A young girl nearby lifted her voice, cool and delicate, weaving a haunting melody into the night. Three young men, a little further away, joined her, adding a quickstep to the tune, tone belying age, not quite bass. From elsewhere a group of older women pitched in a round, full cadence, and still elsewhere men added a deep hypnotic thrumming, the workhorses, the bedrock of this song. All around voices were raised, each distinct and fiercely individual, yet seeming to coalesce in the deepening dark at a point just above my chest, the finely crafted cacophony pressing me down into the still-warm mud roof. Djenné, in Mali, was singing.

And it has done since the 13th century, the faithful reading from the Koran in beautiful, rhythmic song. Around 1240 the then ruler of the area, the sultan Koi Kunboro, converted to Islam and commissioned the first mosque to be built in Djenné, a city that was rapidly expanding and in time would grow into one of the great market cities on the trans-Saharan trade route and a major centre of Islamic learning. Its roots have recently been traced even further back when a team of archaeologists in the early 80s lead by Susan and Roderick McIntosh discovered links to the ancient city of Jenne-Jeno three kilometres away. Carbon dating of artefacts from the Jenne-Jeno site tell a story of a city with origins as far back as 250 BC that flourished over a period of 1 000 years, and only declined with the growth of its little sister Djenné, seeing it completely abandoned by 1400.

There are a number of reasons for the remarkable success of both cities in turn, foremost being the Bani, the riverine connection to Timbuktu and a share in the fabulous wealth of the trans-Saharan trade between West Africa and the Mediterranean, in gold, slaves and salt, that peaked between the 14th and 16th centuries with the Mali Empire and later the Songhai Empire of Gao, 500km to the east of Djenné. Also there is the rich soil of the flood plain, refreshed every year as the river bursts its banks during the rainy season and turns modern Djenné into an island.

It was on that riverbed that I had found myself four hours earlier, not wading, but squatting on mud now brittle and webbed by the sun, talking about the World Cup. Mamoudou Aly Sou, a student and local guide, said his hopes rested with southern neighbour Côte d'Ivoire. "How about Mali in 2010?" I asked. He just laughed quietly. Despite only a rough command of each other's language we had slowly worked our way through a range of topics like tired but stubborn steeplechasers, enjoying being in this odd place that should be under water, away from what had briefly become a city of dust.

It was Monday, market day at Djenné, and at sunset there was a mass exodus of traders and buyers leaving the square next to the Great Mosque filled only with litter and red earth. April earth, far from the quenching of the rainy season, easily agitated into a heavy cloud by the hundreds of scuffling feet.

The rainy season. Now this was a subject that brought 17-year-old Aly to his feet. An eagerly awaited deluge, a river in flood, swimming, fishing - and mud. And it is banco, rich mud dug out of the banks of the Bani and mixed with rice husks that is the other key to understanding Djenné. From it the Djennenké make the circular bricks (called ferey), used in the Sudano-Sahelian architectural style that they have adhered to for centuries, and which since 1988 has brought them support, protection and tourists as a Unesco World Heritage Site. From it they built the Great Mosque completed in 1907 - the third incarnation of the original of 1240 and a powerful reminder of the town's illustrious history. It stands on a raised plinth to protect it from seasonal floods, with an area of 5 925m² and walls half a metre thick that have bundles of palm wood built in throughout, to serve as both decoration and scaffolding for regular maintenance. With the establishment of the first Great Mosque, many institutions of Islamic learning, madrassahs, soon followed, bringing thousands of Muslim scholars and students to its streets and renown throughout Africa.

The city has since declined in importance, both as a centre of trade and religious pilgrimage. Nearby Mopti has shouldered the economic mantle, leaving Djenné with only the colourful Monday market. Which, if you spend some time sifting through the only mildly organised chaos of impromptu vendors, caters for all needs from basic sustenance to beautiful regional jewellery and textiles and imitation American baseball caps.

Although decreased in size and number, a few madrassahs remain. As Aly led me around the narrow and dusty streets away from the central square, he pointed out one of the larger schools for young students, only distinguished from its adobe neighbours by an array of tiny brightly-coloured plastic sandals neatly paired outside the door.

Walking further, we passed the Moroccan quarter with its distinctive vibrantly painted and heavily studded wooden shutters, a nod back to the late 16th century when the city was taken and held by Moroccan kings for nearly 200 years. It would change hands twice more before Mali gained independence in 1960. Finally we reached the set of rather indistinct holes I had being looking for. Now quiet, but once a year after the rains, and coinciding with the end of the month of Ramadan, they are thronged by young feet stomping and squelching, mixing banco to ease wounds of temperature stress and rain erosion on the facade of the Great Mosque. Presided over by the village elders from a high, shaded vantage point overlooking the mosque and directed by the master masons - who still follow a strict apprentice system to preserve the centuries of experience steeped in ancient Mandé lore and Muslim tradition - the city seethes with people intent on a grand festival of music, food and mud. In 2000 the Malian poet and writer Albakaye Ousmane Kounta wrote of the festival: "They went off to look for all the Soninke, all the Songai, all the other peoples To re-plaster the sanctuary People bent with age Who sleep in the bosom of the earth. The chiefs used their staffs To decree to everyone Whatever their age or clan That Djenné shall be and shall remain forever." - Saturday Argus, Travel 2006

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