Islamic Rebels Burn Medieval Manuscript Library

[JockBoy87]

So the Ansar Dine and the gang don't appreciate history, and they decided it would be a good idea to burn down a manuscript library in Timbuktu as they left. Maybe nobody thought Islamic fundamentalists would set fire to a collection that no doubt contains numerous religious documents. I don't understand why caretakers of these treasures do not try to export them in a time of war. The British and French did it during WWII.

Timbuktu was an intellectual center through the 14th and 16th centuries, and the city is estimated to house hundreds of thousands of historical documents. The Ahmed Baba Institute library contains about 20,000 volumes in its collection dating back to the 13th century. It is not known how much of the collection is lost. Some of the collection is stored in underground vaults.

If you thought this is bad, Islamic fundamentalists are also killing polio vaccine workers in Pakistan.


(c) Xan Rice 2007. Retrieved from The Guardian

(c) Ben Curtis. Retrieved from The Guardian




See Source Articles:
http://news.yahoo.com/islamist-rebel...104853300.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013...frican-history

[GiancarloC]

Hopefully most of it survived. This is a really sad event for the country. These Islamists have no business being there. And speaking of which French and Malian troops have started to take over the city.

[Just_Believe18]

That is religious extremism for you. When you break down social structure and rely solely on religion to guide your sense of morality and governance on others, this is what you get. Islam is living in the Dark Ages. I hope Muslim nations can come out of this purgatory and join the rest of us in civilization.

[xbuzzerx]

This really makes me mad. I know it 'shouldn't' make me more mad when people burn irreplaceable historical books and documents than when they kill people, but it really does. That's not just something like petty murder, it's like assault on human consciousness and shared human history.

[maxpowr9]

That is religious extremism for you. When you break down social structure and rely solely on religion to guide your sense of morality and governance on others, this is what you get. Islam is living in the Dark Ages. I hope Muslim nations can come out of this purgatory and join the rest of us in civilization.

Religion isn't the only thing that could whitewash history. Many Asian countries during their "reformations" in the 20th Century altered much of their histories. Hell, the Chinese still refuse to acknowledge Tibet as part of their country.

[ChickenGuy]

This really makes me mad. I know it 'shouldn't' make me more mad when people burn irreplaceable historical books and documents than when they kill people, but it really does. That's not just something like petty murder, it's like assault on human consciousness and shared human history.

I know how you feel, it angered me too when I heard about this on the news just now. This is the face of the disgusting plague on our world that is 'modern' radical Islam. A literal destroyer of history, of culture, of music, of art, of human experience. And the torturer and executioner of those who don't obey them.

It must be fought, and it must never be appeased.

[Jack Springer]

That is religious extremism for you. When you break down social structure and rely solely on religion to guide your sense of morality and governance on others, this is what you get. Islam is living in the Dark Ages. I hope Muslim nations can come out of this purgatory and join the rest of us in civilization.

That is MUSLIM EXTREMIST. Get your story straight.

Our current President can't even use the phase "muslim terrorist" or "muslim extremist".

This is not new. The taliban did similar things in Afghanistan and radical Muslims have threatened to do destroy ancient historical sites in Egypt.

[CowboyBob]

It pisses me off to see extremists destroy antique treasures.

Nazis did it too.

[Kulindahr]

Small minds with infantile responses.

I've held in my hands rare ancient texts from several religions, some of them dead. Never did I for a moment think of doing any damage to them; rather I was awed and honored to be able to study such links to the past.

These people are barbarians endangering the entire human race. The only solution is the one they prefer: extermination.

[CowboyBob]

I have a cousin who does genealogy work. She told me that if you have ancestors where the Nazis were, your genealogy comes to a dead end and can't go back too far. Nazi carnage destroyed a lot churches during WWII in Russia, Poland, Prussia, Czechoslovakia, etc. For centuries it was those churches which kept detailed records of births, deaths, baptisms, marriages, and the like and those records are gone forever.

She can trace roots of families going back to the 1200's if their families were from England, Scotland, Sweden and any other areas not caught up in the Nazi conflict. On my paternal side the Nazi's destroyed those Prussian / Russian / Czech churches but on my maternal side (Norway/Sweden) I go back centuries.

As I said, it pisses me off when antiquities are destroyed.

[Jack Springer]

Wars destroy.

Carpet bombing by the the Allies destroyed millions of records also in WW2. We did the same thing to the former Yugoslavia in the 1990's.

[ChickenGuy]

Wars destroy.

Carpet bombing by the the Allies destroyed millions of records also in WW2. We did the same thing to the former Yugoslavia in the 1990's.

It's a VERY different event. We weren't on a single-minded and fervent zeal to eradicate German or Yugoslavian culture and history from the face of the planet. Indeed, when the Allies reached Rome, they were specifically told in their bombing raids that they must avoid many of the famous buildings.

I'm a bit surprised to find you apparently equivocating and being the least 'hawkish' about this issue. I'd have thought you'd be at the forefront of tackling overseas terrorism and extremism?

On another point....

The instant it was known the mindless Islam-crazy thugs were taking over, someone in Mali (for example the museum/cultural authorities) should have had the foresight to smuggle all these treasures out of the region if they could, or maybe alternatively to have made copies of these manuscripts to be held overseas in a safe place. Same goes for women, children, and virtually everything you could think of. Either that of arm yourself and fight. Horrible barbarian excuses for human beings.

[GiancarloC]

Wars destroy.

Carpet bombing by the the Allies destroyed millions of records also in WW2. We did the same thing to the former Yugoslavia in the 1990's.

Lol. If I and others on the left were against it... I'm sure the response here would be different.

For one this is vastly different and one must look at the geopolitical reasons as to why. ECOWAS reacted very pitifully and slowly to this crisis. This was a spillover from Libya. The Malian government was in disarray and the transitional President requested help. France was in its right to assist the country and has met with wild support from civilians, even in Gao and Timbuktu... major cities in the NORTH. The rebels have split, and now the secularist rebels see they made a major mistakee. This is a different situation than Yugoslavia where a previously peaceful and democratic country was caught in a serious crisis. This country had 20 years of democratic elections and seemed to be on a stable footing.

Wars destroy, but the context here is that the rebels destroyed these manuscripts intentionally as being against their extreme form of Islam. But your President who was in office before Obama was perfectly fine bombing a country with tremendous history into oblivion.

This war isn't looking to be one. The French reacted swiftly and went through the country at lightning speed to catch these terrorists.

[Just_Believe18]

That is MUSLIM EXTREMIST. Get your story straight.

Our current President can't even use the phase "muslim terrorist" or "muslim extremist".

This is not new. The taliban did similar things in Afghanistan and radical Muslims have threatened to do destroy ancient historical sites in Egypt.

Once again, I question your reading comprehension and if you're ever really listening in on the discussion. If you read my entire post, I specifically criticize the extreme elements of Islam. I even mention Islam and Muslim in the same sentence, which I thought would trigger your eyes to at least gaze over that sentence.

[Telstra]

Probably they don't represent islam anymore.
They just want power and made up their own rules but hide behind the name islam.

[xbuzzerx]

That is MUSLIM EXTREMIST. Get your story straight.

Our current President can't even use the phase "muslim terrorist" or "muslim extremist".

This is not new. The taliban did similar things in Afghanistan and radical Muslims have threatened to do destroy ancient historical sites in Egypt.

Every religion I can think of has had its moments of extremism and doing things like this Jack-- including Christianity.

Yes, it's perfectly reasonable to comment on this as one gross example of what religious extremism does.

[palbert]

Have we so quickly forgotten Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasterys when, among other things, he ordered the confiscation and destruction of the Monasterys' books and writings. Or for that matter like action by the Reformist Crowns of other Northern European Kingdoms.

This does not condone; but such actions are not new.

[GiancarloC]

Once again, I question your reading comprehension and if you're ever really listening in on the discussion. If you read my entire post, I specifically criticize the extreme elements of Islam. I even mention Islam and Muslim in the same sentence, which I thought would trigger your eyes to at least gaze over that sentence.

It's more of the same antics and mud slinging at Obama whenever he gets a chance. The President used the term "Islamic terrorists and extremists" plenty of times.

[JockBoy87]

It pisses me off to see extremists destroy antique treasures.

Nazis did it too.

What surprises me is the lack of monetary interest in the books.

The crazies could have made millions selling them in the underground antiquities market.

Have we so quickly forgotten Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasterys when, among other things, he ordered the confiscation and destruction of the Monasterys' books and writings. Or for that matter like action by the Reformist Crowns of other Northern European Kingdoms.

This does not condone; but such actions are not new.

True, iconoclasm is not new. Henry's goons would have known that the books they destroyed were valuable too. To some people, money is less important than the will to destroy, which I suppose is even more dangerous.

The instant it was known the mindless Islam-crazy thugs were taking over, someone in Mali (for example the museum/cultural authorities) should have had the foresight to smuggle all these treasures out of the region if they could, or maybe alternatively to have made copies of these manuscripts to be held overseas in a safe place.

I agree. It is also my understanding from the news that Malians have been trying to digitize the books.

This really makes me mad. I know it 'shouldn't' make me more mad when people burn irreplaceable historical books and documents than when they kill people, but it really does. That's not just something like petty murder, it's like assault on human consciousness and shared human history.

A common complaint the Islamic fundamentalists make everywhere is that the West is corrupting their culture. How then does it make sense to destroy evidence one's own past? Maybe it's the intellectualism they hate. I will never understand this ideology completely. These Islamists just seem to hate everything that is wholesome and good in the world. Some are even actively trying to stop the eradication of polio, which is on the verge of being completely wiped out in the remaining three endemic countries.

[Kulindahr]

A common complaint the Islamic fundamentalists make everywhere is that the West is corrupting their culture. How then does it make sense to destroy evidence one's own past? Maybe it's the intellectualism they hate. I will never understand this ideology completely. These Islamists just seem to hate everything that is wholesome and good in the world. Some are even actively trying to stop the eradication of polio, which is on the verge of being completely wiped out in the remaining three endemic countries.

I watched a clip from one Islamist preacher whom I suspect represents a broad swath of Islamic fundamentalism. He flat out asserted that no book should exist but the Qur'an.

[Kulindahr]

Any group that believes in burning any books deserves to be sent to oblivion. In that I include some of the "white power" groups, which have advocated burning anything authored by non-whites.

[Jack Springer]

I was just pointing out the obvious that wasn't addressed. War is hell.

In regards to your opinion that I would be the most hawkish, you have a lot to learn about me and conservatism.

It's a VERY different event. We weren't on a single-minded and fervent zeal to eradicate German or Yugoslavian culture and history from the face of the planet. Indeed, when the Allies reached Rome, they were specifically told in their bombing raids that they must avoid many of the famous buildings.

I'm a bit surprised to find you apparently equivocating and being the least 'hawkish' about this issue. I'd have thought you'd be at the forefront of tackling overseas terrorism and extremism?

On another point....

The instant it was known the mindless Islam-crazy thugs were taking over, someone in Mali (for example the museum/cultural authorities) should have had the foresight to smuggle all these treasures out of the region if they could, or maybe alternatively to have made copies of these manuscripts to be held overseas in a safe place. Same goes for women, children, and virtually everything you could think of. Either that of arm yourself and fight. Horrible barbarian excuses for human beings.

[Jack Springer]

Every religion I can think of has had its moments of extremism and doing things like this Jack-- including Christianity.

Yes, it's perfectly reasonable to comment on this as one gross example of what religious extremism does.

You can include atheism on that list -- but we are talking about what's happening today and what needs to be done today -- we can't do anything to change what happened in the past.

[GiancarloC]

War is hell and what's the damn point? No kidding. But the intervention was requested by the people and civilians were being subjected to horrors. I'm sorry but in this case a request was made and it was fulfilled... though sadly too late to save these pieces of history.

Conservatism? Does one mean starting and supporting wars republicans start and being against those interventions started by a Socialist President (Hollande)?

And what about atheism?

WTF? Address the topic please.

Keep on swinging into empty air.

[JockBoy87]

You can include atheism on that list -- but we are talking about what's happening today and what needs to be done today -- we can't do anything to change what happened in the past.

Muslim countries were scientific and medical powerhouses in the Middle Ages. They should return to that past.

[Jack Springer]

^^
Yes, the culture of Islam brought so much to progressive culture in the past.

[xbuzzerx]

You can include atheism on that list -- but we are talking about what's happening today and what needs to be done today -- we can't do anything to change what happened in the past.

What are you talking about? I'm atheist and I've read the Bible (multiple translations), parts of the Qu'ran and the entire Baghavid Gita. (Hardly understood any of it, it makes the Bible read by comparison like a transcript of an episode of Barney the Purple Dinosaur.) Plus I have a ridiculous reverence for history so even if something is religious in nature-- a piece of artwork or an ancient manuscript, I'm still horrified if someone destroys it.

Also atheism isn't a religion.

^^
Yes, the culture of Islam brought so much to progressive culture in the past.

Yes, at many points it did. It's responsible for slowly teaching Europe most of the secrets brought from China along the silk road that enabled the age of discovery-- oh little things like the compass and gunpowder-- and at points the Muslim world even protected the Jews from Christian persecution.

Please know something about history before you try to make comments about it.

[Sausy]

Jack, when you use that broad brush you often do you make far less credible your assertions of being open minded and thinking for yourself. Islamic hstory is neither wholly benign or negative....for most of our medieval period the areas they controlled in Europe were far more enlightened than the authoritarian Christian monarchies that replaced them. "The Spanish Inquisition" anyone?

[rareboy]

For all those that think that this is just an Islamic tic....Check your History.

Under Savonarola, many irreplaceable humanist manuscripts and works of art were sacrificed to fire.

Every religion has its phases of fundamentalism.

[rareboy]

^^
Yes, the culture of Islam brought so much to progressive culture in the past.

You are so fucking right.

But the Wahabists have risen to prominence because of Saudi Arabia.

Anyone who doesn't realize that America's bestest friend with oil wells has been the heart and soul of the fundamentalist movement in Islam is just ignoring history.

[Nemothepanda]

Not much is known about Imperial Mali and Songhai outside of western Africa, the two empires responsible for turning Timbuktu and other cities into centers of learning. These manuscripts are invaluable if we are going to learn anything more about Africa's history and place in the world. A good number of these texts are commentaries on the Qu'ran and Sharia, so although it would be a loss nevertheless, I hope we didn't lose the works of some unnamed genius.

[palbert]

No one group can claim blamelessness in the destruction of knowlege:

Ancient and modern sources identify four possible occasions for the partial or complete destruction of the Library of Alexandria: Julius Caesar's fire in the Alexandrian War, in 48 BC; the attack of Aurelian in AD 270 – 275; the decree of Coptic Pope Theophilus in AD 391; and the Muslim conquest in AD 642 or thereafter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria

And one of the ancient world's knowledge repositories was lost.

[ChickenGuy]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21248951

The BBC has put up a set of pictures. They were taken in May 2010 when a BBC Africa journalist went to Timbuktu and visited the Ahmed Baba Institute (the same place JockBoy mentions in his first post) They held the most important manuscript collections.

There might be some consolation - I bolded a part of the quote underneath....

These 13th-Century commentaries on the Koran were among the oldest manuscripts in the library. Workers at the Ahmed Baba Institute have told the BBC that around 2,000 manuscripts may have been lost while 28,000 were taken to Bamako, Mali's capital, after the Islamist groups took control of the city.

....so thankfully, all is not lost.

Some other pics and descriptions....

The ancient Malian city of Timbuktu has housed for centuries thousands of manuscripts which are invaluable to the history of Africa and Islam. Several thousand of them seem to have been lost or taken away by retreating Islamist militants as French and Malian troops were advancing towards Timbuktu.

The manuscripts dealt with different fields of knowledge. The text with red drawings, for example, is a treatise on astronomy by Nouradine bin Mohamed Ahmed, and the manuscript on the bottom left is an 18th-Century copy of an earlier text on pharmacology. It contains recipes for traditional Sahelian remedies written next to Koranic verses.

Many of the manuscripts were acquired from Timbuktu families which had kept them for centuries. The dry climate of the region, located on the southern edge of the Sahara desert, contributed to their preservation. This is a 17th-Century copy of a biography of the Prophet Muhammad.

The centre is named after Ahmed Baba, considered Timbuktu's greatest scholar. Several of his best known texts were written while he lived in Morocco, like this manuscript from Marrakech which dates from 1599. He died in 1627 in Timbuktu.

[GiancarloC]

It's great that most were saved... this is ap art of history that has to be preserved.

[palbert]

Does anyone know of any efforts to digitally encode most/all of these texts, much as is being done with The Dead Sea Scrolls? It is no good to bemoan their loss if no effort is made to protect them irretrievably.

[JockBoy87]

Does anyone know of any efforts to digitally encode most/all of these texts, much as is being done with The Dead Sea Scrolls? It is no good to bemoan their loss if no effort is made to protect them irretrievably.

Yes.

The Tombouctou Manuscripts Project.

http://www.tombouctoumanuscripts.org/

[xbuzzerx]

Does anyone know of any efforts to digitally encode most/all of these texts, much as is being done with The Dead Sea Scrolls? It is no good to bemoan their loss if no effort is made to protect them irretrievably.

Absolutely no idea. I was actually just thinking it's rather appalling how little we know or hear about anything in Africa really unless you go very far out of your way to look it up. I wouldn't be surprised if a good chunk of world academia didn't even know this respository existed.

[ChickenGuy]

Does anyone know of any efforts to digitally encode most/all of these texts, much as is being done with The Dead Sea Scrolls? It is no good to bemoan their loss if no effort is made to protect them irretrievably.

That was discussed in another pic in my link (I only posted some of them)

Good news in bold again....

In the new building the manuscripts were being digitised before being restored - in case something went wrong and also with the hope of making them available on the internet. It was a project that was expected to take many years. It may have saved some of the contents of the missing texts as the hard disks containing the digital data were reportedly taken to Bamako.

Plus this....

In Timbuktu there are several other manuscript collections, mostly private ones. It is believed that, together, they contain hundreds of thousands of documents. It is not known whether any of them were also vandalised by the retreating rebels. Text and photos: Manuel Toledo, BBC Africa

[JockBoy87]

Absolutely no idea. I was actually just thinking it's rather appalling how little we know or hear about anything in Africa really unless you go very far out of your way to look it up. I wouldn't be surprised if a good chunk of world academia didn't even know this respository existed.

Eurocentrists often ignore intellectual contributions of other parts of the world, and unfortunately not many people consider or appreciate Africa's intellectual past/present, or even know that one exists.

Timbuktu is home to hundreds of thousands of manuscripts. That's substantial and comparable to the major European collections. The British Library, for example, has about 350,000. The national libraries of France and Spain contain 20,000 and 30,000, respectively.

[Zeno Lorea]

Every religion is evil and retrograde, but Islam just happens to be a little more evil and more retrograde than most. I am friends with several muslims, but always the secular kind. Then again, Europeans are usually quite secular, so that includes most of our muslims.

[Kulindahr]

Every religion is evil and retrograde, but Islam just happens to be a little more evil and more retrograde than most. I am friends with several muslims, but always the secular kind. Then again, Europeans are usually quite secular, so that includes most of our muslims.

I hear people say that, but I have yet to figure out what's evil about love, peace, generosity, hospitality, kindness, goodness, gentleness, compassion, humility, sharing, or any of the other things Christianity is about.

[xbuzzerx]

I hear people say that, but I have yet to figure out what's evil about love, peace, generosity, hospitality, kindness, goodness, gentleness, compassion, humility, sharing, or any of the other things Christianity is about.

I don't actually believe the core of any of the major religions is evil. And I believe you can find passages, however obscure or remote or out of character, from any of their holy books which you could potentially twist and use to justify really horrible things.

It's not about the core message but the interpretation and emphasis. Just as radical Islam today is pretty fundamentally against what a majority of moderate Muslims feel their faith is really about, so too we had things like the Inquisition or the book burnings in Medieval Europe.

[Kulindahr]

I don't actually believe the core of any of the major religions is evil. And I believe you can find passages, however obscure or remote or out of character, from any of their holy books which you could potentially twist and use to justify really horrible things.

It's not about the core message but the interpretation and emphasis. Just as radical Islam today is pretty fundamentally against what a majority of moderate Muslims feel their faith is really about, so too we had things like the Inquisition or the book burnings in Medieval Europe.

But it is about the core. If it weren't, then we could define the Democratic party as communist and the Republican party as terrorist -- and both as totalitarian.

The core of a thing is what that thing is about, just as the seeds in the core of an apple are what the apple is about. In terms of religion, anyone who doesn't adhere to the core is manifestly not truly part of that religion. And while it may be difficult to precisely define the border, it is definitely possible to assess those who are plainly far away from it as not belonging.

Those who engage in violence in the name of God are far from the core of Christianity, and likely far from the core of Islam. THey are thus logically not a part of those communities -- and that means that the source of the violence, the hatred, the bigotry, must be sought elsewhere. Accusing the entire religions of the aberrations of some is both dishonest and intellectually lazy.

[JockBoy87]

Good news, reported by Reuters, only 2000 or so manuscripts were destroyed out of the estimated 300,000 in the city. Still that's a significant number. The Walter's in Baltimore has about 900. To think about losing more than twice that number... There's also a video by Reuters showing French President Francois Hollande in the museum. It looks like some of the pages might be recoverable. What some have said here is apparently true, the manuscripts were targeted for being against the rebels' radical form of Islam.

[xbuzzerx]

But it is about the core. If it weren't, then we could define the Democratic party as communist and the Republican party as terrorist -- and both as totalitarian.

The core of a thing is what that thing is about, just as the seeds in the core of an apple are what the apple is about. In terms of religion, anyone who doesn't adhere to the core is manifestly not truly part of that religion. And while it may be difficult to precisely define the border, it is definitely possible to assess those who are plainly far away from it as not belonging.

Those who engage in violence in the name of God are far from the core of Christianity, and likely far from the core of Islam. THey are thus logically not a part of those communities -- and that means that the source of the violence, the hatred, the bigotry, must be sought elsewhere. Accusing the entire religions of the aberrations of some is both dishonest and intellectually lazy.

I agree with you, on one caveat. I think religious communities in the world today all largely perceive themselves, regardless of their strength or predominance in a given society, as "under attack." You can hear the same thing from people of virtually any faith. And I think that engenders something of a bunker mentality where the moderate or mainstream practictioners of almost any religion, even when they don't approve of their extreme elements, are often loathe to step out of the crowd and denounce it. It's not limited to Islam, though I'm sure that would be in the forefront of many people's minds. That would be part of my issue with religion, or rather, with "the religious", not with their particular religions.

- - - Updated - - -

Good news, reported by Reuters, only 2000 or so manuscripts were destroyed out of the estimated 300,000 in the city. Still that's a significant number. The Walter's in Baltimore has about 900. To think about losing more than twice that number... There's also a video by Reuters showing French President Francois Hollande in the museum. It looks like some of the pages might be recoverable. What some have said here is apparently true, the manuscripts were targeted for being against the rebels' radical form of Islam.

I'll still be really mad if they find out one of the burned ones had the secret of Greek fire in it.

[JockBoy87]

I'll still be really mad if they find out one of the burned ones had the secret of Greek fire in it.

You never know

A lot of the classics only survived because of Arabic manuscripts.

[Ninja108]

Next to human life,an assault on history is the worst thing you can do.

[Kulindahr]

Next to human life,an assault on history is the worst thing you can do.

Exception: book burners should be caught, tied up, and tossed on the same fire with the books they're burning.

[JockBoy87]

Exception: book burners should be caught, tied up, and tossed on the same fire with the books they're burning.

Kulindahr justice

[bankside]

I hear people say that, but I have yet to figure out what's evil about love, peace, generosity, hospitality, kindness, goodness, gentleness, compassion, humility, sharing, or any of the other things Christianity Lutheranism Kulindarism is about.

revised for accuracy; the history books bear out a very different picture of that religion you first mentioned; it is actually quite like all the others you were unwilling to defend.