The trans-Saharan book trade manuscript culture, Arabic literacy and intellectual history in Muslim Africa (Brill, 2011)
A historic geography of the trans-Saharan trade / Eric Ross -- A thirst for knowledge : Arabic literacy, writing paper, and Saharan bibliophiles in Southwestern Sahara / Ghislaine Lydon -- The paper trade of Egypt and the Sudan in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and its re-export to the Bilad as-Sudan / Terence Walz -- The historic "core curriculum" and the book market in Islamic West Africa / Bruce S. Hall and Charles C. Stewart -- The book and the nature of knowledge in Muslim Northern Nigeria, 1457-2007 / Murray Last -- Literary culture and Arabic manuscripts in 19th-century Ilorin / Stefan Reichmuth -- An overview of major manuscript libraries in Timbuktu / Abdel Kader Haidara -- Information and communication technologies for the preservation and valorization of manuscript collections in Morocco / Said Ennahid -- Coming to terms with tradition : manuscript conservation in contemporary Algeria / Judith Scheele -- Camel to kilobytes : preserving the cultural heritage of the trans-Saharan book trade / Graziano Krätli
As the manuscript treasures in the libraries of Timbuktu and throughout the northwestern quarter of Africa become known, many questions are raised. How did a manuscript culture flourish in the Sahara and in Muslim Africa more generally? Under what conditions did African intellectuals thrive, and how did they acquire scholarly works and the writing paper necessary to contribute to knowledge? By exploring the history of the trans-Saharan book and paper trades, the scholarly production and teaching curricula of African Muslims and the formation, preservation and codicology of library collections, the authors of this original volume provide a variety of answers. The select number of invited contributions represents current research in the material, technological, economic, and cultural dimensions of manuscript production, circulation, and preservation, and the development of specific scholarly and intellectual traditions in Saharan and Sudanic Africa