What Historians Discovered in this Ancient African Library Left them Speechless...

In the year 1352, while Europe was suffering under the weight of the last phases of the Black Plague, a hardened explorer set out to visit one of the most famed cities of his time. Allured by the tales of the city with endless gold, whose reputation had been advertised in grand pomp by its ruler a few decades before, Ibn Battuta wanted to reach the empire where the legendary king of the city who bathed in gold came from. This enigmatic king of an El Dorado that few north of the Sahara had had a chance to see. The Ghana Empire had just collapsed, leaving in its wake a vacuum in the landscape of sub-Saharan civilizations. The Mali Kingdom had emerged from that chaos with a determination to reconnect the trade routes between south and north to the medieval stronghold of Morocco and the Mediterranean, but also west and east to Sudan, Egypt and beyond. In doing so, it set the foundation of what was to become one of the largest empires known to man, and Mansa Musa was to become one of its most iconic leaders. On his voyage to Mecca a few decades before, Mansa Musa had announced to the world just how wealthy the African Kingdom of Mali was. Regarded as the richest man that ever lived, by far, Mansa Musa is often remembered for having caused hyperinflation in all the cities he had visited on his way to Mecca. But his deeds extend well beyond his generosity. In addition to being a cunning military leader, Mansa Musa sparked an urban revolution in the Mali Empire, one where all along the Niger Delta, beautifully architectured cities sprang up such as Jena, Walata and Gao. One of those cities was Timbuktu, and his pompous pilgrimage to Mecca was just a display of force and wealth, but also a charm offensive to entice savants from all over the known world to come to Timbuktu where he had constructed the largest knowledge and research library and university of his time. One is left to wonder, why did Mansa Musa shift the emphasis of his kingdom from that of trade and conquest to that of knowledge? How was he able to amass one of the largest libraries known to man on the southern border of the desert? And how is it that today, the name of this city rhymes with distant and the unreachable, a mirror to African history itself? It is said that Mansa Musa made his voyage to Mecca with a party of 60,000 men. Let's try to match him. Make sure you smash that like button and leave 60,000 comments. Let's be louder than the negative voices who would have us think that we are without history. 94% of you are not subscribed, nor have the bell icon. No wonder why you keep missing our new videos. As if the 60,000 men in his escort weren't enough, Musa was preceded by 500 people, dressed in Persian silk, each with a gold-adorned staff, and 80 camels each carrying 300 pounds of gold. This procession would have been a sight to behold as it made its way from oasis to town. A veritable charm offensive that would have been hard for any learned person of the time to resist. Chief amongst Musa's concerns was the continued growth of the empire he was building, and he knew that this empire needed more than just wealth. As a learned man himself, he would have read about all these empires of old, who obtained the greatest riches only to crumble because knowledge was for the privileged few. He wanted an empire of the learned, and Timbuktu was his ticket to that utopia, and for Timbuktu to become the center of learning it was to be, it needed scholars. He would begin his endeavor by building a mosque that doubled as a library, in truth an actual palace, so lavish that British explorer Henry Barth described it as follows when he encountered it in the late 19th century, quote, the mosque by its stately appearance made a deep impression on mind includes nine knaves of different dimensions and structures, end quote. Mind you, he only saw it when it was, but a shell of its former self. The kink named it Sankore. Recognized as one, if not the most important learning center in medieval times, this sub-Saharan African city is synonymous with the exotic evocative of the foreign, a distant land that few understand, and yet a place where astronomy met botany, where many African kingdoms history and heritage were inked on the pages of manuscripts, where multiple sciences and books were already attesting to a round world well before Copernicus and Magellan. Another drop in the sea of knowledge and influence that black African brought to the civilizing world. Timbuktu, the sacred. Timbuktu, the pearl of the Mali empire. It is located in the country we now call Mali, on the most southern edge of the Sahara desert. In the 1950s, French archaeologists uncovered a trove of artifacts dating back to 1000 BC, indicating a long human presence in the area, even after the desertification of the Sahara. An extensive ceramic settlement record points to a sustained social development, one of the most chronologically complete of the ancient world, lasting till this day. By the middle of the 15th century, Timbuktu housed well over 150 schools, all with well-organized curriculums around various fields of study. It would eventually grow to house 25,000 students and scholars, a cauldron of knowledge and ideas from all corners of the world. Sankore University started out as a mosque built by Mansa Musa in 1327. The level of learning in Sankore University surpassed that of all other learning centers in the world. To give a sense of how large Sankore University was, it was said to house the largest collection of books in Africa since the Library of Alexandria, holding 700,000 manuscripts, dwarfing by far its Egyptian counterpart. Dr. Saeed H. Noel showed in his historical studies that Timbuktu had successfully produced engineers, architects, astronomers and scholars who rivaled with their contemporaries. Books were the most traded commodity in Timbuktu. In fact, a family's wealth in Timbuktu was measured in the amount of manuscripts it held. And what they could not purchase to store in the libraries and houses of Timbuktu, they would diligently reproduce and copy. Before the printing press, this practice was the main method of dissemination of popular manuscripts, and it was in full effect in Timbuktu. Many of the private libraries have survived till this day, enabling their precious manuscripts to stand the vellieties of man and time. The private book collections from the Sheikh Zaini Bai of Bujbeha and Ahmed Baba Center, for example, are currently being studied by scholars and will help rewrite African and world history. Timbuktu scholars did not just document the histories of their empire, but they made sure to particularly document the histories and cultures of all African people they came in contact with. Many of the manuscripts also elaborated on the medical sciences. These would have included medical practices from the Islamic empire, but also those inherited by other African empires and tribes. One such manuscript goes into the need for a physician to collect urine samples from the patient using a clean container the days prior to consultation in order to specify the type of disease. This practice, centuries ahead of its time, shows the remarkable level of sophistication and precision that scholars and physicians in Timbuktu had. If one is to pinpoint another area of genius from these African scholars, it would be that, 200 years before Galileo and Copernicus, the Timbuktu manuscripts were not only describing the spherical shapes of the heavenly bodies, including the Earth's, but were also calculating, with great precision, their motion. A feat thought to have been lost in time since the Africans from the Nubio-Kemetic civilization complex taught the Greeks the secrets of astronomy. And all was supported by a large volume of books dedicated to the calculations of the sizes of these gods of old, and how they moved. The mathematical manuscripts paint a picture of a world where arithmetic was prevalent, and helped calculate the complicated West African inheritance portions. Inheritance laws differ from clan to clan, and often follow delicate non-patriarchal lineages. Add to that the varying proposition based on the order of birth of a child, and you have a recipe for familial conflict. Timbuktu, however, was spared of such difficulties thanks to its heavy reliance on arithmetics. This shows that math wasn't just used by scholars, but its usefulness extended to the general librarian families and the population at large. One of the most famous manuscripts in the Timbuktu collection carefully documents astronomical observations using tables and complex mathematical inferences. Another manuscript describes a meteor shower occurring in the year 159. Quote, In the year 991, in God's month of Rajab the godly, after half the night had passed, stars flew around as if fire had been kindled in the whole sky, east, west, north, and south. It became a nightly flame lighting up the earth, and people were extremely disturbed. It continued until after dawn. End quote. Other manuscripts go beyond the scientific into the esoteric. Quote, There were catalogs of spells and incantations, astrology, fortune-telling, black magic, necromancy, or communication with the dead by summoning their spirits to discover hidden knowledge, geomancy, or divining markings on the ground made from tossed rocks, dirt, or sand, hydromancy, reading the future from the ripples made from a stone cast into a pool of water, and other occult subjects. End quote. There were even books that advised men on how to quote, win back their wives. End quote. At a time where women rights were barely recognized in Europe. This, however, is not surprising as these traditions of balance between men and women would have carried along from the time of the Kemetic civilization where women rights and women participation in virtually all aspects of society have been well documented. This theme permeates West African societies till this day. In 1999, the Timbuktu Manuscripts Project was launched with the aim of digitizing and preserving the remaining books. Since then, a series of similar projects have been running concurrently with the same objective. Throughout its history, the Timbuktu manuscripts have endured multiple eradication efforts, sometimes from internal forces and other times from northern invaders. In 2013, many of the medieval relics from Timbuktu were viciously attacked and burned by northern Islamist rebel groups, Ansar ad-Din. Before the attack though, Malian conservationists worked with local families to hide the manuscripts until such time that they could be relocated to a safe place in the capital, Bamako. These are the same families that risked their lives multiple times over through history to protect our rich history. These are the true heroes whose action will unveil in time a treasure cove of African history. As Dr. Abdel-Kaker Haidara, one of the librarians involved in the preservation and interpretation of the manuscripts, puts it, quote, central to the heritage of Mali, they represent the long legacy of written knowledge and academic excellence in Africa, end quote. Thanks to his efforts, over 400,000 manuscripts have been saved and 40,000 of them have been digitized and are available through Google Arts and Culture Project. The descendants of Kemet may have lost Alexandria but have retained a good portion of the knowledge in Timbuktu. It is now up to us to help this effort continue. You can help by sharing this video to as many people as you can. You can also help by giving us a tip on BuyMeCoffee or through Patreon. Links in the description below. Your support will be part of the efforts to ensure that the next generation doesn't grow up believing that they are without history.