The Timbuktu Scholar Deported to Morocco

In October 1593 a Moroccan pasha had every house in Timbuktu searched except the scholars', and the whole city hid its wealth there. Three days later the mosque doors closed on them. Ahmed Baba left in chains for Marrakesh, lost sixteen hundred books, told the sultan to draw back his curtain and wrote in exile a treatise on slavery that is still read both ways. Four centuries later, crates of manuscripts flew back to Timbuktu, to the institute that bears his name.

Resistance and liberationMemory and redressKnowledge and heritageMaliAhmed BabaOHOctave HoudasMBMohammed Bagayogo