University of Timbuktu 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 in the modern sense, but a loosely organized scholastic community that endured for many centuries during the medieval period. Timbuktu quickly grew in importance by the start of the 12th century, with a thriving economy based on trading salt, gold, spices and dyes. As the wealth of the city grew, it also became a center of learning, attracting
Timbuktu Manuscripts being sold off. "Time" magazine related the account of an imam who picked up four of them for $50 each. In October 2008 one of the households was flooded, destroying 700 manuscripts. In 1970, UNESCO founded an organization which included among its tasks preservation of the manuscripts, but it went unfunded until 1977. In 1998, Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates visited Timbuktu for his PBS series "Wonders of the African World". The series raised public and academic awareness of the manuscripts, which led to a pool of funding opening up. The "Timbuktu Manuscripts Project" was a project of the