timbuktu today - reportage by getty images · timbuktu today photographs & text by brent...

TimbuktuToday

Photographs & Text byBrent Stirton

Photographer Brent Stirton spent a month total in 2009 and 2010 document-ing life in Timbuktu for National Geo-graphic magazine, the story was pub-lished in January 2011

This is a modern essay on a legendary city, historically one of the wealthiest in Africa and for centuries strictly forbidden to non-Muslims. Strategically situated at the northern apex of the Niger River and the southern shore of the Sahara Desert, for hundreds of years Timbuktu dominated the trade for gold, ivory, and slaves from the African interior as well as spices, cloth, and books brought by caravan from the Mediterranean coast. It was a city of considerable scholarly endeavor. In the tenth century Timbuktu contained one of the greatest universities in the world. It was home to hundreds of learned tutors, who maintained exten-sive libraries of manuscripts concerning history, science, religion, literature and the study of the Koran. . As its wealth grew, the city erected grand mosques, attracting scholars who, in turn, formed academies and imported books from throughout the Islamic world.

Caligrapher and Copyist Buboubacar Sadeck teaches students the art of ancient caligraphy on a Timbuktu rooftop, September 8, 2009.

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As a result, fragments of the Arabian Nights, Moorish love poetry, and Koranic commentaries from Mecca mingled with narratives of court intrigues and military adventures of mighty African kingdoms. Today’s Timbuktu is a very different place, a dusty footnote in northern Mali, the last major settlement on the edge of a vast Saharan waste-land. But amid the ramshackle mud-brick buildings, Timbuktu scholars are once again piecing together the African history that once filled vast libraries in the city’s heyday. There is also a darker side to modern Timbuktu. She is a city on the frontlines of a new war on terror, with Al Qaeda in the Magrib (AQIM,) operating freely in the desert wastelands to its north. A struggling tourism industry and an ill-attended annual music festival are testament to the ripples of fundamentalist attacks throughout the North Africa region. Al Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM), has steadily gained a hold on the country's northern desert. Since 2003, they have kidnapped 47 Westerners, netting an estimated $100 million in ransoms. Their coffers have been further bolstered by protection money from South American drug cartels, which smuggle cocaine through the desert to the Mediterranean coast and on to Europe. According to Interpol, some $2.2 billion worth of cocaine is funneled annually through the region. At the center of this tumult are the Tuareg, the turbaned nomads who have inhabited this part of the Sahara for centuries. For much of the last three years, Tuareg groups in Mali and Niger waged violent rebellions against their respective governments, seeking a greater voice in how their lands and resources are administered. Though a peace deal was brokered earlier this year, the conflict has left much of the region impoverished and awash in weapons and unemployed former fighters. Observers in the region worry that many of these young men could fall under the sway of AQIM and the cartels.


LEFT: A view of manuscripts in a scholar's home in TimbuktuRIGHT: Imam Chafi, custodian of the Biblioteche Cheik Na Boulher, sits in the rain dam-aged library trying to sort out salvagable manuscripts dating back to the 18th century


An Arab man teaches Arabic to girls in his spare time at night in the Malian city of Timbuktu, September 15 2009. Timbuktu is a legendary city of learning and even the poor-est of society are interested in fur-thering their education if they can. The man in the image teaches girls like these across the city 4 nights a week and for no remuneration.


The Imam of the Djingareiber Mosque, Timbuktu's oldest and most important Islamic place of worship, seen during Ramadan, September 6, 2009. Timbuktu is a historical Malian city, a long estab-lished centre of learning for Africa, Islam is at the heart of that learning as is medicine, science, law and technology.


TOP LEFT: Late afternoon street scenes around the Sankore Mosque as seen from a local residence with the famous Timbuktu door in evidence, Sankore is one of 3 mosques declared UNESCO sites in Timbuktu, a historical Malian city, a long established centre of learn-ing for Africa, Islam is at the heart of that learning as is medicine, science, law and technology, September 9, 2009.TOP RIGHT: Mali Army soldiers celebrate Mali Independence day with both formal and informal marches in the streets of Timbuktu. Fundamentalist Islamic fight-ers operating in the North of Mali have become an increasing security problem for the Mali government, one which they are trying to keep a lid on. Co-operation with the neighbouring countries and also the USA is ongoing with this issue.

BOTTOM LEFT: Ancient Manuscripts from Mali, Niger, Ethiopia, Sudan and Ni-geria line storage cases at Abdel Kader HAIDARA's home, the director of Bibli-otheque Mama Haidara De Manuscrits, Timbuktu, 16 September 2009. These manuscripts are waiting their turn to be cataloged and added to the library col-lection. Inside them is a history of Africa from the 11th century onwards, with dial-oge on Islam, trade, history, the law and so on.BOTTOM RIGHT: Early morning scene of children attending a Koranic school at a home in Timbuktu, September 12, 2009. Timbuktu is a historical Malian city, a long established centre of learning for Africa, Islam is at the heart of that learning as is medicine, science, law and technology.


Late afternoon street-scenes on a busy street in Timbuktu, the mythical Northern Mali city, Janu-ary 20 2010


A Songhay woman walks through her family compound in Timbuktu wearing an Obama election Shirt, Timbuktu, Mali, January 8, 2010. Timbuktu is a religious city but it is not a fundamentalist anti-western place. There is great support for Obama in the entire Mali region.


Scenes from the port of Timbuktu at the apex of the Niger River, Tim-buktu is a historical Malian city, a long established centre of learn-ing for Africa on 12 September 2009.


TOP LEFT: Tuareg men from an outly-ingTuareg community arrive in town and walk their camels through the streets of Timbuktu, the mythical Northern Mali city, on their way to visit with relatives in the city. January 23, 2009.TOP RIGHT: Timbuktu Marabout Mo-hamed Lamine ould Seing Almoustapha counsels a psychologically disturbed man who is chained to a post in the Marabout's home, 19 September 2009. Marabout's are the Timbuktu equivalent of a therapist but with more than a little of the supernatural thrown in. The Ma-rabout here is tending a man who has been voluntarily turned over to him by the man's family and chained up for the 40 day period of the therapy. Almous-tapha caters mostly to the mentally disturbed and also to infertile women but he also manufactures "Gris-Gris," talisman pieces which he prepares to protect against harm and other evils.

BOTTOM LEFT: Ismael Diadie Haidara, a scholar, philosopher and custodian of the Fondo Ka Ti manuscript library, Timbuktu, 12 September 2009. Ismael can trace his family back to Andalucia in Spain which they were forced to flee from Muslim Persecution in the days of the Catholic church's purges of Islam. Ismael's ancestor wrote a famous man-uscript called the Tarik Al Fatah, a his-tory of the Timbuktu region in the 15th and 16th century.BOTTOM RIGHT: Late afternoon street-scenes at a water well on a busy street in late afternoon Timbuktu, the mythical Northern Mali city, January 20 2010. A water well is located in every neighbour-hood and it is normal to see woman and children collecting water for daily use early in the morning and late in the af-ternoon. The heat of the day means that most street activity occurs in the late af-ternoon, when people come out for the mosque, for market and to socialize on the avenues of this mythical city.


Scenes from a Songhay wedding taking place in a local home, Timbuktu, Mali, 10 January 2010. Dancing, music and celebration is unrestrained in Timbuktu, with loud revelry accompanying many social occasions.


Young boys lounge in the desert sand on the banks of the Libyan built Canal which brings river wa-ter to the heart of Timbuktu, Mali, 9 January 2010. In the background two young men clean their house-hold carpet. The Canal was re-stored by the Libyans, who exert a strong financial influence over the whole region. There is a new hotel nearby, which overlooks the canal.


A Songhay man walks with his animals back into Timbuktu after a day of grazing in the desert outside of the city, Timbuktu, Mali, January 8, 2010. Many of the traditions of Timbuktu remain unchanged for the last thousand years and this is surely one of them.


A Songhai woman walks between temporary settlements on the out-skirts of Timbuktu. Traders come from all over this region of Africa to do business in the legendary city. They come during the rainy sea-son so as to have grazing for their animals and leave again when the season is over, heading back to Ni-ger, Mauritania and other regions of the Sahara.

timbuktu today - reportage by getty images · timbuktu today photographs & text by brent...

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