Endangered archives blog

News about the projects saving vulnerable material from around the world

35 posts categorized "Islam"

19 March 2024

Digitising The Histories of Islamic West Africa

       Our project, Digital Preservation of Fuuta Jalon Scholars’ Arabic and Ajami Materials in Senegal and Guinea, is funded by a grant from the Endangered Archives Programme (EAP1430). It seeks to digitally preserve 50,000 pages of endangered Arabic and Ajami manuscripts (texts written with modified Arabic script) produced by Fuuta Jalon scholars who lived between the 18th and early 20th centuries in what is now the Republic of Guinea. The 50,000 pages of the endangered Arabic and Ajami manuscripts to be preserved and digitised include the surviving texts of important scholars and the handwritten copies made by their students, followers and family members who have kept them in their private libraries in the Fuuta Jalon region in Guinea and Senegal where the second largest Fuuta Jalon community in Africa lives. These archives will be the largest digital records of this material in the world.

        The project aims to advance existing scholarly knowledge about the rich bilingual works of Fuuta Jalon scholars. This knowledge is still very scarce, partly due to Guinea’s isolation after its independence from France in 1958 and the lack of public repositories for manuscripts. The texts deal with diverse topics including astrology, divination, Sufism, theology and jurisprudence and comment on talismanic devices, panegyrics of the Prophet Muhammad, Quranic exegesis, didactic materials in prose and poetry, elegies, jurisprudence, calendars, history, biographies, genealogies, legends, commercial records and records of important events, among others. These materials could lay a foundation for future research on the legacy of Fuuta Jalon in the New World  and enable scholars, students and the public to better understand how and where some African slaves such as Abdu Rahman (1762-1829) of Fuuta Jalon acquired literacy skills before being enslaved in the Americas.

        While African Ajami literatures are largely unknown to the broader public, they hold a wealth of knowledge on the history and intellectual traditions of many African communities. Ajami has played an important role in literacy and education in many West African communities. Its history helps offset many colonial stereotypes, countering assumptions that sub-Saharan Africa lacks written traditions. The downplaying of the importance of African Ajami traditions has been perpetuated by Arab-centric and Eurocentric scholars and administrators, and its legacies persist to this day.

        Fula communities have been central to the composition, instruction and dissemination of Ajami in West Africa. Fula is the language of the Fulɓe people and it developed in several communities that spread from west to east, from Senegal to Nigeria and Cameroon, over the last millennium. The Muslims of the region played a leading role as critics and reformers of Islamic practice in the Sahel and created several Islamic states in that area during the 18th and 19th centuries. These Islamic states (especially in Fuuta Jalon and Sokoto) spurred the development of rich Arabic and Ajami literatures and literacies.

 

Three manuscript pages digitised by the project team in Senegal

Image 1. Manuscript pages digitised by the project team in Senegal.

 

        Our project focuses on preserving manuscripts central to these important legacies. The materials are endangered because they include the old and poorly preserved surviving works and handwritten copies of Fuuta Jalon scholars. Most of the manuscripts show signs of deterioration and are kept in old trunks, suitcases and boxes. Some are wrapped in animal hides. They are continuously exposed to water and fire damage and termite and vermin attacks in the homes of their owners in Senegal and Guinea.

        Our project aims to preserve these primary sources and make them available to researchers, educators, students and the public worldwide. We use digital photography for copying the materials, which are digitised on-site. Our field teams involve local scholars and facilitators whose linguistic experience and familiarity with local communities are crucial to the project’s success. When identifying manuscripts for digitisation, our teams work closely with local communities. Our local facilitators are often esteemed elders and experts who are knowledgeable about local Ajami texts and their authors and collectors and are respected in their communities. The team members locate the texts within the communities, consulting with the manuscript owners and local experts about the history, meaning and use of each manuscript. This provides the team with contextual knowledge and relevant historical and cultural information for a proper interpretation of the manuscripts and their importance and aids in the development of the manuscripts’ metadata.

        Our African Ajami projects highlight the role of local experts, scholars, community members and facilitators in knowledge-making processes. Through field interviews, our research teams seek insights into the daily practices of Ajami users, their educational and professional background and their history of learning and using Ajami. This provided us with significant information about the present-day role of Ajami in West African communities, casting light on the meaning and purpose of the Ajami texts that we study and the voices of the people who have written, collected or used them.

        The long-term goals of the project include knowledge transfer and capacity building in African communities, as well as fostering teaching, research and publications of peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and scholarly monographs. Besides the current project, we have been engaged in several other African Ajami-related research initiatives recently. Our project, Ajami Literacy and the Expansion of Literacy and Islam: The Case of West Africa, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, undertook a comparative study of Ajami manuscripts in four major West African languages: Hausa, Mandinka, Fula and Wolof. Our international team of scholars digitised the manuscripts, transcribed and translated the texts into English and French, prepared commentaries and created related multimedia resources. This project marks the first time that such varied African Ajami documents have been translated into two major European languages and made accessible to communities globally. Another ongoing project we are working on, Readers in Ajami, funded by a grant from the United States Department of Education, is developing specialised Ajami readers in Hausa, Wolof and Mandinka with a multimedia companion website. It aims to provide students, language teachers, scholars and professionals with the necessary linguistic and cultural skills to engage Ajami users of West Africa. Synthesising the knowledge gathered, our new double special issue in Islamic Africa examines Ajami literatures and literacies in West Africa and situates African Ajami studies in participatory multimedia and digital archiving approaches (volumes 14, issue 2, 2023 and 15, issue 1, 2024).

        Our current project on Fuuta Jalon Arabic and Ajami archives is not the first project funded by the British Library. Project EAP334, which digitised over 5,000 pages of endangered Wolof Ajami manuscripts, and Project EAP1042, which preserved over 18,000 pages of Arabic and Mandinka Ajami texts, were both funded by the Endangered Archives Programme. Our team is grateful to EAP for supporting our work in the preservation and dissemination of these important but lesser-known written African sources of knowledge.

        The core team members of our project are Professor Fallou Ngom (PI), Dr. Daivi Rodima-Taylor (Project Manager), Mr. Ablaye Diakite (Local Team Leader), Mr. Mouhamadou Diallo (General Coordinator), Mr. Oumar Diallo (Regional Facilitator), Mr. Ibrahima Ngom (Cameraman) and Mr. Mamadou Billo Sall aka Bappa Sall (Senior Facilitator). We are deeply grateful to all our collaborators and the communities we work with in West Africa.

 

Two men, Ibrahima Ngom (standing) and Ablaye Diakite (sitting), digitising a manuscript in Ziguinchor, Senegal.      Mouhamadou L. Diallo, seated on a chair, prepares a manuscript collection for digitisation

Image 2. Ibrahima Ngom (standing) and Ablaye Diakite (sitting) digitising a manuscript in Ziguinchor, Senegal.

Image 3. Mouhamadou L. Diallo preparing a manuscript collection for digitisation in Ziguinchor, Senegal.

Three men, Fallou Ngom (on the right) and Ablaye Diakite (in the middle) having a discussion with Mamadou Seydou Diallo (the manuscript owner) in Ziguinchor, Senegal.

Image 4. Fallou Ngom (on the right) and Ablaye Diakite (in the middle) discussing with Mamadou Seydou Diallo  (manuscript owner) in Ziguinchor, Senegal.

 

  The Senegalese and Guinean field team members

 Image 5. Senegalese and Guinean field team members at our Digitisation Workshop, Dakar, Senegal, May 2023. 

 

Fallou Ngom is a professor of anthropology at Boston University. His research interests include the interactions between African languages and non-African languages, the adaptations of Islam in Africa and Ajami literatures— records of African languages written in Arabic script. His work has appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including African Studies Review, Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Language Variation and Change and International Journal of the Sociology of Language. His book, Muslims beyond the Arab World: The Odyssey of Ajami and the Muridyya (Oxford University Press, 2016), won the 2017 Melville J. Herskovits Prize.

Daivi Rodima-Taylor is a social anthropologist and researcher at the African Studies Center of the Pardee School of Global Studies of Boston University. Her work focuses on informal economies, financial technology and social media, migration and diaspora and land and agrarian relations. Her longitudinal field research in East Africa studied local associations of mutual security. She has co-edited several book volumes and published in journals such as Africa, African Studies Review, Social Analysis, Journal of Cultural Economy, Geoforum, and Review of International Political Economy. Find Daivi on Twitter: @DaiviRTaylor

 

 

09 August 2023

New online - July 2023

Recent online collections include zoological records from Kenya, documents from a Sufi shrine in India, manuscripts from Java, and records from monasteries of cloistered nuns in Lima. You can read a brief overview about these projects below, or go straight to the online collections using these links:

 

Preserving endangered zoological archival material in the National Museums of Kenya (EAP1122)

This project digitised zoological archival records from the Zoology department of the National Museums of Kenya. The records include field trip reports and catalogues that capture details such as species notes, the localities where samples were collected or recorded, and the sources or names of donors. The material spans four taxa: mammalogy, ornithology, ichthyology, and invertebrate zoology. Containing valuable research information on species taxonomy, natural history, and distribution, these records offer insights into historical animal species distribution, shedding light on habitat destruction and helping to map out the extent of species decline.

EAP1122-1-18-page1

Exploring the archives of cloistered nuns in colonial Lima (EAP1299)

This project digitised archives from the 17th to 20th centuries of two monasteries of cloistered nuns in Lima, Peru: the Monasterio de Santa Rosa de Lima and the Monasterio Jesus, María y José (Clarisas Capuchinas). Most of these documents shed light on aspects of daily life in colonial and early republican Peru, areas that have been minimally investigated. Due to the scarcity of sources, the lives of nuns and women in general during this period have been under-researched. It is hoped that the materials now digitised will stimulate ongoing and future studies, offering insights into religious and everyday life in late colonial and early republican Lima.

Eap1299_1_5

Documents in the Sufi shrine at Dhar (EAP1416)

The goal of this project was to digitise and examine documents related to the tomb complex of Kamal al-Din Chishti in Dhar, Madhya Pradesh, India. Kamal al-Din was a member of the renowned Chishti lineage of Sufis. After spending a period with Nizamuddin Auliya in Delhi, he migrated to central India in the late 1200s and passed away in 1331. His descendants have overseen Kamal al-Din’s tomb for seven centuries. Following some known and published inscriptions from the 1400s, the earliest extant documents from the shrine originate from the late 1600s, bearing seals linked to the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (1658-1707). Subsequent documents correspond with the reigns of Bahadur Shah, Farrukhsiyar, Muhammad Shah, and Shah Alam II. The archive extends into the Maratha rule of central India, with examples persisting into the 20th century. Predominantly detailing property transactions and endowments, these documents offer invaluable insights into institutional history, charitable endeavours, officials, local geography, and land stewardship.

Eap1416_1_1

Identifying and Digitising Eastern Salient Manuscripts of Java (EAP1334)

This project digitised 97 manuscripts from 24 different owners or collections in the regions of Banyuwangi, Jember, Bondowoso, Situbondo, and Lumajang on the island of Java, Indonesia. The manuscripts cover the subjects of religion, history, culture, metaphysics, etc, predominantly written in Javanese and Arabic, but including some in Madurese, Indonesian and Malay.

Eap1334_9_1

30 May 2023

EAP Digital Lecture Series

Every now and then, researchers notify us of a conference talk focusing on content digitised by EAP projects. We are always thrilled to be told about these talks and it prompted us to create a digital lecture series of our own. We approached a handful of people, who we knew had worked on EAP content and they, very kindly, agreed to take part.  We have created two themes in the first instance: Narratives within the Archive and Manuscripts on Magic and the links to the individual lectures are below. The presentations are absolutely fascinating and we hope you enjoy listening to them.

Photograph of an archive

Narratives within the Archive

Dr Helga Baitenmann - Hidden Narratives of Indigenous Women in Nineteenth-Century Mexico

Dr Mégane Coulon - Life histories in mid-nineteenth century Freetown, Sierra Leone

Manuscripts on Magic

Eyob Derillo (PhD student) - Ethiopian amulet scrolls, talisman and divination

Professor Fallou Ngom - Healing, Divination, and Protection Techniques in Wolof and Mandinka Manuscripts

Dr Sam van Schaik - Buddhist Magic

Dr Farouk Yahya - Malay Magic and Divination Manuscripts from Indonesia

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the contributors and if you are using EAP content for your own research and would like to notify us, please email us at  [email protected].

30 March 2023

PhD Placement focussing on Manuscripts from West Africa

As a PhD placement student at the British Library, I had the privilege of being part of the Endangered Archives Programme. It allowed me to dive into the rich history and culture of West Africa through its manuscripts, and to play a role in making these unique works accessible to a wider audience. I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with such a talented and supportive team. Initially, I had planned to participate in the PhD placement scheme full-time, but due to unforeseen circumstances, I had to switch to part-time. The team was incredibly supportive and understanding throughout my journey, making the transition smooth and hassle-free.

Nahida Ahmed sits at a restaurant table and smiles at someone out of view
Nahida Ahmed

My initial meetings were with Jody Butterworth (EAP) and Mariam de Haan (Lead Curator Africa), who introduced me to EAP's work in Mali. I was then connected with Sophie Sarin (project holder for the projects in Djenné and Timbuktu) and Saadou Traore (who catalogued the several thousands of manuscripts). I was also introduced to Lucy Hinnie, who trained me on Wikipedia. Through Lucy, I also had the opportunity to attend the University of Edinburgh's "Women in Red" Wikithon online. The aim of this is to highlight and update Wikipedia pages about notable women who were not yet featured on the platform. The idea was also to highlight the rich content of the manuscripts on various pages dedicated to Mali on Wikipedia as well. Whilst this was one of the main aims of the placement, we found out that the Wiki entries would be more suited in the local languages and it was difficult to highlight primary sources on Wikipedia as the encyclopaedic nature of the platform requires context and other reliable published sources talking about the manuscripts. Since this was not the case, we decided to publish a blogpost on the British Library’s website instead.

My PhD placement focused on highlighting digitised manuscripts from West Africa for a West African as well as worldwide audience. Robert Miles, from the EAP team, provided me with the list of “most viewed” manuscripts from Djenné, Senegal and Nigeria, which was helpful in choosing manuscripts to be included in my report. The chosen manuscripts relate to everyday West African Muslim practices such as prayers for getting along with a superior, interpreting dreams, sayings of the Prophet, astronomy, geomancy, prayers for carrying a baby to term and even prayers for cursing the wicked. 

Exploring the manuscripts was an exciting adventure. I was fascinated by the different handwriting styles and unique topics exclusive to West Africa. At first, it was challenging as I had to get used to the anomalies in the authors and scribes' writing styles. For instance, most writers of the manuscripts put the dot of the Arabic letter "fa”/ ف ) under the alphabet instead of above it, and the letter "qaaf/ “ق that usually had two dots on top sometimes had one and at other not even one! I found this to be a consistent  characteristic in all the manuscripts I studied. Another noticeable characteristic common among all the manuscript was  the traditional Muslim opening phrase, Basmalah, which praises Allah and his prophet Muhammad, the equivalent of doxology in Christian practice.

The manuscripts were unique in their own way, and no two were exactly alike. Despite not having page numbers, order of the pages was maintained in some by copying the word of the next page at the bottom of the preceding one. Additionally, some of the text highlighted the name of Allah and Muhammad in red ink. There was also the use of Ajami script, tables and sometimes figures in some manuscripts. For example, "Fā’idat ḍarb al-tis‘at ‘alā al-Shaykh Muḥammad al-Ghazāliy: Esoterics", which I could not decipher due to time constraints and hope that someone else researching the collections will be able to do so in future. I hope that my efforts will help others who are interested in learning about the rich history and literary culture of West Africa.

My report on the manuscripts explored can be found on the EAP website, along with my notes of any anomalies and illegible and ambiguity within the texts. Both these documents will also be added to the Library's digital repository and will hopefully be of interest to future researchers. 

Nahida Ahmed is currently undertaking a PhD titled "Sociolinguistic Study of Wakhi in Urban Areas" at SOAS. The EAP team would like to thank Nahida for all her work over the past few months - it has been an absolute joy having her with us.

06 September 2022

New online - August 2022

We have another four projects that recently went online to highlight this month, including two from Peru:

Manuscripts and Documents at the Biblioteca Generale di Terra Santa: the second step [EAP1142]

This major digitisation project led by Professor Ewa Balicka-Witakowska, followed on from a previous project to digitise manuscripts in the collection of the Biblioteca Generale (BG) at St Saviour Monastery in Old Jerusalem.

The EAP1142 team digitised more than 100,000 pages of manuscripts and documents that date back as far as the 14th century and as recently as the 20th century.

Illustration of a baby on blanket surrounded by a man, a woman, a cow, a donkey, and four angels
Inside cover of Regulation of the Fratri minori, late 19th century [EAP1142/1/1/50]

 

The Ancash Community Archive Digitisation (ACAD) Project, Peru [EAP1325]

Led by Dr Frank Michel Meddens, this pilot project produced a survey of archival material within two communities near the village of Pamparomás, in Peru. In discussions with members of the town council of Pamparomás, three communities with early Spanish colonial foundation settlement (AD 1532-1615) and possible surviving archives were selected for this survey: Chaclancayo, Cosma and Jimbe. Though the latter was considered too remote to investigate in the time available to project members during the 2022 fieldwork season.

The EAP1325 team also digitised a small sample of documents.

Two pictures: Three men and a woman in front of a waterfall. And a shot of a colourful village with a mountain backdrop

 

Traditional Mongolian Script Newspapers at Sukhbaatar District Library (1928-1935) [EAP1391]

This digitisation project followed on from a previous project to digitise Mongolian newspapers written in traditional Mongolian script. Led by Mr Bayasgalan Bayanbat at the Monsound and Vision Foundation, this latest project digitised the following newspaper titles:

The previous project, also led by Bayasgalan, digitised the following newspapers:

The editions concern a wide range of topics, including politics, economy, science, education, international affairs and home affairs.

It is noteworthy that while the traditional Mongolian script title remains consistent in each edition of the newspaper, the Cyrillic script and Latin script variants of the title differ across the collection. This is a sign of the Sovietisation of Mongolia during the 1930s and 40s, including an alteration to the Mongolian language, with the traditional Mongolian script replaced with Cyrillic.

Part of a newspaper page
Ardyn Undesnii Erkh (28 December 1935), EAP1391/1/2/232

 

19th-century documents from the Peruvian asylum el Manicomio del Cercado [EAP1402]

In another Peruvian project, Ms Irène Favier led a major project that digitised a collection of damaged 19th century medical documents from the Cercado asylum. The documents span from 1859-1920 and include:

3 women digitising a large volume
The EAP1402 project team

 

 

22 June 2022

New online - June 2022

We have another 4 new projects online to bring to your attention. This time from Indonesia, Iran, India, and West Africa:

Bima Manuscripts [EAP988]

Led by Dr Titik Pudjiastuti, this pilot project digitised 205 manuscripts that represent the history and culture of Bima - one of the provinces in Nusa Tenggara Barat, in the eastern part of Sumabawa Island, Indonesia.

In 2016, these manuscripts survived an avalanche and flood that affected the region. And this project has gone some way to helping protecting the manuscripts against future natural disasters.

Manuscript page
Bismillahirrahmanirrahiim [A treatise of the spirits (Ruh)], EAP988/1/1

Zoroastrian historical documents and Avestan manuscripts [EAP1014]

This major project was led by Dr Saloumeh Gholami. It digitised 11 manuscripts containing more than 8,000 pages. It also digitised more than 15,000 historical, economic, and legal documents regarding the religious minority of Zoroastrians in Iran.

The collection came to light in February 2016 in a Zoroastrian house in the Priests' Quarter [Maḥalle-ye dastūrān] in Yazd in Iran. Arabab Mehraban Poulad, a famous Zoroastrian merchant from a priest family, had accumulated and archived his own documents and Avestan manuscripts as well as the documents of his father and grandfather over the course of his lifetime. This collection now belongs to his grandchild Mehran Pouladi.

A Man digitising a manuscript with a scanner
The EAP1014 team digitising the archive.

Private records of leading business families of Early Colonial Bengal [EAP1104]

Led by Dr Tridibsantapa Kundu, this major project digitised the private records of 11 leading business families of colonial Bengal. This project built on the EAP906 pilot project, also led by Dr Tridibsantapa Kundu, where 25 business families were approached and a survey of the various collections was produced.

These collections are important for understanding the Bengali business community and their strategies in dealing with the English East India Company and the British Raj.

A bank cheque
Cheque or money receipt issued by King Hamilton & Co., EAP1104/9/3

 

Pulaar Islamic Texts: Six Archives of the Taal Families in Senegal and Mali [EAP1245]

Led by Dr Mohamed Mwamzandi and Dr Samba Camara, this project digitised manuscripts written by some of the most influential Haalpulaar (speakers of Pulaar) Islamic scholars of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Pulaar is a variety of the Fula/Fulani language spoken by over five million people in the West African countries of Senegal, The Gambia, Mauritania, Guinea, and Mali. About 40 million Africans use varieties of the Fula/Fulani language. And you can read more about these manuscripts and the project to digitise them in a blog post written by the project's co-lead, Dr Samba Camara.

A Panorama of two photos. 4 people with digitsation equipment and a view of Mount Tapa from the town of Koniakary
Left image: left to right. Dr. Nzale, Mountaga Ba, Kerry Bannen, and Dr Camara; Right image: A view of the Mount Tapa. in town of Koniakary. in southwestern Mali.

 

08 June 2022

Digitising Haalpulaar Islamic Manuscripts (EAP1245 Project)

This is a guest post by the EAP1245 project co-lead, Dr Samba Camara.

This project digitised Islamic manuscripts written by speakers of the Pulaar language – or the Haalpulaar people – in Senegal and Mali. Pulaar is a variety of the Fula/Fulani language spoken by over five million people in the West African countries of Senegal, The Gambia, Mauritania, Guinea, and Mali. About 40 million Africans use varieties of the Fula/Fulani language.

View of Mount Tapa from town of Koniakary
A view of the Mount Tapa in town of Koniakary in southwestern Mali

The Fuuta Toora region, the Pulaar language, and Islam

The original creators of this project’s 6,000 folios of manuscriptions hailed from Fuuta Tooro, a Pulaar-speaking cultural region situated around the middle of the Senegal River. Fuuta Tooro straddles parts of northern Senegal and southwestern Mauritania. Fuuta Jombuku, a Haalpulaar enclave, exists in southwestern Mali. It was born from the nineteenth-century settlements of Haalpulaar migrants who had followed Al Hajj Umar Taal (ca. 1797-1864) in his campaigns to spread Islam in West Africa. What the Haalpulaar have in common is not just a language. They also share a traditional rootedness in Islam and a distinctive Muslim culture carried in the Pulaar language.

A metal signpost
Signpost in Koniakary indicating location of historic mud waal built in 1855 by Sayku Umar Taal (ca.1797-1864)

Muslim culture and chanting local remembrance poetry

Mawluudu, or the chanting of local remembrance poetry (dhikr), constitutes an integral part of that culture. Professional singers perform mawluudu chant during religious events, such as the commemoration of prophet Muhammad’s birth (mawlud), Islamic graduation ceremonies (ɓaaral, refto), and during welcome ceremonies (teertooji). Modern technology and Internet have taken mawluudu poetry and culture to the media and online. The chanted texts include a panegyric praise poetry in Arabic and in ‘Ajamī (the use of the Arabic script to transcribe foreign languages). Arabic texts were composed by authors, such as Al Hajj Umar Taal, Egypt’s Imam al-Būsīrī, and others from the Tijaniyya Brotherhood. Pulaar ‘Ajamī poems were composed by several scholars of Al Hajj Umar Taal’s school of Tijaniyya in Fuuta Tooro and beyond. The texts extoll the attributes of God (Allāh), Islamic prophet Muhammad, and Algerian-born Ahmad al-Tījānī. The latter founded the Muslim Brotherhood of Tijaniyya to which the authors of this project’s manuscripts belong.

The digitisation project and team

Raised in Fuuta Tooro, Dr. Samba Camara, who is this project’s initiator, grew up listening to mawluudu, knowing some popular poems by heart like many Haalpulaar people.

In the EAP1245 project, Dr. Samba Camara collaborated with his UNC colleague Dr. Mohamed Mwamzandi and UNC digitization specialist Kerry Bannen to locate and digitise the written source of Haalpulaar Muslim culture. The effort was not only to preserve manuscripts from precarious storage conditions that exposed them to dust, termite, rain, natural fading, wear, and tear; but also, to facilitate their access and study by scholars of West African literature, popular music, and Islam.

The project’s field work began in 2019, shortly after the projects Principal Investigators were awarded a Major Project Award by the British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme to digitise Haalpulaar manuscripts. The team undertook three field trips to Senegal: in October 2019, December 2020, and June 2021. Unfortunately, the delays in the final trip, due to Covid-19 travel restrictions, hindered the digitization of several Pulaar ‘Ajamī materials in Fuuta Tooro.

Six people standing by digitisation equipment in discussion
Left to right: UNC Digitisation Specialist Kerry Bannen, Dr. Samba Camara, Dr. Delivrance Nzal, Dr. Mohamed Mwamzandi, Mr Cheikh O. Tall, and Warc Director Dr. Ousmane Sene, at Team studio at WARC

In Dakar, the team took base in two studio bases – in the West African Research Center and at Ceerno Madani Taal’s residence – and photographed manuscripts collected from different locations in Fuuta Tooro region.

The team’s collection of local Islamic manuscripts in Fuuta was facilitated by Ceerno Madani Taal who made his library available to us along with a team of scholars to help with metadata production. The team benefitted from a preliminary research trip in 2018 to Koniakari (Mali) facilitated by regionally celebrated Ceerno Hamidou Bane. Director of the West African Research Center Ousmane Sene and his team, our research assistants Mountaga Ghali Ba, Oumar Sy, Seydou Nourou Ly, Abdoulaye Barry, Dr. Delivrance Nzale, and archivist Cheikh Oumar Tall brought immense support to this project.

The collection of Ceerno Madani Tall

Ceerno Madani Taal is the current custodian of the manuscripts recorded under his name and collected from his Dakar residence in Medina. The collection includes 11manuscripts in total. Ceerno Madani Taal’s collection is housed at his residence and includes unbound and bound manuscripts for a total of 4090 folios. The manuscripts were originally under the custodianship of Ceerno Seydou Nourou Taal (1880-1980). Upon his death, Ceerno Mountaga Tall (1914-2007) took over custodianship. Then, he passed on the library to Ceerno Madani Taal. The manuscripts are stored in leather folders and kept at Ceerno Madani Taal’s family library in Medina. The project’s metadata reveals that eight of the 11 manuscripts were composed by Al Hajj Umar Taal. The other three were authored by Haalpulaar scholars Shaykh Ahmad Ndiaye (aka Demba Raabi), Muhammad al-Jamrābal Mu’adh al- Fūta Jalūwī, and Mountaga Tāl. Al Hajj Umar Taal’s texts include his originals, as well as foreign books originally authored by Arab scholars. The manuscripts are wrapped in leather and cardboard folders, stored at Ceerno Madani Taal’s family library. The texts cover assorted topics about general Islamic education, Qur’an exegesis, panegyric poetry, hagiography, and the expansion of Islam. Texts also cover Tijaniyya teachings based on the text of founder Ahmad al-Tījānī and the well-known Imam Mālik’s al-Muwatta concerning Islamic law about marriage, trade relations, food and goods, lands and land-related law, civil and human rights, collective property, and leadership.

The collection of Mountaga Ba

Mountaga Ba is the current custodian of the manuscripts recorded in his name and collected from the town of Pate Galo (northern Senegal). Ba’s family holding includes 54 small unbound book manuscripts and loose folios. The material was mostly authored by the custodian’s father, Muhammad al-Ghāli Bā who, during his lifetime had occupied important political and religious positions in both Senegal and Mauritania. In Senegal, al-Ghāli Ba was the biographer and member of the entourage of supreme leader (Khalif-General) of the Taal branch of Tijaniyya and he worked with both Ceerno Saydu Nuuru Taal and Mountaga Taal. In Mauritania, he was an adviser to Moktar Ould Daddah, the president of Mauritania from 1960 to 1978 and worked with the country’s national radio at the latter’s request. During his stay there, he authored several manuscripts documenting socioeconomic and political life in Mauritania. The manuscripts document al-Ghāli Bā’s lifework. The files are of varying sizes, ranging from manuscripts as big as 150 pages to short texts of only three folios in length. The book manuscripts cover Islamic sciences, history, Islamic education in Pulaar speaking society, praise poetry, Sufism, and several biographies of Sufis of the Tijaniyya brotherhood. The folios contain Islamic praise poems, correspondences and, sometimes, a mixture of both. The correspondence was written and/or received during religious and secular occasions. Majority of the manuscripts were composed by Muhammad al-Ghāli Ba (d.1991) of Pate Galo. Some other folios were authored by Mamad al- Amīn Āj, Sall Ahmad Al Hajj, Abubakr Sī, Mountaga Ba, and a few unknown authors.

Three people digitisting manuscripts
Dr. Samba Camara, Dr. Mwamzandi, and Mountaga Ba digitising at Studio at WARC

The collection of Oumar Sy

Oumar Sy is the custodian of the manuscripts recorded in his name. Oumar Sy’s collection differs from the above collections in that it is comparatively recent – beginning in the 1980s – and was composed in Pulaar `Ajamī. The Sy collection includes ten small unbound manuscripts and folios. The material was mostly authored by Oumar Sy, and some of the files are copies of famous mawluudu songs originally composed by celebrated local poets, such as Oumar Sy’s teacher, Hamet Sy. A small set of unbound Arabic folios was authored by the custodian's friend, Ahmed Tijān Bah. The files are of varying sizes, ranging from manuscripts as big as fifty pages to works of two folios in length. The manuscripts are praise poems in panegyric style.

Today, the manuscripts in the EAP1245 collections constitute a living Haalpulaar culture. The locals’ engagement with the manuscripts has given the texts a continuity of modern social life through time.

31 March 2021

New online - March 2021

This month we have a special Southeast Asia edition of our regular round-up blogs to let you know what’s newly available on the EAP website.

EAP855 - Preserving the archival records of the early history of the Iglesia Filipina Independente

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This project digitised records related to the early history of the Iglesia Filipina Independente (IFI), a Filipino Catholic movement for religious independence from Rome. They are a significant resource of documents of anti-colonial self-assertion and religious emancipation in Asia at the turn of the century.

The IFI was founded in August 1902 through the activities of the Filipino intellectual, Isabelo de los Reyes (1864–1938) and the former Catholic priest, Gregorio Aglipay (1860–1940). The split with Rome occurred partly due to the mistreatment of Filipinos by Spanish priests, and the execution of three native priests during the Cavite mutiny in 1872, and was further exacerbated during the Philippines Revolution.

The materials document the process of negotiation between the needs of a local elite and the administration of two subsequent colonial powers. They also document an important part of the early history of transregional and transcontinental interaction between different non-missionary Christian movements in different parts of Asia, and are an early sign of a developing pan-Asianism at the turn of the century.

EAP1005 - Digitisation of the Endangered Cham Manuscripts in Vietnam

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This project is a continuation of two earlier projects (EAP531 and EAP698) to help identify, preserve, and digitise manuscripts held by Cham communities in Vietnam. The project team visited the households of 33 different families from villages in the provinces of Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan and helped preserve their manuscripts whilst digitising many of them. 464 manuscripts were digitised in total, adding to the 507 already digitised in the preceding projects.

The project team also created this short film which demonstrates the sort of work that this project and many others carry out in the field.

EAP1029 - Sundanese Manuscripts of Paseban Tri Panca Tunggal Collections

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The manuscripts collection of Paseban Tri Panca Tunggal contains handwritten documents by Prince Madrais Sadewa Alibassa Kusuma Wijaya Ningrat (1832-1939). He wrote the manuscripts from the late 1800s until the mid-1900s during Dutch colonial rule. He was a leading figure in the anti-colonial movement and was involved in various insurgencies against the colonial government. He also guided his followers in spiritual matters such as the ‘ultimate goal of life’, sampuraning hirup, sajaning pati (to achieve perfection in life, then to attain the genuine death).

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