|
|
South Africa: Mbeki's Assistance to Mali Saved Timbuktu Manuscripts
 |
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
BuaNews (Tshwane)
8 August 2008
Posted to the web 8 August 2008
If President Thabo Mbeki had not intervened to save many thousands of rare but endangered Timbuktu manuscripts, this huge body of works would have "turned to dust", writes Shaun Benton.
As a result of a stopover in the area by President Mbeki while visiting Mali in 2001, the Presidency has been lending its support towards the restoration and protection of what the Malian Minister for Higher Education Scientific Research, Amadou Toure called "the great written heritage of Timbuktu".
The Presidency has been involved in the project for the past seven years.
An exhibition of the famous Timbuktu collection of ancient documents was held on Thursday night at the Castle of Good Hope. The manuscripts cover an esoteric range of subjects ranging from chemistry to jurisprudential disputes. Many of them are leather-bound.
Minister of Arts and Culture, Professor Pallo Jordan said that these important manuscripts were brought to the attention of the rest of Africa and the world as a result of President Mbeki's intervention in their preservation.
If President Mbeki had not intervened to halt and reverse the physical decay brought on the documents by the inflictions of time, they would have turned to dust, said Dr Jordan.
The exhibition, titled "Timbuktu: Script and Scholarship", marks the first time these rare and delicate manuscripts have left the arid and windy sands of Mali, a country that borders the giant Sahara desert.
Most of the rare and ancient manuscripts are part of a collection of about 30 000 housed at the Ahmed Baba Institute of Higher Islamic Studies in Timbuktu, and it is from there that the current exhibited items are drawn.
Delivering his address, Mr Mbeki pointed out that it is the first time that an exhibition of the Timbuktu manuscripts has been hosted outside of Mali.
He said South Africa had taken a lead in the conservation of - and research into - the ancient manuscripts, many of which date back over 500 years.
The new building that will house and preserve the Timbuktu manuscripts in a state-of-the-art archive in Mali is nearing completion. It is being built as a result of South African assistance.
The project is one of the first and most important of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) cultural projects, after years of effort and management in the often difficult conditions in the desert country under the tutelage of Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad.
Professor Toure, Mali's higher education minister said the "vast and functional" building would provide the correct conditions for preserving the ancient documents. It has the requisite temperature and humidity controls that are standard for any such library of antiques.
The genesis of the project, Professor Toure said, was rooted in President Mbeki's memorable visit to the mysterious city in 2001.
He described the visit as a natural a way of cementing their closer ties after the early days of South Africa's liberation
The project was so important not only for Mali itself but the continent and interested institutions and individuals throughout the world, " said Professor Toure.
The documents chosen for the current exhibition date back from around the 16th century and cover a range of disciplines, said Professor Toure, including medicine, philosophy, mathematics, astrology and Islamic studies.
Professor Toure located the exhibition itself within the context of Mali's role in the decolonisation of Africa.
He said many of the more than 30 000 manuscripts with wide-ranging content were part of a growing collection that allows for the development, promotion and spread of African cultural values in a process both "noble and fundamental".
Produced by the scholars, jurists, scientists and others of the 15th and 16th centuries, the manuscripts are a result of literary efforts rooted in disciplines ranging from medicine, philosophy, literature, mathematics, biology, astrology, history, Islamic studies and philology among others.
As such these are important works provide a historical memory of Africa's peoples, he said.
The professor expressed gratitude for the generosity that will allow for a protected building that will provide a new headquarters for the Ahmed Baba Centre with the "appropriate instruments to ensure optimal conditions for the collection, safekeeping, dissemination and scientific exploitation of the ancient manuscripts".
|
Many of the writers of the manuscripts were located in Timbuktu and its surrounds and they were not only academics and philosophers but also professional copiers of texts, operating without printing presses.
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
