The latest news from Timbuktu, according to Professor Shamil Jeppie, is that 25,000 Islamic manuscripts were quietly moved out of the fabled Saharan city to protect them from destruction by Islamist militants. More →

February 1, 2013

Deep in the West African nation of Mali, where the savannah grasslands meet the Sahara, lies Timbuktu. It’s an impoverished town of about 30,000, most of them nomadic traders or subsistence farmers. But Timbuktu is rich in history — long ago, it was a place of high Islamic scholarship, and it still has a million manuscripts to prove it. More →

March 12, 2004