The copyist Boubacar SADECK
Timbuktu is a region very well known for its cultural flowering and especially, because of its many copyists and calligraphers, for the craft of the book. These copyists and calligraphers take their inspiration from a saying of the Prophet who alludes to manual labour with the prophet David as his example. The Koran teaches us that the first verse puts the accent on reading and that there is no reading except from a written text. This the Prophet reinforces when he tells us to sustain our culture by writing. The pen is so sacred that the most powerful one has sworn an oath on it.
Since the time of the Prophet, many copyists have been plied their trade, among them Ousmane Ben Affane, Sayydina Aliou, and Zeid Ben Thabit.
The Prophet even proposed to a group of prisoners of war that they teach reading and writing to the children of Medina and so earn their liberation.
It is undoubtedly necessary to understand that a society cannot be possessed of many manuscripts without the following:
- Specialists in the copyist's craft
- Ink in different colours and knowing how to make it. Black from charcoal together with resin from different trees, brown from camel skin, and so on
- A pen that might be made of bamboo, special vernal grass from Teudanni or a bristle from a porcupine.
- Something to write/copy
- Something to write on (paper, wood (what kind of wood is the best), cloth, rocks, skin from certain animals etc)
- Other writing materials
It is difficult to fix the exact date when writing began in this area. One only notices its existence with the birth of the cultural cities like Wallata, Timbuktu, Djenne, Gao, Araouane, and Souq. The copyist's trade was spread throughout the area between the 12th and the 18th centuries.
One wrote on the deer skin because of its fine texture and durability, sometimes on cloth, the shoulder blades of camels, stones, and even tanned skins.
According to Leon the African, at the time of his visit to Timbuktu, the copyist's trade was the most profitable trade in the city. On the covers of manuscripts we often find the contracts between the paper seller, the copyist, and the person for whom the copy was made.
The cost of these manuscripts was quite high. It could be quoted in dinar, dirham, gold mutthkal, or sometimes calculated in animals.
The university at Sankore was stuffed with manuscripts. The testimony of Ahmed Baba shows us that manuscripts existed in abundance, for he says at the time of the Moroccan invasion, "they took 1600 manuscripts from me and I had the least numberof documents in my family."
The authorities of that time, Moussa, King of Mali, and Askia Daoud, appealed to the copiers to serve their society.
Since the invention of the printing press, this joyous craft is in peril, and the peril has grown with the invention of photocopy machines and microfilm. But even now, there are some people who still prefer manuscripts for their homes.
Today, with the renewed interest in preserving manuscripts, in finding them, protecting them, establishing them in libraries, and sharing them with scholars, it is necessary, even obligatory, to foresee the return of the copyist to the scene - because of his art, his style, his decorative skills, his expertise, and his ornamentation.
The copyist participates in the safeguarding of the culture, the history, and the valorisation of the ancient manuscripts. His personal touch is more attractive than that of the machine. His art is beautiful. It inspires a very great confidence.
Our most ardent wish is to open a school for copyists in Timbuktu in order to train the next generation in the craft.
Boubacar with some of his writings
An old saying in arab: “Salt comes from the north, gold from the south, money from the white man’s country; but God’s words, holy things, interesting tales, we can find them only in Timbuktu”
