Timbuktu Manuscripts decline of traditional education in French Sudan). Their subject matter ranged from scholarly works to short letters. The manuscripts were passed down in Timbuktu families and were mostly in poor condition. Most of the manuscripts remain unstudied and uncatalogued, and their total number is unknown, affording only rough estimates. A selection of about 160 manuscripts from the Mamma Haidara Library in Timbuktu and the Ahmed Baba collection were digitized by the "Tombouctou Manuscripts Project" in the 2000s. With the demise of Arabic education in Mali under French colonial rule, appreciation for the medieval manuscripts declined in Timbuktu, and many were
Pashalik of Timbuktu eclipse. In about 1770, the Tuareg took possession of Gao, and in 1787 they entered Timbuktu and made the Pashalik their tributary. Pashalik of Timbuktu The Pashalik of Timbuktu was a West African political entity that existed between the 16th and the 19th century. By the end of the 16th century, Moroccan sultans were strengthened after the completion of the reunification of Morocco and the victory over the Portuguese at the Battle of the Three Kings, but their financial needs lead them to extend their realm southward to Saharan gold mines and Songhay territories. In 1577, a Moroccan expedition occupied