Abstract
Islam was introduced to West Africa over a millennium ago as a result of trade with North Africa and other parts of the Middle East. Islamic scholarship thrived in the city of Timbuktu in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. During this time West African scholars studied and taught mathematics, Quranic studies, and astronomy among other subjects. Until recently, the detail of what astronomy was known and practiced was not known. As an example of the content of material taught in the madrassas in West Africa, I present an outline of the content of two manuscripts written in the seventeenth century by Timbuktu scholars Muḥammad (or Aḥmad) b. Muḥammad Baghayu‛u b. Muḥammad Kūrdu and Abū l-‛Abbās Aḥmad b. al-Ḥājj R-mām-y-n al-Tuwātī al-Ghallāwī.
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Medupe, T.R. (2015). Astronomy as Practiced in the West African City of Timbuktu. In: Ruggles, C. (eds) Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6141-8_104
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6141-8_104
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