Listeners swayed as the celebrated Malian duo Amadou and Mariam sang from a stage on the banks of the Niger River at an annual festival coloured this year by political shifts roiling West Africa.

But for much of the past decade the U.S. State Department and the foreign services of other Western governments have advised their citizens to avoid Timbuktu as well as the rest of northern Mali.

Once home to pre-colonial empires, Mali is a large, arid, landlocked country in western Africa. For centuries, its northern city of Timbuktu was a center for commerce, culture and learning. But after ...

Battuta travelled throughout the known Islamic world. In the 1350s, he travelled through Mali to Timbuktu where he heard stories of Mansa Musa, which he wrote down. Similarly, another scholar ...