Mali: Timbuktu Locals Saved Some of City’s Ancient Manuscripts from Islamists

Time ^ | January 28, 2013 | Vivienne Walt

[JerseyanExile]

The preservationists of Timbuktu’s centuries-old artifacts have been holding their breath for weeks, waiting for the moment when the French military would seize back Mali’s ancient northern capital from the Islamic militants who have occupied it for 10 months. At stake were the city’s most precious treasures: tens of thousands of centuries-old, priceless calligraphed manuscripts, whose fate under the jihadists’ rule was deeply uncertain.

In interviews with TIME on Monday, preservationists said that in a large-scale rescue operation early last year, shortly before the militants seized control of Timbuktu, thousands of manuscripts were hauled out of the Ahmed Baba Institute to a safe house elsewhere. Realizing that the documents might be prime targets for pillaging or vindictive attacks from Islamic extremists, staff left behind just a small portion of them, perhaps out of haste, but also to conceal the fact that the center had been deliberately emptied. “The documents which had been there are safe, they were not burned,” said Mahmoud Zouber, Mali’s presidential aide on Islamic affairs, a title he retains despite the overthrow of the former President, his boss, in a military coup a year ago; preserving Timbuktu’s manuscripts was a key project of his office. By phone from Bamako on Monday night, Zouber told TIME, “They were put in a very safe place. I can guarantee you. The manuscripts are in total security.”

[Sacajaweau]

The curators in Iraq pulled the same stunt. What a great black market scheme.

Let the fencing begin!!

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Burn them! If they contradict the Holy Q’uaran they are heresy, if they support it, they are redundant. Burn them all!

[BenLurkin]

ping

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

So I take it this would be a case of profiling, yes?

Just because one crazed Islamist mob seized by blood lust acted one particular way, once, does not mean that we should group all crazed Islamist mobs seized by blood lust into the overly broad category of crazed Islamist mobs seized by blood lust. There are far too many nuances of differentiation among the various groups who have been fighting the use of the term “crazed Islamist mob seized by blood lust” for decades now. And it is more than understandable that crazed Islamist mobs seized by blood lust who are unwilling to bear the derision and humiliation of being called crazed Islamist mobs seized by blood lust should refuse to allow themselves the dishonor of being so viciously maligned.

[Billthedrill]

Precisely. And don’t forget that there are crazed Islamist mobs that are not interested in blood at all. The ones torching cars in Paris or burning down girls’ grade schools with the students inside, for example. We can’t paint all these people with a broad brush. Our diversity is our strength.

[I want the USA back]

What? the msm called them by their right name and not “rebels?” Amazing.

[mosesdapoet]

Thanks for posting; Good news for some, vacuous comments for others.

[Forward the Light Brigade]

Burning books is what Islamic people do well, just like Nazis of old. They burned Alexandrian Library even when given orders not to by their Caliph! They just can’t help themselves so it seems.

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Thanks BenLurkin. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[SunkenCiv]

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