Short answer: text source
Leo Africanus describes Timbuktu
- Unit 1
- 4 points
- About 14 minutes
You read one written source (sometimes two closely related ones) and answer three or four short parts: what the source says, its historical context, and connections to related course content. On the exam: Section II, short-answer question 1 of 3 (required); the three short-answer questions share a suggested 40 minutes and are 18% of the score. In 2025 and 2026 this question had 4 parts (A–D).
The question and its sources
Read the source, then answer parts A, B, C and D. Write a few complete sentences for each part; you don't need a thesis. Leo Africanus (al-Hasan al-Wazzan) was a North African scholar and diplomat, born in Granada and raised in Fez, who traveled to the West African Sahel in the early 1500s, when Timbuktu was ruled by the Songhai Empire. He wrote this description in 1526.
Source
“Here are many shops of artificers [craftsmen], and merchants, and especially of such as weave linen and cotton cloth. And hither do the Barbary merchants bring cloth of Europe. . . . Corn, cattle, milk, and butter this region yieldeth in great abundance: but salt is very scarce here; for it is brought hither by land from Tegaza, which is five hundred miles distant. When I myself was here, I saw one camel’s load of salt sold for 80 ducats. The rich king of Tombuto hath many plates and sceptres of gold, some whereof weigh 1300 pounds: and he keeps a magnificent and well furnished court. . . .
“Here are great store of doctors, judges, priests, and other learned men, that are bountifully maintained at the king’s cost and charges. And hither are brought divers manuscripts or written books out of Barbary, which are sold for more money than any other merchandise.”
[Barbary: North Africa. Tombuto: Timbuktu. Ducats: gold coins.]
Source: Leo Africanus (al-Hasan al-Wazzan), The History and Description of Africa, written 1526; English translation by John Pory, 1600 (Hakluyt Society edition, 1896), Book 7, “Of the kingdom of Tombuto.” Spelling modernized.
Suggested time: 14 minutes
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Part (A)
1 pointDescribe one claim Leo Africanus makes about Timbuktu in the source.
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Part (B)
1 pointDescribe a historical context in which Timbuktu became a center of trade and learning.
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Part (C)
1 pointExplain how West African oral traditions, such as those kept by griots, preserved knowledge in ways that differed from the written learning described in the source.
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Part (D)
1 pointUsing a specific example, explain how the spread of Islam into West African societies led to the blending of religious practices.
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