“Wisdom of Timbuktu” is the title of the new book, a compendium of proverbs, maxims and sentences that guide how to function in the world
By Ashraf Aboul-Yazid
In its cultural section, the Diaries of Almeria Newspaper highlighted the work of the African poet Ismael Diadié Haïdara.
An article entitled “Almuzara presents ‘Wisdom of Timbuktu‘ (Tombuctu in Spanish) authored by Ismael Diadié Haïdara”, reviewed by D. Martinez, to showcase the work of the author based in Almería who collects proverbs, maxims and ancestral sentences.
“Wisdom of Timbuktu” is the title of the new book that the Almuzara publishing house has just published. It is a compendium of proverbs, maxims and sentences that guide how to function in the world, what actions to take and which to avoid to lead a sensible life in society.
Selected by Ismael Diadié, one of the main philosophers of the Niger Bend and custodian of the Library that contains the Kati collections, this volume collects more than a thousand ancestral advice according to the Songhay wisdom of Timbuktu. A wisdom that contains the knowledge and experience of the ancestors who have verbally transmitted this knowledge about life and the art of living from generation to generation.
The Songhay was one of the largest Islamic empires in history and represents a language and a people, whose inhabitants reside along the bend of the Niger River, extending through Mali, Niger, Benin, Nigeria, Algeria and Morocco.
The legacy of this civilization is transferred orally, unlike how it is done in the West, which bases the system of knowledge transmission on writing. To prevent the extinction of such a source of wisdom, it is imperative to transcribe this oral heritage since “every elderly person who dies in Africa is a library that burns,” and humanity is impoverished when other forms of thought disappear.
Ismaël Diadié Haïdara (Timbuktu, 1957) is a poet, philosopher and historian. President of the Mahmud Kati Foundation and director of the Fondo Kati Library in Timbuktu. Lecturer in various countries, he has published articles in specialized magazines about Moors, Islamized Visigoths and Andalusian culture in Timbuktu. He is the author of several books and articles in philosophy, poetry and history.
His published books are Le statut du monde, nécessité, possibilité et contingence chez Ibn Arabi; Córdoba, Yawdar Pasha and the Saadian conquest of Songhay, Rabat; L’Espagne musulmane et l’Afrique subsaharienne; Les Juifs à Tombouctou, The Other Spaniards, The Last Visigoths, The Lamentations of Old Tombo, Monologue of a Ram, Zimma, A Cabane au bord de l’eau, Tebrae pour ma mère.
In Almuzara, the titles Timbuktu: Andalusians in the Lost City of the Sahara (in collaboration with Manuel Pimentel), Rihla and Diary of a Librarian in Timbuktu have seen the light of day.
Ismael Diadié Haidara, historian, philosopher and poet based in Spain and is president of the Kati Foundation in Spain and is married to Virginia Fernández Collado from Almeria.
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Ashraf Aboul-Yazid is a renowned Egyptian poet, journalist, novelist, travelogue writer and translator. He is author of around three dozen books and Editor-in-Chief of Silk Road Literature Series.
Also read: A Panel Discussion: 2023 Outstanding African Creative Books
He’s the lost child of the old lady’s city. Incognito here, popular there. His here is over there, over there is here.
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