Allah commands the heavens and the earth. He knows of each leaf which falls from a tree onto the ground. I am Abdullah, son of Oumar. I will write down what I have heard from our fathers.
Djenne and Timbuktu were twin sisters. The merchants of Djenne went to buy salt in Timbuktu…
This is a manuscript in the library of Djenne. It is oral history transferred onto paper by a Djenne marabout of the Bozo tribe about 300 years ago- written about a century before the time of Rene Caille, the first westerner to reach Djenne and Timbuktu.
Since writing the entry about the manuscript library of Djenne, I have had interesting news from a reader of this blog about a conference held at the British Library on June 10th concerning the threatened libraries of Africa. I will be there, certainly.