Timbuktu Hopes Ancient Texts Spark a Revival

NY Times ^ | August 7, 2007 | Lydia Polgreen

[SunkenCiv]

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Ismael Diadie Haidara held a treasure in his slender fingers that has somehow endured through 11 generations -- a square of battered leather enclosing a history of the two branches of his family, one side reaching back to the Visigoths in Spain and the other to the ancient origins of the Songhai emperors who ruled this city at its zenith. [Candace Feit for The New York Times]

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[SunkenCiv]

The Malian government has encouraged Islamic learning to flourish here once again, and there are dozens of Koranic schools where children and adults learn to read and recite the Koran. Training programs are teaching men and women how to classify, interpret and translate the documents, as well as preserve them for future study.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Pharmboy.

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[colorado tanker]

The Malian government has encouraged Islamic learning to flourish here once again, and there are dozens of Koranic schools where children and adults learn to read and recite the Koran.

They might want to update that curriculum if they want the education to be useful in the 21st Century.

[wideawake]

I highly doubt he can trace his ancestry to the Visigoths, especially through a document that was written almost a thousand years after the Visigoths had disintegrated as a distinct nation.

I would guess that pretty much everyone in Timbuktu can trace his ancestry to at least one of the polygamous Songhai emperors.

[SunkenCiv]

Quite agree.

[colorado tanker]

Well, I could take a stab at sheer SWAG speculation. A Moor in the time of the Almoravids might have intermarried with a Spaniard and then wandered to the southern end of the empire. Some Muslims might have still referred to local Christians or converts as Visigoths, since that was the kingdom they defeated and, as I recall, some survivors had a role in founding the northern Christian kingdom.

Still, how accurate would that information be, having survived centuries before being written down? Sounds like an oral tradition that may or may not have been true.

[SunkenCiv]

I agree. For one thing, most genealogists are probably aware that the oral history of the family often differs (ahem) from what surviving documents (including grave markers) indicate. Some of the juicy details don’t wind up documented, and of course, the flip side is, there’s no telling how old the oral tradition actually is; sometimes parents repeat something the grandparents made up, and it’s bunk. For that matter, I’ve read that a genealogist for hire in the 19th century actually made up a fictional medieval French king in order to please his customers, who were hoping there was some royalty in the ancestry.

Just guessing, but Moslem oral traditions are probably not as reliable as others’. ;’)

[colorado tanker]

Well, Ward Churchill claims an oral tradition that he’s an Indian, and that’s been pretty tough to verify. :-))

[Fred Nerks]

Ethnic groups:
Mande 50% (Bambara, Malinke, Soninke), Peul 17%, Voltaic 12%, Songhai 6%, Tuareg and Moor 10%, other 5%

Religions:
Muslim 90%, Christian 1%, indigenous beliefs 9%

Mali is among the poorest countries in the world, with 65% of its land area desert or semidesert and with a highly unequal distribution of income. Economic activity is largely confined to the riverine area irrigated by the Niger. About 10% of the population is nomadic and some 80% of the labor force is engaged in farming and fishing. Industrial activity is concentrated on processing farm commodities...

CIA Factbook.

[Fred Nerks]

http://www.africasia.com/archive/na/01_01/cover1.htm

The Mandiga Voyage, 1300 AD

Available archaeological evidence and definitive historical accounts point to pre-Columbian West African expeditions across the Atlantic between 1307-1312 AD. The work of Al-Umars, a 14th century Islamic historian, who recorded the visit of Mansa Kankan Musa I, one of the most remarkable Mandinga emperors in Mali, when he stopped over in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, enroute to Meeca in 1324 AD, testify to the Mandinga expeditions across the Atlantic.

Umars’ account quotes Mansa Musa as saying that his predecessor had launched two expeditions from West Africa to discover the limits of the Atlantic Ocean.

Umari, writing a few decades after Mansa Musa’s visit to Mecca, states: “I asked the Sultan Musa how it was that power came into his hands.

‘We are from a house that transmits power by heritage,’ he told me.‘The ruler who preceded me would not believe that it was impossible to discover the limits of the neighbouring sea...

[SunkenCiv]

:’D

[SunkenCiv]

Interesting.

[gleeaikin]

Both the Moors and the Jews were expelled from Spain after the final conquest of the Moors in 1492. It is quite likely that both groups brought early and old family documents and books with them when the left. Just because something was written then it does not mean that the information could have been a lot older, or copied from several older sources to have combined record to flee with. Also, I imagine there was a certain amount of intermarriage, such as there is between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq nowadays.

At any rate, I hope that some of these older “more authoritative?” texts can be used to counteract the very distructive influence of the Wahabi branch of Islam that is the source of so much trouble today.

Regarding early family history. I have the German manuscript of one part of my family history that dates back as far as the 11th century. It was researched in the early 20th century in Germany. I wish I could read it.

[SunkenCiv]

Sounds like a great resource.