by GARETH HARRIS
Man reading a manuscript on the roof of the Djingareyber Mosque in Timbuktu. PHOTO/Intl/Savama DCI/Gamma
A series of 15th- and 16th-century manuscripts, smuggled out of Timbuktu in 2012 after the city fell into the hands of Islamist rebels, go on show this week (19 December-22 February 2015) at the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels (Bozar).
The exhibition, “Timbuktu Renaissance”, includes 16 original manuscripts with texts about science, politics and law, and was organised by Abdel Kader Haidara, the director of the Mamma Haidara library in Timbuktu. After war broke out in Mali in April 2012, and jihadist insurgents took over the city, he helped secretly transport a trove of manuscripts, books and documents to the Malian capital Bamako.
The rebels initially destroyed shrines they considered idolatrous. Haidara subsequently began to remove the manuscripts, hiding them in private homes.
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