Explain the connection between Timbuktu and the spread of Islam.

(From Edmentum)

As early as the 11th century, Timbuktu was a center of scholarship and the exchange of ideas. Students and scholars came from all over the world to study Islam and other philosophical subjects at universities, where the teachings of Islam were collected and produced in many thousands of manuscripts. Because Timbuktu also served as a crossroads for the exchange of goods, Islamic teachings were shared with travelers and traders, who took their new knowledge of the religion with them to their homelands throughout Europe and Asia. Serving as the center of Islamic scholarship, Timbuktu contributed to the spread of Islam throughout Africa from the 13th century to the 16th century. Timbuktu remains home to three notable mosques and one the world’s most ancient collections of Islamic manuscripts.

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