Timbuktu astronomy manuscripts

Science in the Sahel's libraries

Timbuktu, on the southern edge of the Sahara in Mali, was a centre of Islamic scholarship where, by at least the 14th century, important books were written and copied (Library of Congress). Families there and in nearby towns built up private libraries of handwritten books, which they have guarded for generations (see Timbuktu manuscripts). Besides law, religion and history, these collections include books on mathematics and astronomy.

Why scholars studied the stars

In Islamic practice, the five daily prayers fall at times set by the sun, and prayer faces Mecca. The months follow the moon. Knowing the sky well was therefore part of a scholar's training. The South African astronomer Thebe Medupe describes the astronomy of this era as driven mainly by the need to pray at the correct time and in the correct direction (Grocott's Mail).

Two manuscripts on the stars

The Library of Congress exhibition Ancient Manuscripts from the Desert Libraries of Timbuktu displayed manuscripts lent by the Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library of Timbuktu. Two were on astronomy:

• Kashf al-Ghummah fi Naf' al-Ummah, by Nasir al-Din Abu al-Abbas Ahmad al-Tawathi al-Ghalawi, in a copy made in 1733. The Library of Congress describes it as a text written to train scholars in astronomy. It explains how to use the movements of the stars to work out the beginning of the seasons, among many other topics, and includes a diagram of the rotation of the heavens. It also covers horoscopes, which were then part of the same field.
• A treatise on the rising and setting of the stars and what they portend in each year (shown above). It builds on the Greek and Roman tradition of astronomy, with additions by Muslim scholars, and is written as a dialogue in the style of Plato.

These books show Timbuktu taking part in the wider science of the Muslim world, which itself drew on Greek, Persian and Indian work.

Research today

Thebe Medupe, a University of Cape Town graduate known for the documentary Cosmic Africa (2003), leads the Timbuktu Science Project, which searches the manuscripts for scientific writing (UCT News, 2014). Its first findings appear in African Cultural Astronomy (2008), which Medupe edited with Jarita Holbrook and Johnson Urama, and in the documentary The Ancient Astronomers of Timbuktu (2009).

This entry is labeled Documented: the manuscripts survive and have been exhibited and studied.