The bad-ass librarians of Timbuktu

Description: Islamic jihadis who later adopted the name Al Queda in the Islamic Magreb were active in the African Sahel by 2003. Throughout the next decade, they captured and ransomed foreign nationals and smuggled drugs to support their agenda. They also gained weapons from Muammar al Gaddafi's depots in Libya after he was killed in 2011 and formed an alliance with the desert Tuaregs who had a long history of struggle against governance and a livelihood as smugglers. Together, they inflicted humiliating defeats on Mali's army in January of 2012, and the army then staged a coup to overthow that government. By the end of March, the jihadi's Tuareg allies were less than fifty miles from Timbuktu, ready to seize control of the town. Abdel Kader Haidara's father, Mohammed Mamma Haidara, was a Sorhai scholar who had returned to his family home in Bamba, Mali after a decade of wandering and education during the first third of twentieth century. Designated as the town's qadi by local scholars, he mediated property disputes and presided over marriages and divorces. Eventually, he resettled in Timbuktu, about 120 miles west along the Niger River, where he opened a school and added to his family collection of early Islamic manuscripts (both interests funded by his 'day job': trading in grain and livestock). When Mamma Haidara died in 1981, his will appointed his seventeen-year-old son, Abdel from his twelve children to be custodian of the family archive. This work reveals how Abdel--acting first as archivist, later as outlaw--greatly expanded the collection and then hid nearly all of these 377,000 irreplaceable Arabic documents to prevent the jihadis from burning them. Joshua Hammer has written four other books: Chosen by god (New York: Hyperion, 1999) A season in Bethlehem (New York: Free Press, 2003) Yokohama burning (New York: Free Press, 2006) The falcon thief (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2020). Hammer, Joshua [Ives] (1957-) The bad-ass librarians of Timbuktu: and their race to save the worlds most precious manuscripts. interior design by Ruth Lee-Mui jacket design by Na Kim jacket image from Shutterstock printed and bound in the USA front end-paper: Mali map ©bogdanSerban / iStock via Getty Images rear end-paper: Arabic manuscript page photo by Xavier Rossi, ©Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images Publication — New York · London · Toronto · Sydney · New Delhi: Simon & Schuster, ©2016 1st edition, 4th printing Physical — 8º gilt spine lettering on quarter-cream buckram, black paper-covered boards with cream, umber, pumpkin and white pictorial jacket and full-color pictorial end-papers slight shelf wear to jacket folds and edges binding still tight pages unmarked overall, a near-fine copy in very good jacket 8¾ × 5¾ ×1" (22.9 × 15.8 × 1.9cm) 13.6oz (385gm) 9" (23 cm) minimum shelving vii+[1]+278+[2 author bio-sketch]pp. acknowledgements: p.243-247 notes: p.249-263 index: p.265-278 IDs — ISBN: 978‑1‑4767‑7740‑5 LCCN: 2015‑30396 OCLC: 913 303 671 Classification — Library of Congress: Z659 .H22 2016 Dewey: 03/.0207 BISG Subject Code: his001050 · History / Africa / West his065000 · History / Islamic his037080 · History / Modern / 21st Century Subjects — Haidara, Abdel Kader (ca.1975-) Centre de documentation et de recherches Ahmed Baba Libraries--Destruction and pillage--Mali--Timbuktu Mali--History--Tuareg Rebellion, 2012--Destruction and pillage Manuscripts, Arabic--Mali--Timbuktu Cultural property--Protection--Mali Islamic learning and scholarship--Mali--Timbuktu Librarians--Mali--Timbuktu Biography History Librarians Libraries Mali Timbuktu Non-fiction.

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Location: Columbia, Maryland

End Time: 2024-05-12T03:53:56.000Z

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