{"id":2355,"date":"2012-06-20T09:17:45","date_gmt":"2012-06-20T16:17:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/?p=2355"},"modified":"2012-06-20T09:44:26","modified_gmt":"2012-06-20T16:44:26","slug":"djennes-grand-mosque","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/?p=2355","title":{"rendered":"Djenn\u00e9&#8217;s Grand Mosque"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_mNG79zHU5M\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Barcelona-<\/strong> I threw together a short clip of my brisk tour of Djenn\u00e9 on the way from S\u00e9var\u00e9 back to Bamako. Djenn\u00e9 is one of the twin centers of medieval Islamic learning in Mail-the other being cut-off Timbuktu. I&#8217;d always wanted to see the mud mosque and couldn&#8217;t resist the lure of a short side trip. <\/p>\n<p>As I&#8217;ve done in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and other places in conflict, I always manage to sneak in a trip to the ancient sites that captivated my imagination well before political violence began to consume my day to day thoughts. Djenn\u00e9 was certainly one such place. Like the Hellenistic columns of Ai Khanoum in Takhar, the spiral Abbasid-era minaret of Malwiya in Samarra or Cyrene in Cyrenaica, Djenn\u00e9 held a particular place in the mental landscape of history for me. <\/p>\n<p>The Bradt guide to Mali describes Djenn\u00e9 is the country&#8217;s &#8220;pre-eminent tourist attraction.&#8221; Passing through a village on the way to the Bani River crossing, my fixer said normally the villagers charge cars carrying foreigners a &#8220;toll&#8221; of 1000 CFA in order to pass through their area. He said the fact that such people didn&#8217;t bother to stop our car was indicative of the end of tourism in Mali for the time being. <\/p>\n<p>The schizophrenic way things are going amongst the Azawadis with Ansar Eddine having gone to Burkina Faso to negotiate with President Campoar\u00e9 while the MNLA is setting up a transitional administration, who knows what will happen next with regard to northern Mali. If ECOWAS and the AU have their way, the winds of war will be blowing through the country in the near future. Whatever the outcome of the current military stalemate partitioning Mali, I&#8217;m grateful to have been able to visit Djenn\u00e9 and dance in the dust with the lizards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barcelona- I threw together a short clip of my brisk tour of Djenn\u00e9 on the way from S\u00e9var\u00e9 back to Bamako. Djenn\u00e9 is one of the twin centers of medieval Islamic learning in Mail-the other being cut-off Timbuktu. I&#8217;d always&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/?p=2355\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[129,797],"tags":[865,872,1130,871],"class_list":["post-2355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-mali","tag-djenne","tag-islam","tag-mali","tag-tourism"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Djenn\u00e9&#039;s Grand Mosque - The War Diaries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/?p=2355\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Djenn\u00e9&#039;s Grand Mosque - The War Diaries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Barcelona- I threw together a short clip of my brisk tour of Djenn\u00e9 on the way from S\u00e9var\u00e9 back to Bamako. Djenn\u00e9 is one of the twin centers of medieval Islamic learning in Mail-the other being cut-off Timbuktu. 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