Timbuktu/Mali is on the outskirts of the Arab/Islamic world. Not the area the text referenced as lacking literacy. What does the Great Zimbabwe link have to

Timbuktu/Mali is on the outskirts of the Arab/Islamic world. Not the area the text referenced as lacking literacy. What does the Great Zimbabwe link have to do with literacy? Other than lack of any evidence for. Gertrude Caton-Thompson recognised that the builders were indigenous Africans, but she characterised the site as the "product of an infantile mind" built by a subjugated society. Archaeologists generally agree that the builders probably spoke one of the Shona languages The writing system for Shona is Latin Script, meaning it was introduced at a much later date.