Seminar Saharan Family Archives On Race And Religion

Pr. Aomar Boum (University of California Los Angeles, UCLA) 

Pr. Ali Benmakhlouf (CAS/UM6P)

December 12, 2024

UM6P Campus – Benguerir

Unlike the general colonial perception that (pre)-Saharan Northwest African oases had virtually no Islamic intellectual heritage, the corpus of personal family manuscripts highlight a long history of Islamic learning and intellectual production in the region. After the gradual adoption of Islam by local populations in pre-Saharan and sub-Saharan regions and the steady Islamization of urban and rural societies, writing and paper became a significant part of learning in the region. Paper manuscripts were circulated across Saharan, pre-Saharan and West African communities with the increasing arrivals of Islamic merchants. Yet, and unlike Timbuktu where many private libraries have been saved thanks to the efforts of international organization and digitization, personal family libraries in southern Moroccan and Mauritanian oases are still threatened by temperature variations, termites, lack of scientific conservation and sand dunes. In this talk, I highlight indigenous cases of Islamic conservation in the absence of state initiatives and support.