The year was 2012. After hundreds of years as a cultural center of learning, the ancient city of Timbuktu was under attack. A violent group called al-Qaeda had taken TImbuktu by forece and had destruction on their minds. Shrines were demolished. Music was banned. And priceless manuscripts, held in the city for centuries, were to be burned. But not everyone agreed with al-Qaeda's decision to send Timbuktu's history up in flames. Under cover of night, a secret operation was underway, led by a group of brave librarians.
Abdel Kader Haidara was the founder of the Mamma Haidara Library in Timbuktu, and he was not about to let these precious historical documents find their way into the fire. In its heyday, Timbuktu housed approximately 700,000 manuscripts, large and small, in its libraries. Bound in goatskins and written in beautiful calligraphy, the manuscripts described in detail what life was like throughout African history. There were manuscripts about art, medicine, science, philosophy, government, law, and much more. The knowledge of humankind itself could be held in one's hands in Timbuktu's many libraries. While some historians had believed that Africa had no written history, the manuscripts in Timbuktu proved that not only did Africa have a rich history, it also had a well-documented one.
Knowing what was at stake, Haidara and his team of librarians began sneaking these manuscripts out of Timbuktu. Over six months, little by little, manuscript by manuscript, the volunteer librarians took them out of the city for safekeeping. Packed in trunks, they moved the manuscripts in the dead of night on mule carts to safe houses. From the mule cards, they stockpiled the manuscripts in small boats a few miles outside Timbuktu and had them shipped to the city of Bamako, 375 miles away.
In the end, the librarians succeeded - they saved the majority of Timbuktu's manuscripts. The great bulk of the collection is now in hidden locations. Although the manuscripts were safely placed in cities in the south of Mali, a new danger threatens the manuscripts - mold. The pages, already frail from centuries of use, are disintegrating. Now, Haidara and his team are working to restore, catalog, digitize, and make repairs to the manuscripts to preserve the history nestled between their pages. Haidara is yet another example of how one person, one brave librarian, can change the world and save a piece of history forever.