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TIMBUKTU
In its
heyday under the Askia Dynasty of the Songhai Empire (1468 - 1591), Timbuktu was a brilliant center of Islamic
culture and an important market where gold and slaves from the South
were traded for salt, cloth and horses from the North. Timbuktu never
recovered from the Moroccan invasion in 1591 following which it lost
control of the trade that had made it rich. Now the merchants have left
and it is only an administrative center for the north, a region of
secondary importance in today's Mali. The brilliant Islamic scholars
have also left and have been replaced by the French secondary school
shown here
Timbuktu
was founded around 1100 AD by Tuareg nomads who chose to camp here
because of wells similar to this one seen from the roof of the Bouktou
Hotel. A century later it was taken from the Tuareg by the Mali Empire
and rapidly became a center for north-south commerce.
In the
late 13th century, the Mali sultan Mansa Musa built the Djingereyber
Mosque in the traditional sahelian dried-mud style. It has been rebuilt
many times since and has this appearance today.The Sankoré Mosque built
a century later incorporates a sahelian tower with crenellated walls
inspired by northern architecture.Sun dried mud bricks are very
short-lived so little is left of the original Timbuktu which had a
population of a 100 000 in the 15th century. A small central section of
the city has retained narrow streets and some atmosphere from the past
but most of today's 15,000 people are housed in plain standard African
streets like this one.
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Capital: Bamako
Area: 1 240 000 km²
Population: 11 134 000
Currency: 1 US$ = 600 CFA
GDP: 172/543$
HDI : 171/229
Languages: French, Bambara, Senoufo, Sarakole, Dogon, Songhai,
Tuareg, Arab
Ethnic groups: Bambara, Fulani, Tuareg, Soninka, Sénoufi, Songhai,
Malinké
Religions: Muslim 80%, Animist 18%, Christian 2%
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