University of Timbuktu the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a terrorist group, took control of the city in 2012. They were forced out by French and Malian government troops the next year, but not before setting fire to two buildings housing many of the manuscripts, including the Ahmed Baba Institute. Most of the manuscripts had been removed and hidden before the AQIM takeover. University of Timbuktu The University of Timbuktu is a collective term for the teaching associated with three mosques in the city of Timbuktu in what is now Mali: the masajid (mosques) of Sankore, Djinguereber, and Sidi Yahya. It was not a university
History of Timbuktu tell complex located southeast of the Timbuktu near the Wadi el-Ahmar was excavated between 2008 and 2010 by archaeologists from Yale University and the Mission Culturelle de Tombouctou. The results suggest that the site was first occupied during the 5th century BC, thrived throughout the second half of the 1st millennium AD and eventually collapsed sometime during the late 10th or early 11th century AD. Unlike Gao, Timbuktu is not mentioned by the early Arab geographers such as al-Bakri and al-Idrisi. The first mention is by the Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta who visited both Timbuktu and Kabara in 1353 when