At its zenith in the middle of the 15th Century Timbuktu was known all over the world as a repository for all sorts of knowledge, including Arabic Islamic writing, science, maths and history. What is so important about Timbuktu's literary patrimony is that it is a challenge to Western ideas that Africa is a land of song and dance and oral tradition. It reveals a continent with an immensely rich literary and scientific heritage.
The University of Sankore one of the foremost intellectually inspired in the world...If the University of Sankore had not been destroyed; ...If the University of Sankore had survived the ravages of foreign invasions, the academic and cultural history of Africa might have been different from what it is today.
The Europeans came very late to Timbuktu," says Marie Rodet, lecturer at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. For centuries, they tried to reach the place because it was a mythological place of trade and Islamic scholars. It had been described in Arab manuscripts in the Middle Ages so they knew about the history but they never reached it because the population never allowed them.
It is a place where many, many things happened since the 12th Century. A place of knowledge... a place that tells us a lot about how great the African people were and continue to be. We need to save Timbuktu.
The city is quite calm nowadays, even though residual criminal acts remain. On terrorist issues we bet on Serval. People rely on Serval for this kind of issue, much more than on the UN soldiers.