Abdel Kader Haidara: The Librarian Who Smuggled a Library

Throughout history, conquerors and fanatics have tried to erase civilisations by burning their libraries. In the flames disappeared not just books, but the accumulated knowledge of generations.

In 2012, it looked as though it was about to happen again.Islamist extremists linked to Al-Qaeda had seized Timbuktu, home to one of the world’s greatest collections of medieval manuscripts. As they tightened their grip on the city, one librarian decided the books would disappear before the militants could destroy them.

Abdel Kader Haidara had spent much of his life searching for forgotten manuscripts. Born into a family that had cared for ancient manuscripts for generations, he travelled across the Sahara and along the Niger River by camel, boat and battered Land Rover, persuading families to entrust their precious collections to proper conservation. In doing so, he uncovered tens of thousands of manuscripts from the centuries when Timbuktu rivalled the world's greatest centres of learning. At its height, perhaps 25,000 students studied in the city’s mosque-universities, and books were among its most valuable commodities. The manuscripts covered astronomy, medicine, mathematics, philosophy, poetry, law and commerce, evidence of a flourishing intellectual tradition that few outside Africa realise once existed.

Now, it was all under threat.Working in complete secrecy, Haidara assembled an extraordinary network of librarians, boatmen, drivers and ordinary citizens. Manuscripts were packed into plain metal trunks that attracted little attention. Under the noses of armed patrols, they were carried through checkpoints, loaded into canoes on the Niger River, hidden inside vehicles and moved hundreds of miles south to the safety of Bamako.

Had the operation been uncovered, Haidara and his network faced execution, and one of the world’s greatest surviving libraries might have been lost forever.

Over many months, the network secretly rescued around 350,000 manuscripts.

When the Islamist extremists finally retreated from Timbuktu in 2013, they set fire to the manuscripts they could find. The images of burning books were broadcast around the world. What they did not know was that the vast majority of the collection had already vanished.

Abdel Kader Haidara had outwitted them.

Some people preserve history by writing it. Abdel Kader Haidara preserved it by carrying it, one metal trunk at a time.

Recommended Reading

The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu and Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts by Joshua Hammer