Manuscripts of Timbuktu The West African city of Timbuktu, a terminus of the Sand Roads commercial network, became an intellectual center of Islamic learning — both scientific and religious. Its libraries were stocked with books and manuscripts, often transported across the Sahara from the heartland of Islam. Many of these have been preserved, as this recent photograph shows, and are now being studied once again. (Photo 2000: Alida Jay Boye, Timbuktu Manuscripts Project, University of Oslo)