![\"Abdel](\"https:\/\/si.wsj.net\/public\/resources\/images\/BN-NO141_timbuk_J_20160414122616.jpg\" "\\"Abdel")
<\/p>\nThe Librarian Who Saved Timbuktu\u2019s Cultural Treasures From al Qaeda:\u00a0A middle-aged book collector in Mali helped keep the fabled city\u2019s libraries, books and manuscripts safe from occupying jihadists\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
April 15, 2016 10:19 a.m. ET<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
For custodians of the ancient heritage of the Middle East and North Africa, the recent rise of Islamist extremist groups has posed a dire challenge. Since its seizure of the historic Iraqi city of Mosul in early 2014, Islamic State has pillaged and demolished mosques, shrines, churches and other sacred sites across the region. The group continues to launch \u201ccultural cleansing\u201d operations from Tikrit to Tripoli.<\/p>\n
In this grim procession, there have been occasional victories for culture over extremism, like the recapture last month of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, which may now be restored to something of its previous glory. A less familiar case of cultural rescue features an unlikely hero: a 51-year-old book collector and librarian named Abdel Kader Haidara in the fabled city of Timbuktu, in the West African country of Mali.<\/p>\n
The story begins in April 2012, when Mr. Haidara returned home from a business trip to learn that the weak Malian army had collapsed and that nearly 1,000 Islamist fighters from one of al Qaeda\u2019s African affiliates, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, had occupied his city. He encountered looters, gunfire and black flags flying from government buildings, and he feared that the city\u2019s dozens of libraries and repositories\u2014home to hundreds of thousands of rare Arabic manuscripts\u2014would be pillaged.<\/p>\n