West African manuscripts are abundant and diverse in content and form, such as books, documents, and letters, and are composed in the Arabic script, Ajami script, and indigenous African scripts. West African manuscripts, as dialogical products of West African manuscript culture and components of West African intellectual history, may have been produced as early as the 10th century CE. West African Muslim scholars, who were bilingual or multilingual and constituted what is collectively a West African intelligentsia that shaped West African historiography, composed the majority of West African manuscripts. West African countries with manuscripts from the precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial periods include Togo, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Nigeria, Niger, Mauritania, Mali, Guinea, Ghana, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, and Benin. The Timbuktu manuscripts in Timbuktu, Mali, which are the most well known set of manuscripts in West Africa, are estimated in number to total between 101,820 manuscripts and 348,531 manuscripts.
West African manuscripts contain topics of alchemy, arithmetic, astrology, astronomy, biographies, business records and discussions, chemistry, chronicles, commerce, currency, dialectology, diplomacy between European and African rulers in the pre-colonial era, disease and cure, divination and geomancy, ethics and peace, eulogies, genealogies, geography, government legislations and treaties, healing, history, incantations, Islamic sciences, saints, and rituals, jurisprudence, instructions on codes of conduct, language and grammar, law, lists of kings and imams, literature, logic, medicine, numerology, official correspondence, pharmacology, philosophy, poetry, political economy, politics, private letters, prose, slavery, slave trade, and freedom, sociology, speeches, talismanic resources, theology, therapeutic medical manuals, and the science of calendars. The existence of West African manuscripts refute prevailing past racist notions that, Africa as a continent and Sub-Saharan Africa as its sub-region, were regions of the world that were without literature and that were limited to only ritual and orature. West African manuscripts also have the potential to revise the history of the West African Sahel and the history of West Africa, at-large. as well as facilitate further decolonization of the history of Africa. However, although West African manuscripts are plentiful, esteemed in academia and the media, and have been subject to numerous institutional initiatives to be preserved and digitized, there has been a limited amount of philological research done on West African manuscripts, due to a collective academic "hypertrophy of theory," "devaluation of the strictly textual in favor of the oral and the visual," "growing indifference to and incapacity in foreign languages, especially historical languages," and "shallow presentism of scholarship and even antipathy to the past," which has resulted in the retention of a "griot paradigm" within Africanist scholarship.
Countries
West African countries with manuscripts from the precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial periods include Togo, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Nigeria, Niger, Mauritania, Mali, Guinea, Ghana, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, and Benin.
Mali
The Timbuktu manuscripts in Timbuktu, Mali, which are the most well known set of manuscripts in West Africa, are estimated in number to total between 101,820 manuscripts and 348,531 manuscripts.
Mauritania Arabic Literature of Africa, Volume 5: The Writings of Mauritania and the Western Sahara, compiled by Charles C. Stewart with Sidi Ahmed Wuld Ahmed Salim and published by Brill in 2015, documents approximately 1,875 authors and nearly 10,000 works.
Nigeria In the 1990s, a "lower estimate" of the Arabic-Islamic manuscripts in Nigeria concluded with 127 collections and more than 27,000 manuscripts, based on the catalogues of the Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation. However, Mauro Nobili, a historian specializing in pre-colonial and early-colonial West Africa attached to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, asserted in 2012 that in later years the research in West African manuscripts has accelerated, and thus estimating the final count to be likely higher. He extended this analysis to the other West African nations.
Niger Over the decades the Département des Manuscrits Arabes et Ajami (MARA), a department of the city’s Abdou Moumouni University, has catalogued over 4,000 manuscripts.
Scholarship
Authors
West African Muslim scholars, who were bilingual or multilingual and constituted what is collectively a West African intelligentsia that shaped West African historiography, composed the majority of West African manuscripts; most of the manuscripts were composed in the Ajami script and Arabic script. Some of the West African Muslim scholars and authors include: Muhammad b. Malik al-Andalusi al-Jayani al-Dimashqi (d. 1238), Ahmad b. Muhmmad b. Isa al-Burnusi al-Fasi (d. 1493), Abd al-Rahman b. Abu Bakr al-Suyuti (d. 1505), Ali b. al-Qasim al-Tijibi (d. 1507), Abd al-Rahman al-Akhdari (d. 1575), Ahmad bin Furtu, Muhammad ibn al-Sabbagh (fl. 1640), Abu Abdullahi Muhammad b. Masanih (1595–1667), Hasan b. Masud al-Yusi (d. 1691), Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Fulani al-Kishwani (1699–1741), Muhammad al-Yadali b. al-Mukhtar b. Maham Sacid al-Daymani (d. 1751), Ahmad b. 'Abd al-Aziz al-Hilali (d. 1761), Mukhtar b. Buna al-Jakani (d. 1800), Sidi al-Mukhtar b. Abu Bakr al-Kunti (d. 1811), Sidi Abd Allah b. al-Haj Ibrahim al-Alawi (d. 1818), Sidi Muhammad b. Sidi al-Mukhtar (d. 1825), Nūḥ b. al-Ṭāhir al-Fulānī (d. 1860), Uthman dan Fodio and his daughter, Nana Asma'u (1793–1864), Muhammad Bello, Muhammad Bukhari bin Uthman, Abd al-Qadir dan Tafa, Muhammad al-Amin al-Kanemi (1776–1837), Sidiyya "al-Kabir" b. al-Mukhtar b. al-Hayba al-Ntishai 'i (d. 1868), Sidi Muhammad b. Sidiyya "al-Kabir" (d. 1869), Muhammad Fal b. Mutali al-Tandaghi (d. 1870), Muhammad al-Mami b. al-Bukhari al-Barikalli al-Shamshawi (d. 1875), Xaali Majaxate Kala (1835–1902), Muhammad Mawlud b. Ahmad Fal al-Musawi al-Yaqubi (d. 1905), Muhammad Fal b. Muhammadhan b. Ahmad b. al-Aqil al-Daymani (d. 1915/16), Abd al-Qadir b. Abd Allah b. Muhammad b. Muhammad Salim al-Majlisi (d. 1918/19), Baba b. Sidi Muhammad b. Sidiyya (d. 1924), Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba (1853–1927), Muhammad Ahmad b. Mahmud b. al-Rabbani al-Tandaghi (d. 1935), Shaykh Muusaa Kamara (1864–1945), Moor Kayre (1869–1951), Samba Jaara Mbay (1870–1917), Mbay Jaxate (1875–1954), Muusaa Ka (1889–1963), Muḥammad al-Hāshimī b. Aḥmad b. Sa‘īd/Alfa Hāshim (d. 1931–1932), Muhammad Mahmud b. Abd al-Fattah al-Abyiri (d. 1970s), Muhammad b. Abu Madyan al-Daymani (d. 1976), Harun b. Baba b. Sidi Muhammad (d. 1978), Ismail b. Baba b. Sidi Muhammad (d. 1988), and Mamadou Cissé (1897–1993). Other authors also include Muhammad b. Yusuf al-Ḥasani al-Sanusi, Muhammad b. Sulaymān b. Abi Bakr al-Jazuli al-Taghtini al-Simlāli, Muhammad Abd al-Wadud b. Hammayh al-Abyiri, Muhammad b. Abd al-Salam al-Bannani, al-Mustafa Suware ibn Yirimaghan Suware, and al-Hajj Drame.
The works of Muhammad b. Yusuf al-Ḥasani al-Sanusi is referenced 513 times in other West African manuscripts and the works of Muhammad b. Sulaymān b. Abi Bakr al-Jazuli al-Taghtini al-Simlāli is referenced 521 times. Some West African Muslim scholars were members of the Murīdiyya, Tijāniyya, and Laayeen.
Scripts
West African manuscripts are composed in the Arabic script, Ajami script, and indigenous African scripts. The orthographic ajamization of the Aramaic script, which produced the Arabic script, preceded the orthographic ajamization of indigenous African languages. Arabic composition styles for West African manuscripts were primarily developed as distinct composition styles in the Sahelo-Saharan belt region of Mali and Mauritania, and in Bornu, Nigeria, which subsequently developed as a combined form of these distinct composition styles in Macina, Mali. Among the West African manuscripts composed in the Ajami script, the following languages are included: Dagbani, Fulfulde, Hausa, Kanuri, Mande languages (e.g., Bambanankan, Jula, Jakhanke, Maninka, Mandinka, Soninke, Susu), Pular, Songhay, Tamasheq, Wolof, Yoruba, Zarma, and Zenaga. West African manuscripts contain scripts such as Vai, Garay, and N’Ko.
Translation and exegesis
Bozo, Hausa, Soninke, and Tarjumo languages are some West African languages used in modern oral exegesis of the Quran and its translation from Arabic into those West African languages.
Manuscripts
Quantity
In the 1990s CE, excluding those held in Europe, North America, and North Africa, West African manuscripts held in West African countries were estimated to be: 27,000 manuscripts in Mauritania, 24,000 manuscripts in Nigeria, 5,500 manuscripts in Mali, 5,171 manuscripts in Ivory Coast, 3,537 manuscripts in Niger, 2,797 manuscripts in Guinea, 2,342 manuscripts in Burkina Faso, 1,494 manuscripts in Gambia, 1,333 manuscripts in Senegal, 1,114 manuscripts in Togo, 754 manuscripts in Sierra Leone, 703 manuscripts in Guinea Bissau, 375 manuscripts in Ghana, 104 manuscripts in Cameroon, 30 manuscripts in Benin, and no manuscripts in Liberia.
As of 2008 CE, the Timbuktu manuscripts were estimated in total to be 101,820 manuscripts, which shows the need for the total estimated amount of West African manuscripts to be revised. As of 2021 CE, Timbuktu manuscripts were estimated in total to be 348,531 manuscripts.
Designs
The title of West African manuscripts, along with the name of those who own them, are frequently set within a decorative frame along the edges of the manuscripts. Some of the earliest West African manuscripts in Mauritania were composed on the gazelle skin and has been dated to the 10th century CE. Qurans possessed designs with "colorful illuminations, geometric decorative figures, and calligraphies" and manuscripts were retained in colorfully designed bookcases made of leather.
Contents
West African manuscripts contain topics of alchemy, arithmetic, astrology, astronomy, biographies, business records and discussions (e.g., labor and agriculture), chemistry, chronicles, commerce, currency (e.g., gold), dialectology, diplomacy between European and African rulers in the pre-colonial era, disease and cure, divination and geomancy, ethics and peace, eulogies, genealogies, geography, government legislations and treaties, healing, history (e.g., local histories), incantations, Islamic sciences, saints, and rituals (e.g., pillars of the Islamic faith, translations and commentaries of the Quran in various scripts including the Wolof Ajami script, Sufism), jurisprudence, instructions on codes of conduct, language and grammar (e.g., Arabic language and grammar, African languages), law (e.g., laws of inheritance), lists of kings and imams, literature, logic, medicine, numerology, official correspondence, pharmacology, philosophy, poetry (e.g., satirical, polemical, and protest poetry), political economy, politics (e.g., politics in the Songhay empire), private letters (e.g., letters that provide insight on the history of Northern Ghana), prose, slavery, slave trade, and freedom, sociology, speeches, talismanic resources, theology, therapeutic medical manuals, and the science of calendars.