the compromise was to broaden its meaning. Thus, Heritage Day was born, inviting all South Africans to reflect on and celebrate their diverse backgrounds, from Zulu and Xhosa traditions to Afrikaans, Indian, Coloured, and many others.
Today, Heritage Day stands as a reminder of both the enduring influence of Shaka and the unity he brought to the diverse Zulu tribes, and now to the South African population. While barbecues (known as "braais") are a popular expression of the day, many communities organise traditional dances and cultural events, as well as ceremonies at monuments dedicated to Shaka.
A weight made of brass, in the shape of a sawfish, 18th century
The Akan people are an ethnic group that lived around modern-day Northern Ghana. The ethnic group has started multiple advanced civilisations throughout Western Africa, with the Asante kingdom in particular being very admired by foreign travellers.
As other civilisations, they gained influence through trade within and abroad. In the Asante kingdom, to trade specific, standard amounts of goods they used weights made of brass that would be calibrated to a standard, similar to how the kilogram weights are used today.
Beyond simple cubes of gold/brass, they would decorate them in many different styles representing West African people, animals, and motifs. Adinkra motifs, fish, gods, etc... were some of the most common. A status of a man was put in question if they didn't have a complete set of weights, and these were common gifts in Asante weddings. European explorers made sure to point them out as an example of the advanced nature of the Asante Kingdom.
Hundreds of examples of these sit in the British Museum, some examples are below:
A stylised fish, brass weight, 19th century
A snake attacking a crane, 18th century
Two leopards next to an antelope, 19th century
A bird, 19th century
A crocodile, 18th century
Two kissing swans, a popular Adinkra motif, 19th century
A very detailed sawfish, 19th century
Two men shaking hands, one strokes his beard, 19th century
The Garima Gospels, the Oldest Complete and Illuminated Bible, 4th century AD, Ethiopia.
Ethiopia is home to one of the oldest and continuously spanning civilisations in Africa, and is also the first kingdom in history to accept Christianity as a state religion, decades before the Roman Empire.
Ethiopian Christianity is different from the mainstream religions due to a different and unique philosophical and theological tradition existing among scholars, and the bible itself has multiple books that were left out in the Nicene Creed.
Traditional Yoruba Wedding attire, from a modern wedding catalogue
Aso Oke means "top cloth" in Yoruba, and is a hand-woven fabric worn at special occassions like weddings, festivals, and coronations. It is unknown the exact origins but it is thought to have originated around the 15th century, but is still very relevant in Yoruba culture.
The fabric itself is hand-woven traditionally by men in a horizontal loom, incorporating metallic threads and certain types of colours to create a coherent piece. There are several types of colours that the fabric can use like Sanyan, Etu, and Alaari.
An agbada, the traditional Yoruba men's outfit.
An agbada is a flowing, extremely wide-sleeved robe worn by men and is also known as the grand boubou or babanriga. They often have traditional motifs woven around the neckline, often from similar fashions like Hausa rigas, Yoruba fables and folktales, and Ifá symbolism.
A woman's Aso Oke garment, which is usually whats referred to when talking about Aso Oke.
A female Aso Oke has four different parts to it:
Buba: Blouse
Iro: Skirt
Gele: head tie
Iborun or ipele: shawl or sash
But female Aso Oke's also have more variety of Yoruba traditional fabrics available, such as Adire and Aso Olona, however Aso Oke is considered the most prestigious.
Oba Adémúwàgún Adésidà II in a traditional Yoruba ceremonial agbada, 1959. He had just assumed the throne and posed for Life Magazine as he intended to bring clean water and electricity to the 100,000 people of the Akuré kingdom.
I am shocked how little comparatively comes up when you search Swahili art compared to other traditions, even though they produced some of the most beautiful art, houses, and carvings in all of Africa, so I tried to give a general overview and inspiration post of what Swahili art is.
A rich artistic legacy remains in the Swahili coast, not just the doors but also more architectural items, books, statues, etc... Many of these were created in Pate Island, the biggest of the Kenyan archipelago of Lamu, which created most of the examples seen here.
A remarkably beautiful Swahili tombstone made of coral limestone from the year 1492 in Pate Island. The knot motif is found across the African continent and in Swahili art especially. The arabic calligraphy style overlaps with Quranic manuscript illumination.
Illuminated Qur'an from Pate Island, 19th century. These specific floral patterns are unique to the Swahili Quranic tradition
A chair made in Zanzibar in the 19th century. The inlays are made of ivory and mother-of-pearl, and the chair is designed to (dis)assemble easily for travel needs.
Illuminated Quranic frontpiece from Pate Island, exported to Oman, 19th century
A fine example of Swahili jewellery with these wedding anklets
The remnant stucco decorations of a house in Tundwa, Pate Island. These architectural motifs are completely unique to Africa.
A Swahili wedding bowl, the Arabic texts are poetic phrases
Illuminated Qur'an from Pate Island, 18th century, with notes taken by scholars studying the piece.
The detail of a doorframe from Lamu, Kenya
A Swahili drum made of wood and cowhide, 17th century
Where The Door Speaks First - The East African Art & Architecture of the Swahili Coast
A typical Swahili-Style door in Zanzibar City, Tanzania
The Zanzibar archipelago, a jewel of Tanzania, is famed for its deep blue seas, white sand beaches and beautiful resorts. Tourists come in droves to its shores for year-round warmth, but it's not just a paradise. Wander through the Zanzibar Stone Town and you'll find something else quite spectacular.
Ancient white houses made of stone, carved wooden doors more beautiful than the ones guarding many palace doors, a direct result of indigenous African design shaped by a millenium of trade and power in the East African coast. Contact with lands as far as India and as powerful as Oman helped shape the Swahili coast into a revered landmark in the muslim world.
Of the most loud statement pieces you'll find in Zanzibar are these wooden doors, more than twice the size of an average person and filled with Bantu motifs and local African plants. These were made like that on purpose, as they showed to all passerby's how much status the homeowner had. These beauties in African teak were even exported abroad by wealthy merchants, from Lake Tanganyika to Muscat.
So what is the Swahili art and architectural tradition and why isn't it included in broader discussion on African heritage?
A scene in Stone Town, Zanzibar City.
The Swahili are a Bantu people that live along the East African coast, shaped by centuries of trade creating a maritime culture. Even their language shows heavy influence from the Arabic, Persian and Indian traders that routinely came to their shores. Today it serves as a lingua franca across much of Central and East Africa.
Like today, Africa had a lot of prized natural resources that other regions wanted, and so the Swahili became traders of gold, ivory, spices, African cultural products and timber. In exchange they would receive Indian textiles and incense, Arabic books and Persian rugs. Like in other regions of Africa, this trade also brought in the religion of Islam to the population, which greatly influenced the region.
The golden age of the Swahili coast was around the 9th to 15th centuries, with cities such as Kilwa Kisiwani, Mombasa, Lamu and Zanzibar becoming powerful city states within their own right. Kilwa even printed their own coins starting in 900 AD, based on a contemporary mint being found in Kenya. These coins were found in digs from Oman all the way to Zimbabwe and Madagascar, suggesting large trading networks comparable to the Silk Road.
Portuguese Drawing of Kilwa Kisiwani, known as Quiloa, published in 1572 in the Civitates Orbis Terrarum. The caption reads: "Quiloa is a beautiful city in Africa, situated on an island close to the mainland; it has always been Muslim, and a foremost enemy of the Christians."
As trade enriched the area, the Swahili expanded their cities. By the 11th century they were using coral limestone to build their cities, ancient coral reefs which compressed to form a durable building material.
The eternal whiteness of the stone reflected sunlight away leaving homes cool to the touch, a feature also seen in the iconic Mediterranean architecture. Its porous nature was also great for keeping houses cool and breathable in the African climate. Cities would have mosques, schools, tombs, and public squares all built out of this stone as well, giving a unique look to the area that radiated elegance.
By 1331, Ibn Battuta had visited East Africa and called the island of Kilwa Kisiwani in his 1354 travel account "among the most beautiful cities in the world and the most elegantly built", an interesting statement knowing he compared the African city to his experiences in Baghdad, Constantinople, India, China, and island kingdoms like the Maldives and Indonesia.
And the coast was known for much more than just raw materials, in Swahili culture at the time a house's door would showcase its owner's status, the larger and more ornate the better. These large structures of durable hardwoods like African teak or ebony were interwoven with rich symbolism, from Bantu bows, oceanic imagery, and vegetation taken from the African interiour. Traditionally they would also be built before a house's construction, with the right side being male and the left side being female (looking in).
Early Swahili doors followed a rectangular shape, with projecting frames and designs around the main door, but then Islamic and Indian influence introduced an arched top, lotus flower imagery and Qur'anic inscriptions sometimes with the owner's name. These were renowned among its trade partners, and if you see a similar door in Southern Arabia it either is from or is inspired by African craftsmanship.
A traditional Swahili door in Tanbora, Tanzania, a town 800km deep in the interiour of Africa suggesting vast trade relations in the medieval era. The rectangular frame and lack of Arabic shows it was likely built in the 1600s, and the door's swooshing, circular, and flowing patterns reflect traditional African motifs inspired by the sea.
The beauty of the coastal cities was remarked extensively among travellers, both European and Asian, and its for the same reasons that many today flock to Italy and Greece. Whitewashed houses and walkable streets built for public, family and social life, with beauty carved all over, not in monuments but in quiet elegance.
Travellers from across Europe, Asia and Arabia were captivated by the beauty of the archipelagos and coastal cities of Africa, with the same flavour of captivation that now captures tourists in Greece and Italy, not of monumental excellence but serene elegance and grace.
Yet they didn't keep it humble, the palace of Husuni Kubwa in the island of Kilwa Kisiwani is the largest known stone construction south of the equator in the African continent, with over 100 rooms and hosting a swimming pool and multiple courtyards. This grandeur is reflected in Portuguese accounts calling it the "house of the great king".
So here we see that the Swahili coast was the centre of a thriving trade culture that prioritised art, architecture, urban planning and livelihood. Among the most beautiful in the world, so what changed?
A modern image of the coast of Lamu, Kenya
The decline of the Swahili city states began when the Portuguese, starting their explorations of the world, tried to subjugate the native Swahili populations in the early 1500s. Some became tributaries, but many like Mombasa resisted invasion, but regardless it didn't last long until the Omani Sultinate also conquered the region for its vast resources.
But the culture, people and riches never actually stopped flowing. Some cities like Kilwa Kisiwani, once the capital of the entire coast, fell out of favour after Omani conquest with only a thousand residents today. But other places even grew in prominence since then.
In 1840 the Omani capital was moved from Muscat to Zanzibar itself to better control trade in the Indian Ocean and for the comfort of the Sultan. Even after Zanzibar gained independence it still continued the Swahili tradition with growing influence. The British were especially interested in the large ivory trade that Zanzibar controlled, and turned it into an autonomous protectorate under the Empire.
As soon as the British feared losing control of Zanzibar, the British bombarded the region to replace the new sultan. It is a favourite fun fact among historians that the Anglo-Zanzibari war was the shortest war in recorded human history with an astounding 38 minutes of conflict before a ceasefire was declared.
A street in modern-day Zanzibar City
Today many of these old Swahili cities have become popular tourist attractions because of their beauty, raking in lots of money routed for preservation and becoming famous around the world. Swahili-style resorts are found all over East Africa and the traditional interiour design style has become a favourite among Pinterest boards. However when talking about African heritage and art it is rarely brought up.
This erasure comes from the people and art being seen as actually just derivative of Arabic and Islamic influences and not as authentically African as inland Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite the people building and keeping these cities alive being native Africans of the Bantu branch, their contact across the Indian Ocean is seen as having tainted it from any recognition as African.
But this narrative is changing. Scholars and cultural institutions are increasingly recognizing Swahili civilization for what it is: a distinctly Black culture, shaped by both local innovation and maritime exchange. Restoration efforts are underway in many cities, and local communities continue to preserve their heritage. Still, much work remains in many of them. The architectural and artistic brilliance of the East African coast deserves far more recognition as a vital chapter in the story of African civilization.
The front door of the Zanzibar Museum of Art, notably the oldest confirmed Swahili door in existence carved in 1694.
The island of Kilwa Kisiwaini in Tanzania is famous for its ruins built of stone, from mosques to palaces. These were built between the 9th and 15th centuries, and the island was for centuries a capital of a vast empire that stretched the coast from Kenya to Mozambique.
When Ibn Battuta, famous Morroccan traveller, visited Kilwa in 1331 he called it one of the most beautiful cities in the world and the most elegantly built. Today the island, as well as many others under Kilwa rule, are in serious endangerement of losing its heritage, due to earthquakes and conquest by the Portuguese.
The Great Mosque of Kilwa, founded in the 10th century. It has over 100 rooms as well as a courtyard.
The Palace of Husuni Kubwa, meaning "Great Palace" in Swahili.
These are from one specific artist, Mustapha Bala Gabari, that Abdalla Uba Adamu interviewed for his paper on Islamic Calligraphy in the Islamic city of Kano, Nigeria.
Gabari is one of the few artists in the area that draws using more modern tools above a simple pen, creating compositions that are very unique and visually pleasing, however his art is still grounded in tradition. Most motifs in his art that could almost be taken directly from 15th century West African Qurans. It is a reminder that tradition and culture didn't simply die in 1950 but still goes on.
The art is used to decorate hotels, offices, zayyana (graduation certificates), and talisman.
I talked a lot about Timbuktu's literary tradition but didn't show many examples, so here's a selected sample of some of the ones I find fascinating, I haven't combed through all 30,000 available ones and likely never will but I'm still satisfied with whats on here.
An illuminated manuscript dealing with the 6 pillars of the Islamic Faith, written by a local scholar in Mali around 1690-1691.
A copy of the Dala'il al-Khayrat, a collection of sayings of the prophet, illuminated in 1855.
Decoration from another copy of the Dala'il a-Khayrat, showing the traditional motifs of Timbuktu manuscripts, usually taken from textile designs local to the area such as bogolafini in Mali.
A 19th century collection of poems, with every page heavily annotated by a scholar in Ajami script of their local language. The large margins in texts from the time from Europe to Africa were specifically intended for scholars to take notes on.
Poems by Nigerian scholar Usman dan Fodio from the 1790s. After studying in Timbuktu, he founded and led the Sokoto Caliphate in the late 18th-early 19th centuries which produced some of the greatest West African female scholars and Fulani literature.
I believe the archive I'm using for the Nigerian manuscript above mostly took the Nigerian collection from one copyist from the 1950s hence the lined paper and same handwriting across hundreds of books in ballpoint pens.
Timbuktu, to many that name is simply a term for "middle of nowhere", somewhere you'd go to if you didn't come back in home by dinner, and many don't even know it was a real place, on the other side of the Sahara from Morocco.
And if you look deeper, Timbuktu isn't just a place but one of the greatest intellectual centres of the Medieval era.
It didn't hold just books but a reflection of Sub-Saharan's intellectual hub, who's library was the largest in the world for centuries.
"View of Tombouctou from a hill" from Rene Caille's Journals, 1830
On the subject of historical libraries, the Library of Alexandria and the loss of scrolls is never one to miss. It is the subject of countless mourning for the 400,000 books that burned down (though that story isn't really true).
Yet, Timbuktu's libraries are home to an estimated 700,000 manuscripts dating back as far as the 11th century, almost double what was in Alexandria, about science, law, astronomy, health, philosophy, and more.
This number is so large it was only in the late 19th-century when British Library recorded hitting that milestone, centuries after the printing press.
And unlike the common belief that it was simply copies of Arabic texts, there were many, many original texts were written by West African scholars from Mali to Nigeria to Sudan, thinking and philosophising on concepts not seen elsewhere.
And unlike the unrecoverable books of Alexandria, Timbuktu's books are still out there, not in massive public libraries but hidden in homes, cellars, basements, under wells and beds. Away from the colonialist powers around the city that till this day keep trying to destroy its tradition.
So if one singular West African city is home to a unique repository of culturally distant Medieval knowledge larger than any seen at the time, why isn't it more well known?
Abdel Kader Haidara, director of the Bibliotheque Mama Haidara De library looking through manuscripts in his house. Photographed by National Geographic, Sep 2009.
Historians may debate the origins of Timbuktu in different languages and different etymologies, but local tradition dating back to the 17th century at least indicates that it's in the name itself:
Around 1000AD, among the northern tributaries of the Niger, sat a water well used by pastoralists and merchants crossing the Saharra, this much we do know of.
Oral tradition preserved in the manuscripts state that the well was cared for by an elderly woman named Buktu. The area became known as "Tim-Buktu", Buktu’s Place.
Her legacy, like many women in Timbuktu's history, was never erased and also reflects the more egalitarian society that it was known for.
"Arrival at Timbuktu" circa 1100 AD in Tifinagh and Magrashab Ajami, depicting a caramel caravan greeted by Buktu, edited from a print of Timbuktu in 1891 as I couldn't find any depictions of Buktu.
As an essential stop on the trans-Saharan route, it eventually became a permanent dwelling growing in size, becoming a commercial market and later a place of education.
And around the same time, Islam was spreading in Africa.
But you see, the stereotype of a religion spread by conquest wasn't true in West Africa, it was too hard to reach. It was spread through Islamic merchants that came and settled in cities, creating their own class of citizens.
These merchants created communities of learning, law, and commerce, and gradually over time converted people, taught others, and created a shared community based on Islam. Cities across West Africa had this revolution in time, but Timbuktu was the northern door leading the way. It was small at first.
Mansa Musa, king of the Mali Empire between 1317-1354, from the 1375 Catalan Atlas. His caption reads "This king is the richest and noblest of all these lands due to the abundance of gold that is extracted from his lands"
But then came Mansa Musa, that guy, the richest man in history. His story is one most of us know and is a whole post on its own but he's the key originator of this story.
After travelling back from Mecca in 1324, he saw potential and peacefully annexed the city of Timbuktu on his way, full of ideas from what he found in the great cities he passed through.
He funded the already existing mosques and brought in scholars from North Africa, wanting Timbuktu to also be a city of scholars, as the gateway from North to West.
And it worked.
An 800 year old pre-Mali Empire Qur'an from the the year 1215, illuminated manuscripts were common among the Qu'ran found in Timbuktu, often incorporating local textile motifs mixed with Islamic geometry.
At its peak in the 16th century, it had a population of 100,000 people with 25,000 of its inhabitants being scholars. That's a quarter of a city engaged in education on a level unlike any other city in the world.
Mosques like the Sankoré Madrassa, a place of learning created around the same time as Oxford University, became libraries, classrooms, lodges for pilgrims, and more above the place of worship, and started writing tens of thousands of books.
These madrassa's were places where scholars could convene with their students rather than a strict university setting.
In Timbuktu, it wasn't a school's prestige that was important but the teacher that was most important, and usually the children of the teachers also became teachers, creating a culture of families renowned for their intellectual prowess.
Public libraries weren't common but scholars had their own big libraries. Ahmad Baba lost 1600 books in the Morroccan invasion, which his student famously commented was the smallest library out of any library in his family.
And unlike modern and ancient stereotypes, they created literature and developed entirely new genres of literature, and a new form of Islam too still practiced today.
The Sankoré Madrassa in Timbuktu, photo by Bert de Rulier
Timbuktu was remote, that's hard to deny, but it's fame was certainly not. Scholars from Morocco and Egypt came to study, coming from societies where differing views on religion could be deadly they were shocked at the wildly different and unique debates and hadith in Timbuktu.
One famous story tells of an Egyptian scholar coming to teach in Sankoré, but humbled by those around him that he became a student. This wasn't unusual, and Timbuktu's fame was in the pride of this sort of environment.
This relative flexibility of thought in Timbuktu was because of its remoteness, away from the strict standards of the North who couldn't keep a watchful eye.
Conversions to Islam were done through cultural negotiation and persuasion, creating an Islam more tolerant of local African traditions, yet always respecting the Quran. This was something that famous Moroccan traveler Ibn Battutta infamously found horrifying in his 1350 visit to the Mali Empire.
And women were part of the conversation too, Nigerian scholar Usman dan Fodio, famous for innovating the famous Sokoto literary tradition in northern Nigeria, was part of a family that believed in gender equality.
His sisters were known to read and write, copy manuscripts, take care of his libraries, and Fodio's daughter Nana Asma'u became the most famous female poet, polyglot and teacher in West Africa. She formed a cradle of female teachers called jajiss who travelled across the region teaching women to the same standard as men did.
Tolerance and apathy for keeping the faith are reasons some modern researches would lead you to believe the rationale for this cultural mix, but it was simply a different blend that always ultimately followed the Quran.
One of Nana Asma'u's works, written in her mother tongue Fulfulde, 1822
Each town often had its own mufti, these were trained judges who handled local disputes: marriage, trade, inheritance, and even gossip. They wrote to other scholars for advice, receiving detailed legal rulings. These texts with the legal rulings are called fatwa.
Fatwas are a treasure trove of local legal reasoning, especially in West Africa where we see different approaches and belief systems compared to other regions. Topics ranged from dowry rights, camel disputes, and even cheating scandals.
West African fatwas reveal a lively, flexible, and deeply contextual Islamic world that often debated concepts in ways unthinkable in the Arab world.
And this is one of Timbuktu’s greatest contributions, pioneering an African scholarly tradition that merged worlds, and brought lived social context into theology.
Looking into specific fatwas and authors and analysing West African Islamic tradition and social roles is for a whole seperate post, but know that through it we can see a completely unique intellectual understanding of Islam forming.
However fatwa's are fairly common across the Islamic world, did Timbuktu or Mali contribute anything groundbreaking? Yes.
A page from a 19th century commonplace book, starting with a sheep-related fatwa and ending on a note about a hadith.
Timbuktu wouldn't last in its golden age forever, and in 1591 the city was sacked by the Moroccans, destroying manuscripts and destroying tombs. This event started a power vacuum and chaos between rivaling families.
To make sense of it all and to settle disputes on legitimacy, scholars started compiling histories of Timbuktu and the surrounding histories in the Sahel, these were called Tarikhs, historical chronicles.
In 1655, the Tarikh al-Sudan was published, Sudan being a name for the black African regions. It's actually THE primary source for where the histories of the Mali, Songhai, and Ghana empires that we know today come from.
The Tarikh genre in Timbuktu is particularly interesting, however what was revolutionary about it wasn't the text itself but where it was sourced from, oral histories and commentaries.
In most historiographic tradition at that time, only written material was accepted as legitimate for history, and everything else deemed irrelevant. Oral stories were usually performed to teach morality, a lesson, and thus events might be exaggerated or a narrative entirely fictionalised, so academia dismissed it as irrelevant.
But what Abd al-Sa'di realised was that oral histories sung and said by the bards (called griots) were generally very accurate at giving a general yet intimate view of moments in history, where even fiction when critically analsyed could give us deep insights in history. This revolution gave us one of the best examples of historiography in the African continent.
It would take until the 19th century for the West to even consider oral stories/fiction as having historical basis, when a very amateur archaeologist decided to forgo all established convention and believe Homer, in the process finding the city of Troy millenia after its name was first sung.
Many scholars turned to Ajami, the use of arabic script to write local languages, preserve and ideas that otherwise had no written form. The 20+ languages known to be written this way were part of a unique blend that elevated the languages of the people to an equal intellectual status as Arabic, in fact this was so much the case that foreign scholars to the region would often learn Fulfulde due to its prominence.
So knowing the massive, unique, distinct and large literary tradition in the city and abroad, why isn't it more well known and researched?
A more recent copy of the Tarikh al-Sudan sitting in the Metropolitan Museum.
The Moroccan invasions never slowed down the intellectual tradition but made people wary of outsiders. A couple European explorers were known to be murdered in their attempt to visit the city in fear of what they would bring if they brought back news. Teachers taught in their homes instead, if need be children were taught in secret. French colonialisation didn't help matters but people persisted.
After Mali's independence, there was renewed interest in Timbuktu which led to some digitalisation projects. Gathering books included literally knocking on people's doors and convincing them that the foreign researchers would do no harm to the texts, creating libraries with tens of thousands of copies.
In 2012, with a jihadist takeover that was much against what Timbuktu stood for, attempted to get rid of any manuscripts found in the city as part of a push against non-Sharia compliancy. Books were smuggled on rice bags, donkey carts, and re-hidden again with the help of researchers, successfully being able to smuggle a total of 300,000 known books, with many probably still in the city.
Digitalisation has largely been a success with over 150,000 books available in online archives, specifically in the Virtual Hill Museum & Manuscript Library. However, a tiny minority are translated and studied and even less are readily available. This was due to efforts prioritising conservation before research, and so it's knowledge remains underappreciated simply because the wide world doesn't yet have easy access and interest in it yet.
Timbuktu is a city of many wonders to uncover, and may it stand as a testament that West Africa, and the continent more broadly, has always been a cradle of knowledge, history, and depth the world can no longer afford to overlook.
READ MORE:
Hill Museum & Manuscript Library
- Contains thousands of manuscripts I used for statistics
African Bibliophiles: Books and Libraries in Medieval Timbuktu by Brent Singleton
- Interesting research on its book keeping and intellectual culture
Beyond Timbuktu An Intellectual History Of Muslim West Africa by Ousmane Oumar Kane
- A book moving away from the Western lens on Timbuktu, with
takes and information I found so fascinating I'll write much
further on these topics when I finish reading it.
The Meanings of Timbuktu by Shamil Jeppie and Souleymane Bachir Diagne
- Fascinating deep dive, with many examples I used, into many
specific aspects of the manuscripts I'd need many more posts to
explore.
Hello Tumblr and welcome to my blog, I would just like to introduce myself as my first post before I actually post things.
On the Internet, I've found just such a lack of interest and respect for African culture and people by the vast majority of the world, with many myths about our history and advancements that are just generally accepted. When we think of Africans, most of us think of the poverty porn shown to us by the media and not for what it actually is in reality.
What surprised me was that even some of the most vehement pan-Africans unintentionally also perpetuate this mentality that we have created nothing before 1960, and specifically the most extreme Afro-Centrists continuing to ruin our image on many public forums. With European colonisation, many Africans just simply don't learn about our heritage, and so it makes sense that this is the case and I don't blame anyone. I haven't actually really found many places that truly celebrate African excellence without a narrow lens or a rewriting of history, I'm sure they exist but it's hard to find and I hope to change that over the course of my blog.
I won't pretend I represent the African people, I'm technically Fulani from Guinea but fairly removed from my own culture, I was raised outside in many different places in Europe and Asia, and I have experienced a lot of the types of racism against black people the world has to offer, from ignorance to plain xenophobia. I'm here to inform, not reclaim something that many would consider not mine.
Thanks for taking the time to read this post and stay safe!
