Timbuktu
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
For a historian, the fact that the mosques and other holy places of <strong>Timbuktu</strong> have been <br />
recorded from the late sixteenth century in the Arabic chronicles, or "tarikhs" of <strong>Timbuktu</strong>, <br />
make the buildings as visualizing component and thus as speaking relics of this past even <br />
more valuable. The Arabic chronicles record <strong>Timbuktu</strong> as a centre of West African Sudan <br />
market and scribal culture. Because <strong>Timbuktu</strong> was at the crossroads of trade routes, the <br />
mosques and holy places of <strong>Timbuktu</strong> were imperative for the development and spread of <br />
Islam in Africa in late medieval and early modern times. <br />
Figure 4: Sankore Mosque, <strong>Timbuktu</strong>. Photo Francesco Bandarin, date 01/02/2005; <br />
https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/119/gallery/&index=1&maxrows=12 (accessed April 5, 2019) <br />
The buildings are architectural highlights from an era of great prosperity and intellectual <br />
importance. The three mosques present a specific style of architecture, working with <br />
earthen materials. Buildings as old as the mosques from these materials are very rare, but in <br />
this case they also represent a high point of Islamic learning and cultural and trade exchange <br />
of this region. How they were restored in the 16th century, which materials were used, how <br />
the spaces within and outside the mosques were configured, can tell us about West African <br />
Sudan architectural development, of which <strong>Timbuktu</strong> was the capital of culture in the 15th <br />
and 16th century, the time when the mosques were restored. <br />
As Elias Saad (Saad, p. 108) points out, the topography and thus, the urban space of <br />
<strong>Timbuktu</strong> has always been dominated by its mosques: "Their architecture rose above <br />
everything else in the city and they became the main points of referral and congregation in <br />
their respective quarters." They served not only as centres for prayers, but also as charities <br />
and hospitals for the poor. Saad assumes that the mosques determined the directions in