The Contribution of Academic Migration to Timbuktu’s Arabic-Islamic Scholarship and Manuscripts Culture in the Golden Era
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Date
2019-02-21
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Abstract
Academic migration is increasingly emerging as a distinctive field of pursuit in migration studies, however it has a longstanding history in Arabic and Islamic culture. This has been attributed to the Quranic and Hadith injunctions that encourage Muslims to travel in quest of Knowledge. This study examines the impact of academic migration on Arabic and Islamic scholarship in Timbuktu in the Golden era in order to demonstrate how that consolidated Arabic and Islamic education in West Africa. The paper contends that of all the factors that brought home fame and recognition to Timbuktu, and earned her the accolade "the pearl of the desert", the movement of people into and out of Timbuktu has been unsurpassed, and that Academic migration was instrumental in the transformation of Timbuktu into a center of academic excellence, and the utimate destination of scholars and teachers. The study seeks to enrich our understanding of this critical issue, which has so far received only minimal attention, especially in languages other than Arabic.
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Academic migration, migration studies, West Africa, academic excellence