I'm sitting in the courtyard of a mud-walled compound in a village in central Mali, 40 miles east of the Niger River, waiting for a clandestine meeting to begin. Donkeys, sheep, goats, chickens ...

Traders and scholars from Europe, the Middle East and Africa came to live in Mali. Musa turned Sankore ... the Sahara desert with access to the River Niger, meant Timbuktu was at the centre ...