Timbuktu is a city on the western Africa country of Mali. It is on the edge of the Sahara desert, about 12 km north of the River Niger. The first recorded mention of Timbuktu is in the Arabic chronicles of Abd al-Rhaman al-Sadi, a writer who lived all his life in Timbuktu.
Tuareg nomads founded Timbuktu in the 1100th century AD as an outpost along the trans-Saharan trade route. They made an annual journey between Arawan, to the north and Lake Debo on the Niger.
At first, the Tuaregs camped along the Niger River, but they soon found that they became ill because of frequent mosquito bites. They eventually moved about 13 km inland and dug a well, which in time became the center of a great city that grew around it.
In the eight and ninth centuries, most merchants in the trans-Saharan trade were Muslims and they helped to bring Islam to Timbuktu.
By the 15th century the Songhai Empire had taken over and began to build great mosques and universities, turning Timbuktu into a scholar’s haven for Islamic learning.
Timbuktu
