
Timbuktu Libraries in Exile - bmmayer1
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/timbuktu-libraries-in-exile/x/238429
======
tokenadult
What may be the most revolutionary finding as more ancient Islamic manuscripts
are preserved by digitization and shared with scholars around the world is the
known fact (known to specialized scholars, that is) that there isn't a certain
ancient text for the Quran. Just like the case with the Bible, manuscript
copyists made their best efforts to copy accurately the manuscripts before
them as they made new manuscripts, but mistakes happened once in a while. And,
just as in the case of the Bible, tracing the copied texts back to the
earliest available manuscripts, and reconstruction of what the earliest
probable form of the text was, doesn't provide certainty about the original
"words of God" found in the texts. (That's equally true of the Hebrew
scriptures also important to Jews and of the Greek scriptures known as the New
Testament.) The gradual spread of knowledge of textual criticism (that's the
name of this study as a field of scholarship) in the Christian world is
helping to reduce "fundamentalist" tendencies among Christians. In the Islamic
world, there is a much smaller percentage of Muslims who are aware that their
holy book too has many varied copies, and there is no certainty about the
original text of the Quran. As this awareness increases, that could be helpful
in reducing conflict over supposed divine commands that were man-made in the
first place.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textual_criticism>

[http://www.amazon.com/Textual-Criticism-Quran-Manuscripts-
Ke...](http://www.amazon.com/Textual-Criticism-Quran-Manuscripts-
Keith/dp/0739177532)

<http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Text/criticaltext.html>

~~~
cefarix
I think it's well known among Muslims that there are multiple readings of the
Quran. Another point of note is that unlike the Christian or Hebrew writings,
the main method of preservation of the Quran has been through mass oral
memorization, and so Muslims tend not to place much emphasis on manuscripts.
All the printed editions of the Quran (known as Mushafs) are, in fact,
authenticated by well-known memorizers of the Quran (Hafizs). It's also
notable that while Bible literally means book, Quran literally means Recital,
indicative of the fact that is in rhyming prose and meant to be recited orally
from memory rather than read like a book.

~~~
rohamg
this is not accurate. OP is referring to multiple _writings_ of the Quran,
which is in fact something you'd be flogged for suggesting in most Muslim
countries. The accepted dogma is that the words of the Quran have been
protected from changes despite its oral nature, thus making the message more
pure than that of the texts before it. also important to note is that
translated versions of the Quran are not approved for worship - everyone must
use the native Arabic. this does help ensure continuity in words if not
meaning.

~~~
cefarix
I am aware of the variations in ancient manuscripts of parts of the Quran.
These variations are due to different scripts, different recitations, and
sometimes scribe error. There is no reason why I would be flogged if some
ancient manuscripts do not conform to the Quran. The accepted dogma is that
the Quran has been preserved because of its oral nature, not despite it. No
manuscript is as authentic as the oral word, and of course, no translation,
whether oral or written, is the Quran itself.

------
caycep
I would say - this is important. Important enough to get direct aid, either
governmental (US, France), or even from those with deep pockets (Google,
Apple, Paul Allen, Gates Foundaton). Why are they still depending on
crowdsourced funding? Dr. Diakite is in Oregon, maybe they can get Intel
backing?

In addition to securing the manuscripts, they deserve a home in a new climate-
controlled institution to replace the one torched, once the situation
stabilizes.

These documents ought to be digitized and uploaded/mirrored to the cloud ASAP,
so that the information content can no longer be destroyed.

~~~
kmfrk
Sounds like something UNESCO should be involved with.

------
miles
Why are they not scanning/digitizing the whole collection and putting it
online as part of this fundraiser? If they want money to simply keep these in
some library or other, that doesn't excite me as much as helping make them
available to the whole world.

EDIT: Here is part of the reply I received about scanning the collection: "
_Preservation needs to happen first. The manuscripts will be destroyed by the
humidity if they are not boxed within the next couple of months._ "

~~~
miles
Just received a much longer reply and permission to share it:

Hi Miles,

Thanks for your message. Tony Dowler is our campaign manager and guru. I'd
like to get him into this conversation if you don't mind, and I'm copying
Brian Mayer as he is a really important member of our team on this effort and
I see him in the thread your inquiry came out of.

A couple of things about the subject -

right now, we are concentrating on ensuring the physical integrity of the
evacuated manuscripts. they are jam packed in metal footlockers in an
environment that is much, much more humid than their home in Timbuktu. We have
seen signs of trauma and also of humidity based risk (molds, mildew, fungus).
If we don't get the manus into individual boxes with humidity traps before the
rainy season get going next month, we are very afraid that we will lose them
as "wet" based issues spread like wildfire on shelves in libraries. you can
imagine what they could do in our footlockers.

SAVAMA DCI, the organization my friend and colleague, Abdel Kader Haidara,
curator of the Mamma Haidara library, presides has digitized a couple thousand
manuscripts over the years. Because of the physical vulnerability of the
corpus (brittle linen rag paper, with highly unstable ferous inks for the most
part), standard scanning protocols cannot be applied because the manuscripts
literally burn when exposed to that kind of "hot light". Cold circuit
photographic based digitization is extremely time and resource consuming as
you can imagine. Character recognition in Arabic is another serious issue that
needs to be resolved for the digital solution to be fully responsive in this
corpus.

We think about the utlimate digital solution alot, Miles. Fantasize may be a
better term for what we do - the sheer volume of funding, technical assistance
to perfect it for this corpus, and the time needed to digitize all of the
manuscripts is pretty overwhelming and as I said, at this point, we have about
30 days until it starts raining buckets in Mali and finding enough money to
secure the physical integrity of the corpus is our number one priority for the
time being.

Best, Steph

\------- _T160K_ _Timbuktu Libraries in Exile Knowledge for Peace Initiative_

731 Woodmont Beach Road South Des Moines, Washington 98198 USA Tel. +1 206 948
5882 and Sébénincoro, Près du Pont Woyowayanko Bamako, Republique du Mali Tel.
+223 76 43 89 06

Email: contactt160k@gmail.com URL: <http://t160k.org/>

~~~
bmmayer1
This is really important:

"We have about 30 days until it starts raining buckets in Mali and finding
enough money to secure the physical integrity of the corpus is our number one
priority for the time being"

------
bmmayer1
This is a backstory on the project from the New Republic:
[http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112898/timbuktu-
librarian...](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112898/timbuktu-librarians-
duped-al-qaeda-save-books)

------
_djo_
I'm suspicious of this fundraiser. How does it relate to the Tombouctou
Manuscripts Project? [0]

The TMP has government funding from the South African government, University
of Cape Town and Ford Foundation and was working to preserve and digitise the
manuscripts before the war (and had built a new climate-controlled centre, the
Ahmad Baba Institute, for the purpose in Timbuktu) and has been working to
recover and restore those displaced by the fighting.

That the organisation which has been most responsible for preserving these
manuscripts over the past decade isn't even mentioned once on the Indiegogo
page is decidedly odd.

I've sent the Project team a heads-up about this and asked for some feedback,
so I hope to have more information soon. In the meantime I recommend
refraining from donating money to this until the background is cleared up.
Hopefully it'll all turn out to be on the up and up.

[0]<http://www.tombouctoumanuscripts.org/>

Edit: It's also worth reading the TMP's official statement on what happened to
the manuscripts after the rebel take-over:
[http://www.tombouctoumanuscripts.org/blog/entry/timbuktu_upd...](http://www.tombouctoumanuscripts.org/blog/entry/timbuktu_update/)

~~~
waterlesscloud
The article in The New Republic gives the story-

[http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112898/timbuktu-
librarian...](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112898/timbuktu-librarians-
duped-al-qaeda-save-books)

------
AlexanderDhoore
This stuff makes my blood boil!!! They already destroyed tons on ancient
buildings and relics in Timbuktu. When I saw them putting their axes in a 1000
year old temple... I WANTED TO SCREAAAAAAM.

~~~
bmmayer1
The books survived though. Now we just need to keep them preserved until they
can be returned.

~~~
dsuth
Re-whatnow? Return them to the place where they were almost destroyed? This
kind if item should be viewed as a part of humanity's common history and
carefully protected, not sent back into a barely stable area where they would
act as a prime target for the people who were duped into letting them go.

------
BrentRitterbeck
When I was a student at the University of Florida, I had the pleasure of
working in the Special Collections department of the university library
system. This is the department where collections significant to Florida
history as well as really old things were kept. These items required a well
controlled environment. I had the opportunity to discover many unique items,
and I'm sure there are tons of things that some enterprising researcher may
discover one day that no one currently knows about.

These Timbuktu items need to be preserved. In my opinion, destroying things of
this nature, or letting them get destroyed through lack of care, is a very
serious issue. I hope a larger body gets involved with this.

------
scarmig
I suppose it's well past the point where we can complain about every radical
Islamist group being called Al-Qaeda with no regard for, say, what they
actually are. Because terrorism. Or something.

~~~
bmmayer1
In all fairness, no ones going to donate to "Save books from Ansar Dine," are
they?

But for the record, they are AQ affiliated. It's not a completely random
connection.

~~~
gngeal
By the way, do you have anything to do with the article you've linked? Because
the _"when Europe was experiencing its dark ages, these collections were
already well established"_ is complete nonsense. "The Dark Ages" refers to a
period in the European history that ends with the end of the 10th century and
that is commonly referred to as Early Middle Agen in modern historiography.
Wikipedia claims that Timbuktu became a permanent settlement in the 12th
century. By then, Europe had at least a few fledgling universities. So no, no
Dark Ages here.

Obviously, that doesn't diminish the value of the effort (and, I hope, the
eventual schievement), but whenever I see claims like that I cringe. So many
people have so little notion of history... (I blame in on the Renaissance
people, they were the ones who tried to blacken (pun intended :-)) the
previous centuries so that they could feel good about the world they remade
for themselves. And then the term got stuck.)

~~~
scarmig
I'm getting a bit off topic here, but the Dark Ages is a deeply interesting
invention. It simultaneously allows for linear, teleological progression, from
a dark pit of despair to the brilliant shining world of today; while also
allowing for a Roman-ticized past that we can imagine ourselves as having
fallen from.

But most people were probably better off in the "Dark Ages" than in Roman
times. And perhaps the darkest period of European history isn't something
buried a thousand or two thousand years ago but something that happened in
living memory.

~~~
gngeal
It's sort of nicely ambiguous. If you hate the period (some people do, the
Renaissance guys obviously did), you can interpret it as "the time when people
were in the dark (about stuff)". If you love it (I do, for a plethora of
reasons, as do many contemporary historians, now that our reconstruction shows
that the life of the people in that period was as rich and study-worthy as any
other historical period), the obvious interpretation is "the the time we've
been in the dark about for quite some time (i.e., due to scanty records)".

To me, it always seemed that in the provinces, quite little has changed after
the end of the 5th century from the POV of your ordinary peasant. The more
remote provinces have never been that much urbanized to begin with, and the
non-Roman east of Europe didn't notice a thing anyway.

------
negamax
I just realized that I am willing to part with a considerable wealth if war is
waged on neutralizing groups which destroy knowledge or monuments; ancient or
otherwise.

------
X4
I'm for open-sourcing all ancient books and give humanity access to it. NO
COPYRIGHT can be held on ancient books, the authors have died hundreds of
years ago. The "holy" church and their banksters should open access for
scanners to all their book too.

"Saving ancient books and manuscripts from Al-Qaeda"? What the heck?? I don't
know how Al-Qaeda ticks, but I remember having read that soldier troops from
the us and other countries ripped and/or bombed the museums and archives,
during the many wars.

------
danso
So...reading through the OP and the New Republic link it refers to, there is
almost no mention of Al-Qaeda at all. This is the sole mention I could find
(besides in the headline of the New Republic story):

> _This vision of a philosophical, scientific Islam means little to the Al
> Qaeda–linked Islamist group Ansar Dine, which for most of last year ruled
> Timbuktu through terror, cutting off the hands of thieves, flogging women
> judged to be dressed immodestly, and destroying centuries-old tombs of local
> saints. In the summer, the militants commandeered Ahmed Baba, using it as a
> headquarters and barracks. Then, in January, French forces closed in on
> Timbuktu. As the Islamists fled, they trashed the library, burning as many
> of the manuscripts as they could find. The mayor of Timbuktu, Hallé Ousmani
> Cissé, told The Guardian that all of Ahmed Baba’s texts had been lost. “It’s
> true,” he said. “They have burned the manuscripts.”_

There's quite a difference between "Al-Qaeda" and "Al-Qaeda-linked"...in that
a linked-to group may think of Al-Qaeda as the "enemy of my enemy is my
friend" but most certainly have different philosophical aims. Don't get me
wrong: destroying a library is bad no matter who is doing it. But if there's
anything we've learned in the last decade of international politics, it's that
these kinds of distinctions matter, and have, on occasion, been exploited for
propaganda purposes.

Edit: oh, and after doing a cursory Wikipedia lookup, it appears there may be
no association at all:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansar_Dine>

 _Ansar Dine has its main base among the Ifora tribe from the southern part of
the Tuaregs' homeland.[8] It has been linked with Al-Qaeda Organization in the
Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) because its leader Iyad Ag Ghaly is the cousin of AQIM
commander Hamada Ag Hama.[4] In April 2012, Salma Belaala, a professor at
Warwick University who does research on jihadism in North Africa said that
this association was false, claiming that Ansar Dine was opposed to Al
Qaeda.[9] Ag Ghaly was also previously associated with the 1990 Tuareg
rebellion.[4] The group's members are reported to be from Mali, Algeria, and
Nigeria.[10] Omar Ould Hamaha, who served as Ansar Dine's spokesman after
April 2012, became the military leader of the AQIM-affiliated Movement for
Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA) in August 2012.[11]_

------
josscrowcroft
Who do you think legally owns the manuscripts?

~~~
gngeal
The whole of humanity?

~~~
josscrowcroft
I'd love if that were the case although I dunno if I'd trust them to safeguard
these, to be honest.

------
patja
The Swerve is an excellent read if you are interested in learning more about
the history of losing texts to the ravages of time and religion.

------
darkhorn
There is no such thing as Al-Qaeda.

~~~
IvyMike
As far as I can tell, there are two diametrically opposed groups of people who
love to repeat this.

1) People who say that Al-Qaeda is a bogeyman that is used to justify any
expense in the war on terror.

2) People who say that Al-Qaeda is a held up as a few bad apples when the
problem is that all followers of Islam are terrorists.

I think they're both wrong. I'm curious: What exactly do you call the
organization that bin Laden ran? I'd maybe buy arguments that this
organization is not as pervasive or cohesive as they have been made out to be,
but not that they never existed at all.

~~~
darkhorn
There was a short BBC documentary, and an intervview with a high rank officer
who was telling that wherever they go there were no Al-Qaeda. Only few locals
that were armed, no organization called Al-Qaeda. Maybe it was this
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mztfFdpd1Rk>

Also
[http://gibiru.com/index.php/component/content/article/78-new...](http://gibiru.com/index.php/component/content/article/78-news/32799-there-
is-no-al-qaeda-ex-uk-foreign-secretary) "There Is No 'Al Qaeda' - Ex UK
Foreign Secretary"

Also CIA Whistle Blower Susan Lindauer says that everyone knew that there is
going to be false flag on before 9/11 but not exatly how. And she says that
there were huge military transportain into near Afganistan befor 9/11, it was
already been planned, she say.

As for Al-Qaeda, probably Bin Laden called himsef mujahdeen or somthing like
that, but they are not international so big organization. I don't exacly
remember but they were trying to establish Islamic republic or something like
that in Afganistan. And I have no doupt that he was killed at the beggining of
the war.

The name "Al-Qaeda" is nothing but propaganda. When someone is reffering to
some organization in Somaila he should not call it Al-Qaeda, I think it is
proper to call them "Islamit extremist form Somalia lead by XY".

~~~
tome
So type 1) then.

------
mecha
What a horrible propaganda peace.

~~~
youngerdryas
Nice freudian slip.

