Timbuktu's Lost Jurists: Fatwas from the Sahel

Ahmad Baba al-Timbukti was one of the greatest legal minds of the Sahel, a jurist whose fatwas shaped Islamic law across West Africa. After the Saadian invasion of Songhai in 1591, he was taken captive to Marrakech, where he wrote a landmark legal opinion arguing that free Muslims could not be enslaved. This episode explores Timbuktu's rich tradition of Maliki jurisprudence, the role of qadis and muftis in the Niger Bend, and the intellectual networks that connected Timbuktu to Cairo, Fez, and Touat. We also meet earlier figures like the North African jurist al-Maghili, whose controversial rulings against the Jewish community of Touat sparked debate, and examine the famous Mi'yar of Ahmad Baba—a collection of fatwas that remains a reference for scholars today. Through these legal texts, we see a scholar city not just preserving knowledge, but actively applying it to the pressing questions of its time: war, slavery, trade, and religious tolerance. #Timbuktu #AhmadBaba #IslamicLaw #MalikiFiqh #Fatwa #Sahel #SonghaiEmpire #SankoreMadrasa #alMaghili #Mi'yar #SaadianInvasion #Slavery #TransSaharan #LegalHistory #AfricanScholars #WestAfricanHistory #FexingoHistory #History Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo