<P> The University of Timbuktu is a collective term for the teaching associated with three mosques in the city of Timbuktu in what is now Mali: the masajid (mosques) of Sankore, Djinguereber, and Sidi Yahya . It was not a university in the modern sense, but a loosely organized scholastic community that endured for many centuries during the medieval period . </P> <P> Timbuktu quickly grew in importance by the start of the 12th century, with a thriving economy based on trading salt, gold, spices and dyes . As the wealth of the city grew, it also became a center of learning, attracting scholars and manuscripts . It acquired a reputation for learning and scholarship across the Muslim world . </P> <P> According to African scholar Shamil Jeppie in The Meanings of Timbuktu: </P> <P>... Timbuktu is a repository of history, a living archive which anybody with a concern for African history should be acquainted with . Timbuktu may be hard to get to but it played an essential role as a centre of scholarship under the Songhay state until the invasion from the rulers of Marrakesh in 1591, and even thereafter it was revived . </P>

Where was the first university built in africa