Salt comes from the north, gold from the south, and silver from the country of the white men, but the word of God and the treasures of wisdom are only to be found in Timbuktu. – an old Western African proverb

University of Sankore

Sankore’s achievement in higher education is important to Islamic civilization even though it was less known compared to Al-Azhar, Al-Qairawan, Al-Qarawiyyin and Qurtuba Universities.

It is also a pride among the whole black community around the world as it was a great intellectual institution of the black civilization of Mali, Ghana and Songhay particularly during 12th to 16th centuries.

University of Timbuktu often referred to, as the ‘University of Sankore’, as there are two other universities in Timbuktu, ‘Jingaray Ber’ and ‘Sidi Yahya’ universities. The University of Sankore is located in the north east district of Timbuktu and housed within the Sankore Mosque.

The Sankore Mosque was founded in 989 by the erudite chief judge of Timbuktu, Al-Qadi Aqib ibn Mahmud ibn Umar. He had built the inner court of the mosque in exact dimension of the Ka’abah in holy Makkah. A wealthy Mandika lady then financed Sankore University making it the leading center of education. The Sankore University prospered and became a very significant seat of learning in the Muslim world, especially under the reign of Mansa Musa (1307-1332) and Askia Dynasty (1493-1591).

Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/learning_history/1492/1492_timbuktu.cfm
http://muslimheritage.com/

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The reason why I suddenly feel want to know more about Timbuktu is because Alvin, a friend of mine, assumed that you have to spend at least 40k to travel to Timbuktu. I didn’t even know where on earth is this place. Out of curiosity, did a little search and reading here and there, now I know where is it.

Oh, by the way Alvin has written a nice post that can trigger your inner thoughts. Worth reading – Different People Have Different Priority In Spending. Quite true.

Incoming search terms:

• ghana civilization
• University of Sankore
• salt mine timbuktu
• Al Qarawiyyin
• mosques in ghana mali songhai
• sankore university timbuktu
• wisdom words wallpaper hd
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• old music manuscript
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Fried food is actually tasty and favored by lots of people, especially kids. Don’t we love to order French fries when we visit fast food restaurants such as KFC or McD? But do you know…Scottish eat lots of fried food which is claimed to be unhealthy. Ever heard of fried Mars candy bar? Yea, you can easily eat this in Scotland!

First Minister Jack McConnell, the leader of Scotland’s executive cabinet, described the country as “one of the unhealthiest nations in Europe.”

The researchers found that Mars bars aren’t Scotland’s only deep-fried specialties, with chip shops also frying up ice-cream, pizza, pineapple rings, pickled eggs, Snicker bars, and bananas.

The deep-fried Mars bar is believed to have originated in the northeast Scottish village of Stonehaven, following a bet struck between a chip shop owner and a customer. – National Geographic

I suppose you know about the Scottish Kilt, which is a Scottish icon for centuries. There’s something bizarre with it too. Not the costume but the wearer! Men in Scotland wear the skirt-like kilt. The kilt look great and it is a very usual thing to see men in kilt in Scotland.

The following is rated as mature content, please see at your own risk. kekeke..

Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

What’s behind these kilt??? Uncover the truth with your own eyes now~

Hmm..how about the view from behind?

Have you spot something in this pic?

Oh my~
大风吹。吹什么？吹没穿内裤的人。

And I found a very funny commercial.

Kilt Scotland Funny – The best home videos are here

hahaha…ok, have a nice weekend. ^_^

Incoming search terms:

• kilts
• scottish men
• kilt
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• ATT00001jpg
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a cathode ray tube (CRT) monitor uses about 74 watts to display an all white web page, but only uses 59 watts to display an all black page.
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.
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A shift to a black background will save a total of 15 watts. If a quarter of the monitors in the world are CRTs, and at 10 cents a kilowatt-hour, that’s about $75,000 a year.Source: The Inquirer

But this only makes the normal query page displayed in black background. Not to worry, here is a cool Firefox add-on known as Stylish, enables you to view other websites with black background too, provided you load the scripts provided.

Installing Popular Site Styles (for Firefox add-on Stylish)

• Google Image Search – dark gray redesign (vC)
• Dark Wikipedia (SKYY’s Version)
• YouTube.com – dark grey redesign (Vc)

Get more site style HERE.

Not using Firefox?
Get Firefox today!
You can make a difference!

I’ve changed my Google search, Wikipedia and YouTube style to dark.
It not only can save some energy, it also make your eyes more comfortable when looking something with dark background. It looks stylish and cool too!
How about you?

>> Tips: Use Firefox keyword search to bookmark your “darken” favorite sites!

Kidding…

22nd June 2007 (Friday), an unusual yet unique phenomena happened in Kuching – a rainbow circling the sun. Cherry was so excited and keep pm me in the messenger. But I was a bit too late, so I missed it! Didn’t observe this with my own eyes!! Too bad. This is something new for us. Not many people get to see this phenomena because we don’t always stare at the sun. (It hurts our eyes!)

The rainbow around the sun is actually the formation of larger ice crystals in the atmosphere. The sunlight refracts of the ice crystals, making a ring of rainbow circling the sun. That is why we get to see this kind of phenomena. This phenomena was discovered as early as in the 15th century. Similar phenomena of this “sun ring” is usually referred as the sun dog/sundog or sunbow. (More on Wiki)

Here is a vid I found in YouTube:

And guess what? There’s moon rings too!
What a great and amusing Nature.
Find out about Moon Rings.

Update: Can’t believe that there’s really someone out there think that it’s a bad omen….Check out this news from one of the local press in Kuching.

Incoming search terms:

• bad omen of sundog phenomenam

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