Ajami script for the Mande languages

A Typology of West African Ajami Manuscripts: Languages, Layout and Research Perspectives, 2021

In the process of creating their manuscripts, the scribes in West Africa had two linguistic sets-Arabic and non-Arabic (Ajami)-and they had to visually express these repertoires following the logic of interplay between these different sets. The suggested classification of Ajami manuscripts tries to follow this logic. Besides establishing formal types, the classification provides a glimpse into specific cultural domains that generated different types of manuscripts and suggests research perspectives and methods of study relevant to each type.

Journal of Islamic Studies , 2021

Applying network analysis on five Ibadi siyar, from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, with each one representing roughly one century, Love has written a unique history of the Ibadi community in North Africa in the Middle Period. Its uniqueness stems from the relationships Love was able to map out among Ibadi scholars throughout centuries and across regions, between scholars (human network) and manuscripts (written network), between the Ibadi communities and the non-Ibadi Muslim ones, between Ibadi history and the broader North African and Islamic histories, and between the construction of the Ibadi tradition in the past and the invention of Ibadi tradition in the present.

Islamic Africa

African ʿAjamī literatures hold a wealth of knowledge on the history and intellectual traditions of the region but are largely unknown to the larger public. Our special issue seeks to enhance a broader understanding of this important part of the Islamic world, exploring the ʿAjamī literatures and literacies of four main language groups of Muslim West Africa: Hausa, Mandinka, Fula, and Wolof. Through increasing access to primary sources in ʿAjamī and utilizing an innovative multimedia approach, our research contributes to an interpretive and comparative analysis of African ʿAjamī literacy, with its multiple purposes, forms, and custodians. Our Editorial Introduction to the special issue discusses the building blocks and historical development of ʿAjamī cultures in West Africa, outlines the longitudinal collaborative research initiatives that our special issue draws upon, and explores the challenges and opportunities for participatory knowledge-making that accompany the rise of digita...

Journal of Qur'anic Studies, 2013

AFRICAN RESEARCH ANDDOCUMENTATION, 2007

Cahiers D Etudes Africaines, 2004

The present study of the Baghayogho 1 family covers a particular aspect of the Mande diaspora namely the history of a particular family involved as agent for the expansion of Islam in West Africa 2. Previous work on the Wangara took me to Djenné, Timbuktu, the Wasulu, the Ivory Coast and Ghana, with some sources pointing even to Nigeria and Benin 3. I became interested in the Baghayogho family and its diaspora in West Africa through their last representatives in Timbuktu. In writing the history of this particular family I would like to establish a model dyamou-history-and plan to follow up with others. Third, as the Baghayogho are closely tied to the propagation of Islam in West Africa, I aim to demonstrate their strategy. It appears that during his jihad against the kharedjite dynasty of Sonni Ali, Mohammed Askia and his Muslim advisors designed a strategy to convert the animists which was further elaborated during and after his pilgrimage to Mecca; the strategy was based on the century-old Wangara long-distance trade network used for the penetration and establishment of Muslim colonies in the south through the conversion of traditional ritual practitioners of the Komo, with their knowledge of divination, magic and sorcery, and their adoption into what I may call a "maraboutic" Islam. This led to a first wave of conviction or conversion of chiefs 4. I have previously shown the early spread of Islam through the Wangara network to have occurred 1. In general-except in quotations-I followed the full spelling in the Tarikh es-Sudan, which writes Baghayogho, with double ghain, but occasionally drops the second inter-vocalic gh to yield Baghayo'o. 2. "Mande diaspora": I have shown the Wangara to have Soninke roots, but through the assimilation of the latter into the Mande mainstream-where they are designated as Marka, or Dafin-they can be considered today as part of the wider Mande culture. 3. See MASSING (2000), for a discussion of the sources referring to Gâna and Wangara. 4. These maraboutic practices are still widespread. In 1969, I witnessed myself how such a Molly man tried to convince a chief in a Gola village, at the Sierra Leone-Liberia border, of the powers of Islam by healing his wife with a combination of charms and verses taken from a Koran, written on a tabloid with ink and washed off with water.

ʿAjamī (also Ajami or A{jami, hereafter Ajami) comes from the Arabic ʿajam, which originally denoted obscure or incomprehensible speech, unclear or improper Arabic, or non-Arab or foreigner. The term evokes a whole family of literary traditions in various languages, spanning Africa but also including historical traditions of Islamic Spain (al-Andalus). Each language with an Ajami tradition has its own name for the practice, which may be derived from the same root (e.g., ki-ajamiya in Swahili, aljamiado in the Spanish of alAndalus) or may use indigenous names (e.g., wolofal in Wolof ). Today, Ajami generally refers to African languages written in a modified Arabic script.

The review examines languages on the African continent which employ the Arabic-based script in the various patterns of adaptation, grammatology and spheres of use. It convincingly shows that Africa was never after all a 'DARK CONTINENT' lacking in literacy and numeracy before the European Colonialism and the so-called 'Enlightenment and Civilisational Drive'.

The Arabic script in Africa: Studies in the use of a writing system. Meikal Mumin, Kees Versteeg (eds.). , 2014

BSOAS 75, 2012

History Compass, 2019

This article focuses on the digital preservation of African sources written in Mandinka ʿAjamī, i.e. the enriched form of the Arabic script used to write the Mandinka language for centuries. ʿAjamī writing has been utilized to document intellectual traditions, histories, belief systems, and cultures of non-Arab Muslims around the world. ʿAjamī texts have played critical roles in the spread of Islam in Africa and continue to be used for both religious and non-religious writings. However, African ʿAjamī texts such as those of the Mandinka people of Casamance in southern Senegal are not well known beyond local communities. ʿAjamī texts in Mandinka and other Mande languages are among the least documented. Only a few Mande ʿAjamī texts are available to scholars. Thanks to the British Library's Endangered Archives Programme (EAP), Africa's rich written heritage in ʿAjamī and other scripts previously unavailable to academics is being preserved and made universally accessible.

Six XIX-th century samples of writings works from Archi village of Daghestan in IN THE ARCHI ARABIC AND AVAR LANGUAGES with traslation into English