“The pen is mightier than the sword,” doesn’t mean that going to school has more benefits than not. Disabuse your minds of that. There’s a better verse, which reveals the true meaning behind the adage. The late Waziri of Sokoto, Shaykh Junayd ibn Muhammad al-Bukhari, may Allah be merciful to him once said: “Knowledge is universal and eternal but it has a social and cultural stamp. It also has a purpose and a commitment to a particular worldview. It therefore cannot be neutral. You must guard it with ink. For ink outlasts blood.”
Simply put: You must guard your history with ink (with a writing culture), at all costs. It outlasts the blood poured in securing it. This is the true meaning of, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” The battle may be fought in blood but it is certainly won in ink.
Which brings me to my point:
The name Sankoré (as in the modern world’s foremost university, right here in West Africa) means “enlightened nobles” or “nobles of the light,” not “white nobles,” as the culturally racist front that is Wikipedia and some such racist institutions bent on rewriting African history would rather like you to believe.
There seems to be an ongoing academic effort in this century, in the U.S. and Europe, to peg the origins of chattel slavery, racism and of white supremacism itself right at the doorsteps of the victims of the four centuries of Western barbarism in Africa. White supremacism is an insidious ideology. Its fangs are finding tasty bites in almost all re-writings of African history.
White supremacism must be stopped. You can help by just starting to use the brain a little—by not imbibing and ingesting every thing you read on paper or on a glass screen. Please, start researching and writing your own history. Ink it up (and send to Grandmother Africa for proper storage and dissemination!) The battle is fought with blood but won in ink. Jesus! May peace be upon him.
I’m grateful for your translation. I wanted to use Sankoré as a part of my soon to be born son’s name…but needed to an accurate definition. I would love more of a break down. San=Nobles Kore=lit up ?