Review by New York Times Review
IN THE SUMMER OF 1826, a Scotsman named Alexander Gordon Laing became the first European to set foot in Timbuktu, a city that would become synonymous with mysterious remoteness. The inhabitants of Timbuktu would have been amused by the British imperialist assumption that their city had been "discovered." By the time Laing reached the place, it had been a thriving international center for centuries, the economic and intellectual heart of the sub-Saharan world, where travelers, traders and thinkers, Africans, Berbers, Arabs, Tuaregs and others gathered to trade gold, salt, slaves, spices, ivory - and knowledge. While Europe was still groping its way through the dark ages, Timbuktu was a beacon of intellectual enlightenment, and probably the most bibliophilic city on earth. Scientists, engineers, poets and philosophers flocked there to exchange and debate ideas and commit these to paper in hundreds of thousands of manuscripts written in Arabic and various African languages. The British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper once remarked: "There is only the history of Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness." Timbuktu's staggering manuscript hoard is the most vivid proof of how wrong he was. That ancient literary heritage, and the threat it faces from radical Islam, is the subject of Joshua Hammer's book "The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu," part history, part scholarly adventure story and part journalistic survey of the volatile religious politics of the Maghreb region. The title is quite irritating; the rest of it is very good. Hammer delights in the explosion of medieval scholarship that took place in Timbuktu. By the 16th century, a quarter of the 100,000-strong population were students, drawn from as far away as the Arabian Peninsula. As one proverb puts it: "Salt comes from the north, gold from the south, and silver from the country of the white men, but the word of God and the treasures of wisdom are only to be found in Timbuctoo." As well as religious texts, those treasures included works of poetry, algebra, physics, medicine, jurisprudence, magic, mathematics, history, botany, geography and astronomy. Ethicists debated polygamy, usury, conflict resolution and the morality of smoking. The thinkers of Timbuktu even compiled sex advice, as imaginative and unreliable in the 16th century as it is today: "The dried, pulverized penis of a lizard placed tenderly into honey then licked will let a man experience full sexual desire and satisfaction." The city's scribes wrote in a variety of calligraphic styles, inks and colors: the African tradition of Hausa with thick brush strokes, the angled Kufic script from Persia and the curved and looping Maghrebi style. The city was a readers' paradise, its inhabitants "searching with a real passion for volumes they did not possess, and making copies when they were too poor to buy what they wanted." Eclectic scholarship thrived under the mystical, tolerant form of Sufism that dominated what is now Mali. The city, as Hammer puts it, was an "incubator for the richness of Islam." But the tradition of open-minded academic inquiry was also subject to periodic attack from bigots and looters, from bouts of anti-Semitism aimed at the city's substantial Jewish population, and the anti-intellectual rigidity of successive waves of jihadis. The history of Timbuktu, Hammer writes, is marked by "the confrontation between these two Islamic ideologies - one open and tolerant, the other inflexible and violent." Radical Islamists saw the manuscripts as heretical, and French colonial forces in the 19th century viewed them as plunder, and so another tradition emerged: that of concealment. The custodians of these priceless documents took to hiding them - inside their homes, in holes or in desert caves. Timbuktu's intellectual inheritance was not only among the richest in the world, but also one of the most secret. The hero of Hammer's story is Abdel Kader Haidara, inheritor and protector of a uniquely fine manuscript collection, a gentle, scholarly man who began gathering manuscripts in the 1980s on behalf of the Ahmed Baba Institute of Higher Learning and Islamic Research in Timbuktu. Over the course of two decades, Haidara and other dedicated antiquarians scoured the region, buying up ancient texts from remote villages. Hammer estimates that the intellectual patrimony of Timbuktu now amounts to a staggering 377,000 manuscripts. Then came the 21st-century jihadis, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the latest eruption of Islamic intolerance in the region. In March 2012, briefly combining forces with Tuareg rebels fighting for an independent homeland and armed with weapons from the collapsed Libyan regime of Muammar el-Qaddafi, they descended on Timbuktu. Having driven out the government forces, the Islamists set about the now all-too-familiar process of religious cleansing, enforcement and destruction. The wide-ranging music selection on Timbuktu radio was replaced by uninterrupted Koranic verse, women were forced behind veils, men made to grow beards. Squads of enforcers ensured strict Sharia observance at the point of AK-47s; citizens who wore their pants too short, or allowed their cellphones to ring with Western tunes, or otherwise violated the minutiae of strict Islamism were liable to thrashing or worse. While the Islamists set about imposing their rules, Haidara and the other librarians undertook one of the greatest cultural evacuations in history: The manuscript collections were secretly packed into metal trunks, loaded onto mule carts, and hidden in private houses and then in the Malian capital, Bamako. HAMMER WRITES WITH verve and expertise, but there are two problems with the thriller tone that underpins his story. The first is the question of just how "bad-ass" Haidara really was. While his teams were removing manuscripts, he had evacuated himself to Bamako, offering coordination and encouragement from a distance. This is a perfectly acceptable decision for a middle-aged scholar with two wives and lots of children, but it doesn't quite make him Indiana Jones. The level of threat posed to the manuscripts is also debatable. Like most terrorists, the forces of AQIM were on the whole very stupid. The Islamists' control of Timbuktu focused on wrecking the ancient Sufi shrines, mounting public amputations and boasting on Twitter; the finer points of the city's cultural heritage didn't seem to interest them, and as Hammer acknowledges, the manuscript collections were "mostly ignored" until the final stages of the occupation. In January 2013, 15 jihadis made a bonfire of 4,000 manuscripts at the Ahmed Baba Institute. But by that time many of the jewels of the collection were already in safekeeping, and the French military was preparing to oust AQIM in what would be an object lesson in the use of force against radical Islamist forces. The great Timbuktu manuscript exodus may have been more prophylactic than urgently necessary, but it was a remarkable achievement, nonetheless, bringing together international funders, a network of smugglers and a handful of dedicated local curators. The exfiltration required careful cataloging of the collections, and this may be the most lasting legacy of the episode: The Islamists accidentally drew worldwide attention to Timbuktu's literary heritage, and enabled the first full accounting of its magnificence.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 3, 2016]
Review by Booklist Review
Abdel Kader Haidara was astonished when his father entrusted him with the care of his extensive manuscript collection. But the archivist would later be responsible, along with a group of other librarians, for rescuing hundreds of thousands of precious materials from the hands of jihadis in his native Timbuktu in Mali without losing a single document during the dangerous trips out of the city. His inspiring exploits make illuminating reading in this account by journalist Hammer. Through Haidara's work early in his career, as he journeyed on camel and boat to discover manuscripts hidden away for generations, he comes to love the materials he guards, as if they were children. That love is apparent in the audacity of the effort to preserve the region's heritage after Al Qaeda and rebel fighters captured Timbuktu in 2012. Hammer, drawing on his own reporting, delves heavily into the power struggles of the region, unfortunately often at the expense of the librarians' narrative. However, the details of the strictly regulated and dangerous existence in the city under the jihadis spotlight the essential nature of Haidara's rescue mission.--Thoreson, Bridget Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Journalist Hammer (Yokohama Burning) reports on librarian Abdel Kader Haidara and his associates' harrowing ordeal as they rescued 370,000 historical manuscripts from destruction by al-Qaeda-occupied Timbuktu. Hammer sketches Haidara's career amassing manuscripts from Timbuktu's neighboring towns and building his own library, which opened in 2000. Meanwhile, three al-Qaeda operatives, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, Abdel-hamid Abou Zeid, and Iyad Ag Ghali, escalate from kidnapping and drug trafficking to orchestrating a coup with Tuareg rebels against the Malian army and seizing Timbuktu. The militants aim to "turn the clocks back fourteen hundred years" by destroying revered religious shrines and imposing Sharia law, which includes flogging unveiled women and severing the hands of thieves. Fearing for the safety of the manuscripts, Haidara and associates buy up "every trunk in Timbuktu" and pack them off 606 miles south to Bamako, employing a team of teenage couriers. Hammer does a service to Haidara and the Islamic faith by providing the illuminating history of these manuscripts, managing to weave the complicated threads of this recent segment of history into a thrilling story. Agent: Flip Brophy, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Hammer (Yokohama Burning: The Deadly 1923 Earthquake and Fire That Helped Forge the Path to World War II) delivers an engrossing and dramatic story about smuggling manuscripts out of Timbuktu during the occupation of Mali by al-Qaeda militants. Listeners are treated to an exciting history of the turbulence of Islamic leadership spanning several centuries and the historical and cultural importance of the 370,000 documents in question. Hammer describes the efforts of Abdel Kader Haidara, an expert on ancient manuscripts at the National Library of Mali, who realizes the library's collection is in danger. Haidara, along with a team of amateur smugglers, successfully transports the collection over 400 miles to safety. While the descriptions of the often brutally violent life under sharia law imposed by the militants might turn off some listeners, they help to illustrate the danger these librarian-smugglers faced. Hammer presents this as a suspenseful, dramatic, and absorbing tale, complete with a fascinating history of the region and a terrifying look into jihadi groups. It is unfortunate that the narration by Paul Boehmer is completely devoid of that excitement and drama. VERDICT Those who continue to listen despite the disappointing narration will be greatly rewarded by the fascinating story. ["Hammer's clearly written and engaging chronicle of the achievements of Timbuktu...brings to light an important and unfamiliar story": LJ 2/15/16 review of the S. & S. hc.]-Cathleen Keyser, NoveList, Durham, NC © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The tale of a devoted collector of manuscripts who outwitted militant jihadis. Throughout Timbuktu's tumultuous history, writes Hammer (Yokohama Burning: The Deadly 1923 Earthquake and Fire that Helped Forge the Path to World War II, 2006, etc.), the city "seemed to be in a constant state of flux, periods of openness and liberalism followed by waves of intolerance and repression" involving the killing of scholars in the 1300s, the banishment and imprisonment of Jews in the 1490s, and the implementation of Sharia law in the 1800s. In this vivid, fast-paced narrative, the author recounts another period of devastating repression when extremists took over the city in 2012, threatening both inhabitants and Mali's cultural heritage. As a former bureau chief for Newsweek and current contributing editor to Smithsonian and Outside, Hammer draws on manyoften dangerousvisits to the city and interviews with major players to chronicle the efforts of Abdel Kader Haidara to save priceless literary and historical manuscripts. Since the 1980s, working for Mali's Ahmed Baba Institute, Haidara traveled by camel, canoe, and on foot, crossing perilous terrain, to acquire ancient manuscripts that had been hidden for safekeeping, sometimes in caves or holes in the ground. Some had decayed to dust or been eaten by termites, but in Mali's dry climate, many thousands had been preserved. After nearly a decade at the institute, he had collected 16,500 manuscripts. Eventually, he amassed hundreds of thousands. As Hammer portrays him, Haidara was tireless, ingenious, and single-minded. Besides recounting Haidara's efforts as collector, fundraiser, library builder, and publicist, Hammer conveys in palpable detail the rise and radicalization of al-Qaida militants. By 2006, Timbuktu had evolved into a modern city, with five hotels catering to growing tourism and three Internet cafes. Six years later, hundreds of extremists took over, arresting, executing, holding foreign hostages for exorbitant ransoms, and determined to purge the city of music, art, and literature. A chilling portrait of a country under siege and one man's defiance. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
