Editing Azawad (section)

===Religion===
Most are [[Islam|Muslims]], of the [[Sunni]] orientations.{{Citation needed|date=April 2012}} Most popular in the Tuareg movement and northern Mali as a whole is the [[Maliki]] branch of Sunnism, in which traditional opinions and analogical reasoning by later Muslim scholars are often used instead of a strict reliance on [[hadith]] as a basis for legal judgment.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/360203/Malikiyyah|title=Mālikiyyah|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date=16 July 2012}}</ref>

Ansar Dine follows the [[Salafi]] branch of Sunni Islam. They strongly object to praying around the graves of Malikite 'holymen', and burned down an ancient Sufi shrine in Timbuktu, which had been listed as a [[List of World Heritage Sites in Africa|UNESCO World Heritage Site]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.cnn.com/2012/05/05/world/africa/mali-heritage-sites/index.html|title=Rebels burn Timbuktu tomb listed as U.N. World Heritage site|date=5 May 2012|publisher=CNN|access-date=16 July 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120713021857/http://articles.cnn.com/2012-05-05/africa/world_africa_mali-heritage-sites_1_baba-haidara-sufi-shrines-timbuktu-residents?_s=PM:AFRICA|archive-date=13 July 2012|url-status=live}}</ref>

Most of the 300 [[Christianity|Christians]] who formerly lived in Timbuktu have fled to the South since the rebels captured the town on 2 April 2012.<ref>{{Citation|first=Madeleine |last=Davies |title=Christians in north of Mali flee Tuareg rebels' control |newspaper=Church Times |date=13 April 2012 |url=http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=127144 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120801213933/http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=127144 |url-status=dead |archive-date=1 August 2012 |access-date=16 June 2012 }}</ref>