Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu

And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts

By: Joshua Hammer

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

In the 1980s, a young adventurer and collector for a government library, Abdel Kader Haidara, journeyed across the Sahara Desert and along the Niger River, tracking down and salvaging tens of thousands of ancient Islamic and secular manuscripts that had fallen into obscurity. The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu tells the incredible story of how Haidara, a mild-mannered archivist and historian from the legendary city of Timbuktu, later became one of the world's greatest and most brazen smugglers.

In 2012, thousands of Al Qaeda militants from northwest Africa seized control of most of Mali, including Timbuktu. They imposed Sharia law, chopped off the hands of accused thieves, stoned to death unmarried couples, and threatened to destroy the great manuscripts. As the militants tightened their control over Timbuktu, Haidara organized a dangerous operation to sneak all 350,000 volumes out of the city to the safety of southern Mali.

Over the past 20 years, journalist Joshua Hammer visited Timbuktu numerous times and is uniquely qualified to tell the story of Haidara's heroic and ultimately successful effort to outwit Al Qaeda and preserve Mali's - and the world's - literary patrimony. Hammer explores the city's manuscript heritage and offers never-before-reported details about the militants' march into northwest Africa. But above all, The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu is an inspiring account of the victory of art and literature over extremism.

©2016 Joshua Hammer. Recorded by arrangement with Simon and Schuster, Inc. (P)2016 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Bad-Ass Librarians Do Exist

Some time ago a friend of mine shared her upcoming reading list for her book club with me. As I looked through the list, one title jumped out at me from the page: The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu by Joshua Hammer. The title intrigued me. I’ve been shushed by more than one librarian as I made my way through school. However, I cannot think of any silent stair or waggling of the finger that would’ve led me to think of them as bad-ass librarians. The next thing that intrigued me was Timbuktu. I knew that it was in Mali in West Africa and I that it had been linked with the salt trade throughout West Africa for millennia. However, I would never in a million years have associated it with a library. Perhaps this was something new. Maybe a bold plan to create a lending library using camel caravans to circulate the bestselling books in Lagos or Cairo to senior living villages deep in the Saharan desert. In any event, I needed to read this book. The second part of the title was: And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts. I clearly didn’t know anything about the manuscripts, precious or not. However I’ve been in the desert and it’s hard to imagine racing to do anything. When it’s hot you slow down and take it easy. So, what would cause a librarian to race? Now let’s think about precious. When I think of the world’s most precious manuscripts I think of Johann Gutenberg’s Bible or John James Audubon's Birds of America. I do not think of West African manuscripts. If we were talking Egypt or Nubia that would be different. Over time we have discovered troves of early Egyptian and Christian writings hidden away in the desert. Such findings are rare, and the manuscripts are often in danger of becoming dust before they could even be digitized. What sort of manuscripts could one find if one traveled halfway across the world to Timbuktu? The book starts with the passing of the duties of the family librarian from Mamma Haidara to his son Abdel Kader Haidara. That’s fascinating, a family library. Perhaps they were a family of scholars and they had collected some manuscripts over time. While that turns out to be true, the even more amazing truth is that they were just one family out of thousands who had amassed a sizeable library. Where did the manuscripts come from? The book reveals that they were often the creation of West African scholars, poets, and philosophers. Some were copies of prized works like the Koran. Some were 500 years old. Now let that origin and the age of these manuscript sink in. I can remember reading books about Africa that depicted most of the continent outside of Egypt as backward, ignorant, without sophistication, and of little to show for millennia of existence. Abdel Kader Haidara’s family library alone shatters this myth with in your face evidence of nuanced, imaginative, critical thinking set down on manuscripts that in many cases were equal parts art and scholarly thought. The existence of even a few of these works is cause for literary joy, the reality that there are hundreds of thousands of such manuscripts shatters the European myth of African inferiority. Conceding that the manuscripts are precious, it’s clear that Haidara’s efforts to preserve them is laudable. But with a change in the political winds in Mali these manuscripts were about to need protection not from termites but from the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA). The MNLA took control of Timbuktu in 2012 and immediately imposed a very strict version of Sharia law. Now the very presence of the manuscripts placed Haidara and every other family librarian in grave personal danger. The MNLA leadership had beheaded tourists simply because their governments hadn’t paid their ransom. The manuscripts were far more dangerous. What makes a manuscript dangerous? Certainly, age and rarity can make any book valuable, but only its content can make it dangerous. Consider Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses. Not long after it was published in 1988 he had to go into hiding to save his life. Why, because some Muslims accused Rushdie of blasphemy or unbelief. Then in 1989 the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie. As we learn from the book, the MNLA had their own Imams and could issue similarly fatal fatwas. Therefore, content matters, and religious manuscripts that contained wrong thinking could get you killed. The book tells how this became a life and death matter to Abdel Kader Haidara who publicly displays his families works and is entrusted with the safe keeping of thousands of other family’s treasures. If the danger doesn’t jump right out at you consider the events in Palmyra Syria in 2015. After the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) occupied Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, they set about destroying priceless antiquities with brazen hostility for worldwide condemnation of their actions. When they summoned Khaled al-Asaad the Syrian archaeologist and the head of antiquities for the ancient city of Palmyra and demanded that he reveal the hiding place of the antiquities he was protecting he refused their demands. For his bravery and service to the world ISIS publicly beheaded him. While these horrid events were still a few years into the future at the time of the Jihadi occupation of Timbuktu, this book reveals that Haidara and those who helped him move and hide the manuscripts were hyper aware that they could each suffer the same fate. So, let’s wrap up this review with the race. The MNLA occupation of Northern Mali was settling in on Timbuktu like a heavy wooden yoke. With each passing day the Jihadi occupiers imposed ever greater controls and extracted ever more sever punishments from their captive population. Then after a falling out with their Tuareg allies the Jihadi quickly removed all constraints on their imposition of sharia law as they defined it. The manuscripts would certainly not pass critical review with this brand of Jihadi. Haidara and those like him who were committed to their preservation had to act fast, had to race against death itself to preserve these precious manuscripts. It’s a race worth reading about. I recommend this book.

Great Title; Good Subtitle; Nail-biting Narrative

I definitely bought this book because of its title. Yes, I was once a librarian, and though I didn't start out to be mean and nasty, I quickly was fed up with students who didn't read and with patrons who didn't return their books on time. But I would never, not in a million years, have tried to smuggle priceless manuscripts under the noses of Jihadists and Al-Qaeda terrorists.

My geography is pretty poor. A downside to listening to an audible.com book is there are no maps. I suspect that had I read a paper book, there would have been several illustrations of the area. Even so, I am now much more fluent in land-locked African geography than I ever thought to be.

Throughout the second half of the book, however, I worried that religious fanatics now know that these treasures exist, and probably are located in the libraries of Timbuktu. Hammer rather leaves the reader in suspense....

Excellent chronicle of history

Narration reminds me of that Channel on hotel Tvs where they list off the amenities.

Fascinating

A wonderful Rick weaving of the cultural history of the Timbuktu region, a chilling view of the rise and subsiding of Al Qaeda in the area, and the courageous work of saving the ancient folios containing Timbuktu's history.

Weird reading emphasis and needed an editor badly.

The narrator pauses and hitches in bizarre places.

While I found the main story interesting, I nearly could not get through this book for its fearmongering and disingenuous repeated attempt to divorce “sharia” from “fiqh,” as if one was meant to be “IslamIST law” and one a much higher, more proper, acceptable version. Sharia is Islamic law: all of it. The quote from the woman who tells the jihadis that “YOU are the ones who need to follow sharia!” actually... you know, MATTERS in that context, as she’s telling them they are egregiously misinterpreting their own religion.

Anyway, there’s a lot of vaguely racist imagery and phrasing in this book for a story that genuinely does not need cheap, awful tricks to drive home how terrifying it actually must have been. If you care about Islam or intellectual honesty, skip this book.

Bad-Ass Storytelling - A Hidden Treasure

This book offers a sweeping histories of Islamic literature, north African culture and the recent rise of terrorism/anarchy in the region, while documenting how a small group of dedicated Malians saved literally hundreds of thousands of religious and secular manuscripts from falling into the possession of Al-Queda warlords in Timbuktu. Gripping, relevant and hopeful!

Read it with a map and Google satellite imagery.

The French and Arabic names were well narrated in the audiobook. I needed the context of the geographic relationships, so read the book with a map of Africa and Google satellite maps at hand. An amazing story of people committed to their history and legacy.

AMAZING STORY OF AN UNSUNG HERO

This is an amazing tale of young man who literally saves his culture. There was so much insight about ancient texts and scrolls from the 13th century mixed in with current events and the fight against the Islamic State. I was so surprised by the way Mr. Hammer magically weaved ancient knowledge with current events with the life path of a reluctant son.

Extraordinary archivist

I missed this book on a Goodreads Giveaway, but I caught up with it as Whispersync on the cheap courtesy of BookGorilla. It combines histories of North Africa (especially Mali), Islam, religious scrolls and the people who have been protecting them, and so much more. The title's catchy, but it ought to be Bad-a$$ Archivists, I think. One man made it his life's work to gather and protect scrolls from everywhere he could, despite extremists and other crazies. It is a very involved and often tense tale, but also written with a detail and sensitivity that makes it riveting. There is much to be learned here, and we all hope for positive change.
Paul Boehmer is a fine audio performer and brings so much to life with his talents.

an epic story of commitment and volunteerism!

I loved this book and am feeling so inspired. This book manifests my favorite qualities of a human story: reading about the best and the worst of our species side by side so that I can always be reminded what we are capable of in either direction. I feel honored when I get the opportunity to glimpse into an important human endeavor that I might otherwise never hear about. That is this true story of a battle for saving important and enlightening history and culture carved out in a difficult patch of terrain of the African continent ( that I know from my own service as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Sahel) over the last 1000 years. A written history that shows how much Africa was never as dark and backward as it's always been defined in the West. I'm so thankful to this band of dedicated and anointed volunteers who triumphed at the risk of their own lives. thank you!