Anonymous Patron points us to this story from the ledger-enquirer.com:
“Scholars say irreplaceable Islamic texts representing a historic era of Muslim culture, including West Africa’s unique part in it, are decaying to oblivion in sweltering homes.
Tens of thousands have been rescued and put in safe storage here and abroad, but many more are scattered around Timbuktu – private heirlooms handed down from parents to children over the centuries.
The Timbuktu texts “are probably among the most important unused scholarly materials in the world,” said Chris Murphy of the U.S. Library of Congress, who was co-curator of an exhibition of 23 of the manuscripts in Washington last year.”
Dorothy Dunnett’s Niccolo series (fiction)
In one of these books, Niccolo travels back to Timbuktu with his good friend to find that this freed slave is really a scholar. Niccolo speaks Arabic and is allowed to sit and learn from the other scholars there.
The author did a lot of research. It’s sad to know that this wonderful heritage is disappearing.