Wadia Agounine

Dr Agounine is member of the Religious Studies and Cognitive and Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences, Fez. He is to discuss his PhD thesis at Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Fez. Akonin led a number of symposia organized by the Learning and Development Centre, and participated in several forums, including: the “International Forum of African Cultures”, “International Symposium: Sahara in Moroccan-African Relations”, the “First International Conference on Islamic Jurisprudence; Maliki School: Quran and Sunnah Jurisprudence in Libya”, and the National Symposium of the Faculty of Islamic Sharia Sciences, Samara titled “Aspects of Sahara Scholars’ Care for Jurisprudential Narration”.

He authored several works, including Catalogues of Scholarly Sous (under peer referee), Cataloging of Al-Mukhtar Soussi’s Gzoula Travels (under peer referee), Foundations of the Maliki School and their Role in Communication between Morocco and Sub-Saharan African Countries (co-authored), The Dialectic of Science, Education and Development in Sahara through the Wehadis (co-authored), and Highlights from the Life of Judge Sidi Al-Obaid Al-Boeitawi (part of a symposium). He also published studies on the website of Sahara, Learning and Development.

Paper Abstract: Berber Manuscripts and Arabic Script in Southern Morocco: Identification or Creativity

Berber forms part of the culture of a number of African peoples. For example, in southern Morocco, Sous Berber is the main language of communication.

Throughout history, local scholars interacted with Islamic theology and Arabic linguistics, resulting in cognitive intimacy between Berber and Arabic script and creativity in dealing with various cognitive issues, including manuscripts.

The Sous people used Arabic script to write a large part of their religious and Arabic knowledge. This shows the importance of Arabic in their eyes and the emergence of knowledge production that serves it, such as Berber manuscripts that are dictionaries, codes and writings in Arabic scripts for Berber-speaking people. These are spread in several libraries in Sous.

This paper will look at excellent examples of Sous manuscripts in Arabic script that tried to explain Arabic knowledge and culture, examining their characteristics and the main topics they cover, and focusing on the phenomenon of Arabic-script dictionaries.