Panel 2: Manuscript Libraries and Manuscript Heritage Centres in Africa

Paper Abstract: There is no doubt that heritage is one of the most important things that should be maintained and preserved. It sometimes represents the records of a whole nation, shedding light on its history, glory and characteristics. The Islamic civilization is known to have made significant contributions to enriching human thought. Muslim scholars understood the meaning of the Quranic verse “Nun. By the pen and what they inscribe”. So they started writing and authoring books. Old explorers such as Abdallah Al-Bakri, Ibn Hawqal, Yaqut al-Hamawi, Ibn Battuta, and others, played a key role in highlighting Islamic heritage, especially in western Africa. I would like to contribute to the research on Arabic-Script Manuscripts in Black Africa by shedding light on the Manuscripts Department, Fundamental Institute of Black Africa, University of Dakar, which plays a vital role in preserving our Arab and Islamic heritage through efforts aimed at collecting, studying and publishing this heritage.

This paper will cover several points, including the causes of preserving our Arab and Islamic heritage and how the French colonialism paid attention to Islamic heritage (manuscripts) in western Africa for special purposes, leading to the creation of the Fundamental Institute of Black Africa in the first half of the past century, and the establishment of the Manuscripts and Islamic Studies Department. The paper will also look at the division of manuscripts at our Department into collections, indicate their age and some famous and important works among them, look at the development and use of manuscripts after Senegal’s independence, and the problem we face in relation to preserving manuscripts. The paper will conclude by highlighting the importance of our Arabic-script manuscripts and the attention they receive from scholars.

 Paper Abstract: Soon after its founding in 670 CE, Kairouan (al-Qayrawān) became an important crossroads and scholarly center, especially well-known as the home of the early jurist Saḥnūn b. Saʿīd (d. 240/854), the local historian Abu l-ʿArab al-Tamīmī (d. 333/944), and the prolific Mālikī scholar Ibn Abī Zayd al-Qayrawānī (d. 386/996). It is not surprising to learn then, that texts from all three of these scholars are found among hundreds of manuscripts that form the library of the “ancient mosque” of Kairouan. What is astonishing, however, is the age of the manuscripts in this library. It includes a fragment of Saḥnūn’s Mudawwana that has a reader’s remark (samāʿ) from AH 235, five years before Saḥnūn’s death, and manuscripts in Abu l-ʿArab’s own handwriting. This library is, arguably, the single most important collection of early Arabic legal manuscripts in the world, containing twenty-three of the thirty oldest Islamic literary manuscripts known to exist (excluding Qur’ans).

In this paper, I will briefly survey the history of this collection, both how it was constituted and how it has been studied in the past 100 years. In addition to major finds from recent scholarship, I will also highlight the work being done by Tunisian conservators to catalog and preserve this important remnant of Tunisian cultural heritage, currently housed at the National Laboratory for the Preservation of Manuscripts in Raqqada, Kairouan, Tunisia.

Paper Abstract: The Arabic manuscript heritage is the most prolific heritage in the universe, and African manuscripts, whether in Arabic or in African dialects written with the Arabic alphabet, are considered a part of, a substitute for and a continuation of the Arabic literature in African regions.

The subject matter of this paper is a historical, paleographical and codicological review. In other words, it is an overview of the genesis of these books and the evolution of their contents. Therefore, it discusses their calligraphy, its types, origins and transcription methods, and the use of the Arabic alphabet for their writing, in addition to other paleographic issues related to African calligraphy. In its essence, it touches on the used writing tools and materials such as vellum and paper, and researches the ways in which they were manufactured or imported and presents the opinions of some of the great specialists in African books such as the French orientalist Octave Houdas, 1916 AD, and the British orientalist John Hunwick, 2015 AD. Then, we pose the following question: Are these suggested readings possible? The answer will be partial, because what is available in our hands of this heritage is scarce and most of it dates back to the nineteenth century with a small part written and copied before that time. Also, because this heritage was neglected and marginalized by the natives and French orientalism which gave all the attention to the Arab heritage in North Africa. In general, this heritage is still in the stage of collection, discovery and indexing, and has not yet reached the stage of studying, drawing conclusions and making judgements, despite the efforts made by international organizations such as the UNESCO in an attempt to collect this heritage in order to write a new history for West Africa. The oral source was the dominant element in writing this heritage since the eleventh century, similar to what we see in the Tarikh Al-Fattash chronicle and the History of Sudan of Abdul-Rahman al-Sa’di, and others like Ahmad Baba al-Timbukti except for the translations of some of his contemporaries and those who preceded them especially in his two books Nayl Al-Ibtihaj and Kifayat Al-Muhtaj, which are both based on Ibin Farhoun’s Al Dibaj Al Mouthahhab, 799 Hijri. The oral source remained the basis of knowledge until the end of the twentieth century.

The contemporary Malian thinker Amadou Hampâté Bâ (1901-1991) said: “When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground”. (In French: Quand un vieillard meurt c’est une bibliothèque qui brûle).

The evidence for the importance of this heritage and the necessity of researching its private collections in particular is that from time to time it leads to the discovery of precious Arab works like what happened in 1999 when the Al Darouri Fi Sina’at Al Nahu of the great philosopher Ibn Rushd, 595 Hijri, was discovered after it had been lost for several centuries.