Panel 3: African Arabic-Script Languages

Paper Abstract: Ancient manuscripts are compiled by scholarly institutions based in various historic cities such as Timbuktu. As a sum of knowledge passed down from generation to generation, they contain valuable information and represent an essential reference source in the fields of thought, religion and the creation of social and family ties. In Africa, the written word and, even more so, manuscripts, permeate the social fabric and contribute to the construction of society’s historical, cultural and educational edifice in various ways. Manuscripts inform emotions and ideas and bring individuals together. As with any handwritten tradition, that of Africa materialises the spoken word while ensuring its perpetuity; that it is preserved and communicated across time and space. Thus, in West Africa, across the immense Sahara and practically all along the Niger River, from Guinea to Nigeria, passing through Mali and Niger, from Guinea to the Atlantic Ocean, passing through Senegal and Mauritania, societies were permeated by written culture. The need to write and own manuscripts became a sign of social distinction. Teachers, pupils and scholars owned manuscripts which they transcribed or purchased for their studies. The pride of a scholar was measured by the number of manuscripts on his bookshelf. This contribution aims to trace the history of how the handwritten tradition evolved in Africa and particularly in West Africa.

Paper Abstract: Old Kanembu, one of the earliest written languages of the Sahelian Africa, was used in the Qur’an manuscripts produced between the 17th and the early 19th centuries in the Borno Sultanate in what is now northeast Nigeria and southeast Niger. The manuscripts host dozens of Arabic tafsīr sources, testifying to a rich exegetical tradition going back many centuries. Old Kanembu survives in its modern-day offspring called Tarjumo, which is a formally acquired language used among the speakers of Kanuri and Kanembu in studying Arabic grammar and in ceremonial bilingual recitations of the Qur’an and other religious Arabic texts. Being a highly specialised linguistic code, Old Kanembu/Tarjumo is unintelligible to lay speakers and it is always dependent of the source Arabic text. However, Old Kanembu exerted influence beyond the exegetical context and there is evidence that a poetic register used for independent composition in vernacular drew on Old Kanembu grammar. This talk will look into a 19th-century manuscript with a poem written in modern Kanembu. The poem exhibits some grammatical features which are common in Old Kanembu of the Qur’an manuscripts. Why such features have not been retained in the modern-day Kanuri and Kanembu religious poetry remains an open question to which some ideas will be offered.

Paper Abstract: Current studies on Islam in Senegal have focused on the political influence of the country’s four powerful Muslim brotherhoods – Qadiriyya, Tijaniyya, Muridiyya, and Laayen – on electoral outcomes and state politics. The few researches recently produced focus exclusively on Wolof Islamic literature, leaving out an important pioneering Pulaar Islamic literature whose cultural reach extends beyond national boundaries. As the first to embrace Islam in Senegal, the Haalpulaar (literally the speakers of Pulaar/Fula) have used ‘Pulaar Ajami’ (Arabic scripts used to transcribe the Pulaar language) for centuries. These texts were written by local Islamic authors affiliated with the branch of the Tijaniyya Muslim Brotherhood historically founded by Algeria-born Ahmad al- Tijani and spread in West Africa by Umar Taal (ca. 1796 – 1864) and his descendants in Senegal, Mali and Guinea. The current project aims to digitize a total of 6,000 pages of text in Senegal and Mali based on the guidelines of the British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme, which funded the project. In this paper, we intend to present a brief description of about 4000 pages of the Arabic manuscripts that we have collected and digitized so far. By targeting these rare sources, the project provides access to a rare material in the hope to facilitate investigation of Islamic Africa’s intellectual contribution to world civilization, as well as the study of Islamic literatures, languages and linguistics. Furthermore, the digitized manuscripts may provide crucial information on African Islamic thought and culture, currently facing scrutiny due to the increased anti-Muslim rhetoric.

 Paper Abstract: The Yoruba (southwest Nigeria) constitute the second largest ethnic group in Nigeria. The earliest evidence of the presence of Islam and literacy goes back to the 16th/17th century. The earliest history of the people, which is traced to the latter part of the 17th C, was in Yoruba language but in the Arabic script (Ajami). This makes Yoruba one of the oldest African languages with an attested history of Ajami. (Cf. Mumin & Versteegh 2014; Hofheinz 2018). However, the oldest, extant Yoruba Ajami exemplar is a 19th C Islamic verse (waka) by Badamasi Agbaji (d. 1895- Hunwick 1995). There are several items of Yoruba Ajami in poetry, personal notes, esoteric knowledge (Cf. Bang 2019), among others. Nevertheless, Yoruba Ajami remained idiosyncratic and not socially diffused, as there was no standardized orthography. The plethora of dialects, the absence of a central promotional institution, among others, are responsible. My paper will examine the efforts (Abdussalām (1992), Yūsuf (1997), Amīn (1998, 2000), Abdulhameed (2008, 2013), and ISESCO (2014f) towards the establishment of a standard Yoruba Ajami orthography for sacred and mundane usages among the locals, sufi orders, and educational institutions. It will analyse the obstacles that impeded the success of the efforts and how to overcome them. How a standard Ajami orthography can popularize the diffusion of knowledge and information in a digital scholarly and social milieu will be discussed.