As I write this review in late 2023, Timbuktu is under siege. The international MINUSMA forces have withdrawn from Mali, and fundamentalist and separatist groups have resumed their armed struggle against the government. Attacks such as these gravely endangered Timbuktu’s population and rich cultural heritage about ten years ago, when after conquering Timbuktu, jihadists set fire to the Institut des hautes études et de recherches islamiques Aḥmed Bābā de Tombouctou (IHERI-ABT), and irreplaceable manuscripts were only preserved as a result of risky efforts to save them. Now, the return of violent conflict is again endangering the city’s identity as an ancient centre of learning and Islamic diversity.

1 Vincent Monteil’s 1938 translation of a briefer copy (Vincent Monteil, “Sur quelques textes arabes (...) 2Under these circumstances, this volume, which is a scholarly edition of a letter written in 1853-4 to protect a German traveller in Timbuktu from persecution, stands as a reminder of the longer African Islamic tradition of open-minded cosmopolitanism. Mohamed Diagayété, who is the director of IHERI-ABT, has drawn on three different copies of the document that have been preserved in Timbuktu, Paris and Bamako. This is the first full-text critical edition of a renowned letter written by Aḥmad al-Bakkāy al-Kuntī to Aḥmad b. Aḥmad b. Aḥmad Lobbo, emir of Māsina.1 Diagayété’s French- and Arabic-language edition appears in the Académie des sciences d’outre-mer’s series “Sources Africaines” complete with footnotes, headnotes, and references, making this key historical document accessible both globally and locally.

2 While the French main title dates the letter from 1854, the cover page of the Arabic text gives the (...) 3 For the family tradition of the Kunta, see: J. O. Hunwick, “Kunta”, in P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C (...) 4 For a biography of Barth in French, see, for example, Richard Kuba, “Heinrich Barth, une vie de che (...) 3A simple map of the route taken by Heinrich Barth and the principal Muslim states in the West African Sahel zone depicts the political context of the letter. It complements the brief but rich introduction, which places the protagonists of the events of 1853-42 in context. Aḥmad al-Bakkāy al-Kuntī, an influential scholar and trader, was the head of the Qādirīya Sufi order in the region.3 He dominated Timbuktu politics at the time, and extended his protection to the German scholar Heinrich Barth, a young geographer and historian from Hamburg who had joined a British expedition to establish contacts with the interior states of West Africa.4 Setting out from Tripoli in 1850, the expedition had crossed the Sahara and reached the Lake Chad region, where Barth’s European travelling companions, the expedition leader James Richardson and the geologist Adolf Overweg, succumbed to disease. Despite these events, Barth continued his journey, and in 1853 he decided to venture to the legendary city of Timbuktu.

5 Mauro Nobili, Sultan, Caliph, and the Renewer of the Faith: Ahmad Lobbo, the Tārīkh al-Fattāsh and (...) 4This centre of trade had been incorporated into the Māsina empire, an Islamic state governed by Fulani rulers from Ḥamdallāhi.5 The emir Aḥmad b. Aḥmad had just come to the throne. He was considered to be less virtuous and knowledgeable than his predecessors, and faced resistance to his rule. News of the impending arrival in Timbuktu of a Christian allegedly laden with valuable possessions must have appeared to him to threaten his authority. Protocol required that Barth should first come to Ḥamdallāhi to pay homage and bring gifts as recognition of the emir’s authority. After being informed by his allies in Timbuktu that an alleged spy was entering the town, the emir gave orders that Barth was to be arrested and brought to Ḥamdallāhi.

Shaykh al-Bakkāy, who dominated Timbuktu politics, refused to obey. His reply to the emir’s request, which is the document at the heart of this edition, affirmed his protection of the stranger. Al-Bakkāy supported his position with arguments based on the Qurʾān and Ḥadīth. Diagayété contextualises al-Bakkāy’s political stance within a longer history of Kunta relations with Britain. His father had protected the traveller Alexander Gordon Laing in 1826, forming a connection that was renewed by Barth’s visit. Formal diplomatic relations with the British offered the opportunity to strengthen al-Bakkāy’s position in the Niger Bend.

The editor identifies three strategies in the letter used to argue against Aḥmad b. Aḥmad’s request. First, al-Bakkāy emphasised his descent from the venerable Arabic lineage of the Kunta. This endowed him not only with superior learning, but allegedly also with a right to the imamate controlling the conduct of legitimate holy war. Second, he mustered his religious authority to prove that Aḥmad b. Aḥmad had misunderstood, misinterpreted, and even falsified the Prophet’s words. Finally, he mobilised a wider geopolitical framework in his favour, arguing that his stance was aligned with those of the sultans of Morocco and the Ottoman Empire, both of whom were allied to the British in world politics at the time.

The critical edition reveals the rich texture of religious, historical, and political references presented by Aḥmad al-Bakkāy to refute the emir’s claims. The author used great virtuosity to marshal the Prophet, early Islamic history, and the community of believers led by the sultans in Istanbul and Fes to his cause. In contrast, the Fula emir in Ḥamdallāhi made himself look like a petty despot as he was trying to impose his own rules, even in conflict with God’s precepts, by insinuating that his consent was necessary before protection could be granted to a stranger. By protecting the Christian, Aḥmad al-Bakkāy acted as a member of the strong clan of Islam, and not as one of the emir’s negligible band of subjects (51).

6 Ismail Warscheid, “Quand le droit pense la politique: à propos de deux lettres d’al-Muḫtār al-Ṣaġīr (...) 7 Mauro Nobili et Amir Syed, “Introduction. The Caliphate of Ḥamdallāhi: A history from within”, Afri (...) 8Al-Bakkāy used his religious and historical learning to claim moral – and even legal – authority over the Fula emir. The Kunta had previously established themselves as influential legal experts accompanying the political expansion of the Fula state.6 With his letter, al-Bakkāy declared his intention to realign his relationship with the Dina, the theocratic caliphate of Māsina.7 By asserting his right to host the Christian traveller, he denied any political submission to the new emir. The presence of the British emissary even promised independent diplomatic relations with a European great power. Whether the shaykh’s manoeuvres were primarily caused by the increasing threat of French colonialism or internal rivalries within the Kunta family has still not been determined (16-19), but al-Bakkāy’s self-confident stance certainly signalled his interest in independent state-building. That his aspirations were not completely unfounded is demonstrated by an additional document presented in the edition, a letter written to al-Bakkāy by the British Consul in Tripoli in 1856, which is accompanied by two notes that cast light on how it arrived in Paris in the colonial era.

8 See Anke Fischer-Kattner, Spuren der Begegnung. Europäische Reiseberichte über Afrika 1760 bis 1860(...) 9The restoration of al-Bakkāy’s letter in full thus helps us understand the original encounter from multiple contemporary perspectives. The shaykh’s correspondence gives an outline of the late pre-colonial political-religious landscape in West Africa, and offers a glimpse into the intercultural negotiations of the Christian traveller’s roles. According to his own published travel account, Barth was acting as an official British emissary after the death of the expedition leader. At the same time, however, he was a learned traveller struggling to maintain an observational distance from politics while he studied African culture. Locally, Barth was taking on yet another role, that of a well-versed student of Arabic and Islamic learning. While his travelogue merely hints at the intense intellectual exchanges with his learned protector in Timbuktu, the fact that there was a student-teacher relationship is evident from their personal correspondence.8

9 See for a critical call for more attention to dispersed archival sources beyond the frame of intere (...) 10All in all, this volume contributes to a diversification of sources for African-European relations at the dawn of colonialism. Besides promising a truly dialogic history of these encounters, this and other West African manuscripts form the basis for a global history of trans-Saharan political relations.9 While such studies might eventually demystify Timbuktu to some degree, the city’s cultural resources are indispensable for historical research. It is to be hoped that the people and their cultural heritage, once more endangered by war and terror, will weather this new storm so that local and international preservation efforts can be resumed. The global history of these complex encounters makes access to and the study of materials such as these an absolute requirement.