Locally-written poetry and literature is generally the smallest slice of manuscripts, albeit – with correspondence – some of the most interesting. The ratios of manuscripts dealing with mysticism (Sufism) the Qur’an (including copies of the Holy Book) especially recitation styles Arabic language (lexicology, syntax, prosody, pre-Islamic poetry) and theology vary, each subject accounting for 7% to 13% of the manuscripts in most libraries. The next most important subject in the manuscripts deals with the Prophet Muhammad, mainly biographical and devotional writing. Photo by Michel HUET/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images In the absence of a central authority, juridical matters were dispensed by local legal scholars who could cite precedent, case law, to resolve thorny problems. West Africa’s manuscript culture evolved, for the most part, outside any state system. But the dominant subject – legal writing – tended to account for one-quarter to one-third of all the manuscripts. The exact subject matter in each of the categories would vary somewhat from one library to the next. They give us a good idea of what was traditionally found in manuscript libraries. There’s also a national collection of manuscripts in Mauritania that is based on the contents of 80-odd private libraries. With the decline of scholarship in Timbuktu in the 1600s, Islamic learning emerged in nomadic centres to the west (in today’s Mauritania). Today’s older manuscripts in West Africa mainly date from this period. That period waned, but Arabic learning revived again in the 1800s across West Africa in the wake of several Islamic reform movements that stretched from today’s Guinea and the Senegal River Valley to Northern Nigeria. In the 1500s, what is called Timbuktu’s ‘ Golden Age’, its famous scholars were known across North Africa. In fact, Timbuktu was only one of several southern Saharan towns that attracted scholars and offered Islamic learning. The first reference to manuscripts in Timbuktu was in the 1400s, contributing to the mystique that has always enveloped the city as a centre of Islamic education. This commerce also brought Islamic teachings across the Sahara Desert. Centres of learningĮarliest contact between North Africa and Timbuktu focused on West Africa’s gold trade. The full story of West Africa’s manuscript culture and Islamic learning centres will finally be known when the attention that is lavished on Timbuktu’s manuscripts is also given to libraries in neighbouring Mauritania, Niger and Nigeria. Most of these manuscripts come from the 1800s, but have very deep historical roots. In it, we find one-third of all extant manuscripts with known authors (314 titles), written by 204 scholars, one-quarter of them from West Africa. It is a comprehensive inventory of over 100 public and private West African manuscript libraries. The West African Arabic Manuscript Database provides an even bigger picture. Timbuktu destruction: landmark ruling awards millions to Malians The association has been working with universities on three continents to secure and record, now digitally, their Arabic and Arabic-script manuscripts. It’s at this website that one can access the archive of an association of 35 private Timbuktu manuscript libraries – called SAVAMA-DCI. This is a resource I began 30 years ago at the University of Illinois that now provides students access to most of the titles and authors that make up West Africa’s manuscript culture. While Mali Magic displays 45 very photogenic manuscripts from one private library, the site doesn’t begin to tell the full story of the wealth of West Africa’s manuscripts that are found from the Atlantic to Lake Chad.īut thanks to decades of scholarship and, recently, digitisation, that information is now accessible at a bilingual, open-access, online union catalogue of nearly 80,000 manuscripts at the West African Arabic Manuscript Database. The manuscripts, themselves, some reputed to date as early as the 1400s, were threatened and the international community responded. There have been documentaries and books, academic studies and a renewed public interest since some of Timbuktu’s world heritage status buildings were damaged in attacks in 2012. No place in West Africa has attracted more attention and resources than the city that has always captivated the imagination of the outside world, Timbuktu. The images of the documents, text in Arabic, can be found at a page called Mali Magic. The ancient Timbuktu manuscripts of Mali were back in the headlines following internet giant Google’s initiative to host a collection of them at an online gallery.
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