During the next 30 years, al-Wangari amassed handwritten books on subjects ranging from history to poetry to astronomy, from both Timbuktu and other parts of the Islamic world. After the scholar's ...

"Books," he said raising a massive index finger for emphasis, "were once more desired than gold or slaves in Timbuktu." He clicked a flashlight on and balanced a mangled pair of glasses on his nose.

Home of the prestigious Koranic Sankore University and other madrasas, Timbuktu was an intellectual and spiritual capital and a centre for the propagation of Islam throughout Africa in the 15th and ...

The Book Smugglers Of Timbuktu by Charlie English is a painstakingly well-researched saga of a far-flung desert town in the West African nation of Mali and the incredible modern-day effort by that ...

Timbuktu reached its apex in the 1300s when Mansa Musa brought back thousands of books from his journeys. This was after he went on Hajj to Mecca in 1324. He travelled with a massive entourage and ...

In 2012, Mali was undergoing a grave political and social crisis. The situation was particularly severe in the north, where two of Mali’s four World Heritage sites, Timbuktu and the Tomb of Askia, are ...