The first member of this family to live in Timbuktu was Muḥammad Aqīt. He traced his ancestry over fourteen generations back to Abū Bakr b. ʿUmar, who may perhaps be identified with the Almoravid leader of that name (Norris (1967), 637). Muḥammad Aqīt had lived in a tented encampment in Māsina, but moved his family away to forestall intermarriage with the local Fulani. He moved first to the Walāta area, then to midway between Raʾs al-Māʾ and Timbuktu. Finally, c. 1450 he was reconciled with Akil, the Ṣanhāja governor of Timbuktu with whom he had a long-standing quarrel, an…