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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.

Thanks Pharmboy.

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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.

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...

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.