Written by / Hosni Abdel Hafez

If the news of Timbuktu comes to you, listen and ponder, for you are in the presence of a unique city in the heart of a desert in a dark continent, which some described as the "Mother of Cities," and some said it is the "Jewel of the Desert." It remained for several centuries a center for cultural radiation. Beside its rich archaeological monuments, the libraries of Timbuktu contain hundreds of thousands of manuscripts, most of which were written in Arabic, many of which are rare and precious.