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		Sidi on Ancient Manuscripts (length: 2 min 35 sec) Gates accompanies Islamic Scholar Ali Ould Sidi to the home of Abd Al-Qadir Haidara, where he sees previously undocumented 400-year old manuscripts, perhaps the only remains of the black African world's intellectual achievement at Timbuktu. Read Transcript This site includes RealVideo. Download RealPlayer now.

Video Transcript

GATES: Ali Sidi takes me to see Haidara and his family library.

C.U. TATTERED POETRY BOOK.

ALI SIDI: This book is about poetry …

GATES: It's about poetry.

ALI SIDI: Poetry. The author is using local languages.

GATES: African languages?

ALI SIDI: Yeah, African languages …

GATES: In the 16th Century?

C.U. ALI.

ALI SIDI: And the second part of the book is dealing with astronomy, yeah.

GATES: Astronomy?

ALI SIDI: Yeah, astronomy was well used in the 16th Century.

C.U. BOOK.

GATES: The Tuaregs still use astronomy.

ALI SIDI: Yeah. And this one.

HAIDARA:

C.U. GATES - LOOKS AT BOOK.

ALI SIDI: This is about mathematics.

GATES: Mathematics?

ALI SIDI: Yeah.

GATES: Algebra or geometry, what?

CONTINUE WITH ALI AND GATES - C.U. BOOK.

ALI SIDI: I think it's more about accounting.

GATES: Accounting?

ALI SIDI: Yeah. Look towards having the trade, the transatlantic trade.

50:32 CUT

51:14 END CUT. RESUME CLIP WITH CU BOOK

GATES: It's beautiful. And these are book written by black people?

ALI AND HAIDARA TALK

INTERCUT BETWEEN HAIDARA, ALI AND GATES.

ALI SIDI: Some of them were written by the black people… But in the 16th Century we had here one of our big scholar, his name is Ahmed Barba, who wrote at least 60 volumes.

GATES: 60 himself?

ALI SIDI: 60 himself. Yeah.

M.C.U. ALI L, GATES R (SIDE VIEW).

GATES: That's great. But when I was growing up the school books said Africans couldn't read and write and didn't have any books. And here this great library, it's …

ALI SIDI: Yeah …

C.U. HAIDARA (SIDE VIEW).

HAIDARA:

ALI SIDI: I cannot, he cannot say that African do not write.

GATES: Yeah, I know.

HAIDARA:

ALI SIDI: Because he saw too many authors were from Africa.

GATES: Right. C'est bon.

HAIDARA:

CONTINUE WITH HAIDARA, ALI AND GATES.

ALI SIDI: And this is not the only place they are keeping books, they have another library as well.

GATES: In Timbuktu?

SHOTS OF PILES OF BOOKS.

ALI SIDI: Yeah, Timbuktu.

PAN DOWN BOOKS.

GATES: The mind of the black world locked into the pages of these priceless books. Evidence of a grand civilization, untranslated and unknown.

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