Timbuktu

My mother was born in Algeria but she grew up in Gao and Timbuktu.

She met her husband in Gao and they got married in the oasis. Then, they moved to Niger to live with my father's family.

A local proverb says, "Salt comes from the north, gold from the south, but pious and learned things and pretty stories we find nowhere but in Timbuctu."

The Islamic faith and the Arabic language unified North Africa, and trade routes expanded quickly. 

Returning north to the desert, the merchants carried gold from Ghana and Guinea. The primary exchange was gold for salt and salt for gold. Salt was even used as currency in some regions. Cut into nine-inch cylinders, it was lightweight and easy to carry. 

The Ghana empire, crumbled in 1076, when its capital city of Kumbi Saleh was captured and sacked by a fierce army of desert people called the Almoravids. 

The Mali Empire arose in 1200s and had a profound impact on the growth of Timbuctu. The empire began as a small kingdom of Malinke people in Kangaba, near the modern border between Mali and Guinea. Independent for a time, Kangaba was eventually conquered by the Sosso people.

The Sosso conqueror was King Sumanguru. To gain the throne, Sumanguru killed eleven of his brothers but he made a fatal mistake. He spared the life of his twelfth brother, Sundiata, whose name means 'hungering lion', in Malinke. 

Sundiata defeated Sumanguru in the famous battle of Kirina in 1235 and began building what would become the Mali Empire. He made Niani on the Niger River his capital. 

This shift contributed to the rapid development of Timbuctu: the city became not only a key trading hub but also a center of Islamic learning.

Sundiata's son Mansa Uli gained control of Timbuctu and Djenné. 

Mali grew to be three times the size of the Ghana empire, covering present-day Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Senegal, and portions of Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and Niger. Sundiata's descendants ruled this vast domain for more than 200 years.

Ibn Battutah, a Moroccan Traveler, wrote, "The garments of Timbuctu's inhabitants are of fine Egyptian fabrics. The women are of surpassing beauty and are shown more respect than men. The state of affairs among these people is indeed extraordinary. These people are Muslims, observing the hours or prayer, studying books of law, and memorizing the Koran. Yet their women show no bashfulness before men and do not veil themselves." 

Women were highly respected in Timbuctu and took part in all major decisions. If a woman divorced her husband, she took the tent with her. Sometimes women owned more property, sheep and goats, than their husbands did.

The job of the women was to be sure the guerbas (the goatskin tanks) were filled with water and covered tightly. It could be a matter of life or death if a guerba leaked even a little bit on journeys.