What are the famous Arab scrolls of timbuktu and their importance for Africa?

Answer 1

The importance for Africans is profound. because it reinforces the rebuttal against racist stereotypes perpetuated by the west that Africans have not any academic credentials. This myth is not neccesarily the preserve of academics of any race but seems to be a prevalent school of thought amongst ironically those who have not travelled well, or received a somewhat limited education of the world, particularly in western or "white" communities. The scrolls shed light on a black people using Intense academic principles prior to any European influx and manipulation into the area at a time when the Ghana empire controlled large swathes opf the Western and Northern territories. That they were recording and using complex theorums noted linguistically and in writting shows a sophistication beyond the time relative to the rest of the world as indeed the Nubians have demonstrated by thier Pyramid building skill, the Benin & Nigerians later by their production of the Benin Bronzes, and the separately independant manufacture of Carbonized Steel by the Maya People of Tanzania some 2000 years prior. Its a shame more people dont know this about African societies but things are getting better as African countries trade thier way out of a past that arrested their development and destroyed many of the scriptures and educational legacies of the past, only now captured in the discovery of the Timbuktu Scrolls.