Sheikh Bay bin Zainis is the custodian of priceless manuscripts, among them a unique copy of the Qur’an that dates back to the 14th Century. Insects and long use have damaged some of the pages, and then there is the daily threat from the desert storms. If the sheikh and his fellow villagers are not careful, the whole village could be under sand within days.

For eight decades, sheikhs in this remote village in Mali have been using these books and manuscripts to spread knowledge and educate the young, Al-Majallah, a sister publication of Arab News, reported.

Stephanie Dekaiet and Abdulkader Hedarah are researchers who have been visiting northern Mali for years in search of rare manuscripts. Dekaiet is from Seattle, Washington, and spends her time between Mali, France and the US. Hedarah is from Mali, who inherited a library of some 5,000 folders. He owns copies of the Qur’an that were once part of the collection of kings and rulers. The two researchers, aware of the urgent need to save the treasures of the desert from neglect and preserve them for posterity, are also intrigued by the way the books form a unique historical record of how Islam came to Africa.

Abdulkader first reviewed the manuscripts in his possession. They include books between 100 to 500 pages in length, and manuscripts as short as one page. “I counted more than one thousand manuscripts dating from the 13th and 14th century. The general impression that old Arabian manuscripts care only about the Qur’an and Islam is wrong. There are manuscripts about physics, chemistry and mathematics in addition to poetry and history. It is a very rich collection of books,” he said.

After Islam arrived in West Africa, the city of Timbuktoo became the capital of Islamic studies. Students from across the region came here to learn. Because of its unique location, Timbuktoo became center for cultural exchange too. Thousands of books from all over the Arab world passed through Timbuktoo and were copied. Sixty of these collections are in Timbuktoo alone.

“When I discovered these old books for the first time ten years ago, I was amazed by their beauty,” Dekaiet said. “I felt awed by how widespread thought and intellectual inquiry were. But the condition of these books was upsetting, they were nearly falling apart.”

In this part of West Africa, the written word is part of people’s life. In addition to religious and scientific books, there were also business and political books from the 18th century to the present. The Bay family library was established 1797 and is especially rich because it lies on the main caravan route, and is particularly strong on treasures from Baghdad and Spain.

The sheikh’s house has little in common with a conventional library: Books are piled on top of one another, some in old wooden boxes. The sheikh meant to leave all the books to his son, but when he heard about the white woman who wanted to save books, he traveled to Timbuktoo and offered to work with her on saving his collection.

He asked that Abdulkader Hedarah come with her to evaluate the contents of his library and find a way to save it with the help of advanced technology. Hedarah says it was rare for book collectors in the past to let strangers see their library. People might barely have the means to scrape a living, he says, but they will protect their libraries at any cost. But slowly Hedarah and Dekaiet were able to convince library owners to allow them to evaluate their manuscripts and see what they can do to protect them.

Ismail Hedarah, a writer and historian, is one of the owners. He catalogued his grandfather’s library, which was established in the fourteenth century. Among the 7,000 items are a book on law from the 15th Century, a book about the life of the Prophet and a copy of the Qur’an dated 1198.

With the help of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Abdulkader Hedarah was able to repair his own library. It had been established in the 16th Century and at first it was a mobile library, carried on camel back. Today, it is seen as one of the best libraries in the country in terms of organization and quality.

The building housing it is now equipped with special shelving units that protect the books from light and other environmental dangers, and the 5,000 manuscripts are indexed and catalogued. It is open to researchers and academics interested in African studies as well as tourists.