The Area Studies paradigm that emerged in the United States in the late 1950s surely fostered research on parts of the world that had traditionally been neglected in academia. Among these was the Africa continent, the quintessential “otherness” in Western imagination, as Valentin Y. Mudimbe demonstrates in his seminal The Invention of Africa. Footnote 1 Scholars such as Paul Zeleza and, more recently, Jean M. Allman have pointed out how the narrative that portrays the emergence of the Area Studies programs as the starting point of academic scholarship on Africa in fact silences a longer history of African American investment in knowledge production on the continent, which was based in historically black colleges and universities in North America.Footnote 2 Less strong has been the critique of another feature of this powerful narrative, which was informed by racialized discourses on Africa in the American academy and society; citing Zeleza, “Africa was black, tropical, trapped, as Hegel decreed, on the bosoms of the ‘underdeveloped, unhistorical spirit.’”Footnote 3 A consequence of this approach, John O. Voll remarks, has been the severing of North Africa from the rest of the continent.Footnote 4 Hence, in the words of Mervat Hatem, “the study of the continent was bifurcated between two fields, African and Middle East studies. African studies focused on sub-Saharan Africa; North Africa was the purview of Middle East.”Footnote 5
In the past two decades, the Area Studies paradigm has been put under scrutiny.Footnote 6 In particular, studies on the Indian Ocean networks and on the historical interactions within the Islamic World demonstrated the frailty of these artificial boundaries.Footnote 7 In addition, studies centered on the Sahara, as a space in itself and an interface that connects North Africa and Africa south of the Sahara, and not as a boundary, have started to blossom in recent years, as demonstrated by interdisciplinary volumes Saharan Frontiers and Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time. Footnote 8 Yet, some of the detrimental effects of “decapitation” of the continent are still affecting the study of African history. I refer here to the absence in the toolkit of the “Africanist” of training in the Arabic language, which remains indispensable for the specialist of the Middle East and North Africa; and, vice versa, in the dearth of interest in the histories of African societies south of the Sahara by scholars at home with Arabic, who tend to focus on regions north and east of the great desert.Footnote 9
Recent works such as Ghislaine Lydon’s On Trans-Saharan Trails or Chouki El Hamel’s Black Morocco are a testimony of the potential of studying African history across the Sahara and are contemporary counterparts of the pioneering work The Golden Trade of the Moors by Edward W. Bovill.Footnote 10 Historically, in particular, Morocco and West Africa have been inextricably connected, as testified, for example, by two edited collections published by the vibrant Institut des Etudes Africaines of the Université Mohammed V-Souissi of Rabat.Footnote 11 Cognizant of this historical connections, I conducted archival research in Morocco in the summer of 2019 with the goal of sampling local libraries in search for relevant documentation, in manuscript format, on West African history. An outcome of this archival research, this article has two goals. Empirically, it showcases the wealth of primary sources on the history of West Africa south of the Sahara that is available in Morocco. At the same time, from a theoretical perspective, this article argues against the fictitious, rather harmful division of the continent into two discrete regions, separated by the Saharan desert.
I focus specifically on manuscripts housed at the two most important libraries of Morocco: The Bibliothèque Royale Hasaniyya / al-Khizāna al-Ḥasaniyya (henceforth KhḤ) and the Bibliothèque Nationale du Royaume du Maroc / al-Maktaba al-Waṭāniyya li-l-Mamlakat al-Maghribiyya (henceforth BNRM), both in Rabat.Footnote 12 In these two archives, I have identified two clusters of manuscripts that are useful to support my argument:
-
1) “Earlier Materials” (c. fifteenth to seventeenth century), which comprises the writings of al-Maghīlī (d. 1503–4 or 1504–5); evidence of the Moroccan conquest of the Niger Bend of the late sixteenth-century; and the works of some the members of the Timbuktu-based scholarly family of the Aqīt, including Aḥmad Bābā, and of the descendants and the students of Aḥmad Bābā’s renowned teacher Muḥammad Baghayogho (d. 1594).
-
2) “The Kunta, the Qādirī-Tijānī dispute; and other Fulani scholars” (c. eighteenth to nineteenth century), which comprises the works of several scholars of the prominent Kunta clan from the Azawād; manuscript evidence on the heated debates between the members of the Qādiriyya and the Tijāniyya Sufi brotherhoods, including works of the peripatetic intellectual and political figure al-ḥājj ‘Umar Tall (d. 1864); writings of other Fulani scholars from West Africa.
As a final remark, I want to stress the preliminary nature of this article. I do not aim to be exhaustive. I have worked only with the available catalogues, which only partially cover the holdings of KhḤ and BNRM. Furthermore, my enquiry was dictated by my own research agenda.Footnote 13 Hence, this article provides only a glimpse of the richness of Moroccan archival sources and aims at encouraging further research in Morocco and, more generally, in North African archives to widen our corpus of primary sources on West African history. At the same times, this article also contributes to a critique of the Areas Studies paradigm and advocates for a continental approach to African history.
The Archives and Method
The two libraries I visited have very different histories: the first, the Bibliothèque Royale Hasaniyya / al-Khizāna al-Ḥasaniyya, is a four-centuries old institution tied to the establishment of the ‘Alawī dynasty (1631–present) of Morocco; and the second, the Bibliothèque Nationale du Royaume du Maroc / al-Maktaba al-Waṭāniyya li-l-Mamlakat al-Maghribiyya traces its roots to the French colonial period.
Libraries in Morocco have a long history, as Latifa Benjelloun-Laroui remarks in her history of the Moroccan libraries,
The rulers of Morocco, regardless the dynasty they belonged to, were cultivated men, often sophisticate literati, consummate jurists, skillful theologians, even established and experienced mathematicians. Well before their accession to power, while only princes and representative of their fathers, they had at their disposal libraries to which the scholars of the royal court had access and where they could find rare manuscripts to improve their collections.Footnote 14
Hence, since the very early history of Moroccan dynasties, direct and indirect evidences point to the slow but steady emergence of libraries attached to the royal palaces.Footnote 15 The KhḤ was created by the founder of the ‘Alawī dynasty itself, Mūlāy al-Rashīd (d. 1672), described by Ahmed-Chouqi Binebine, as “a scholar and a patron.”Footnote 16 The ruler sized libraries of local zāwiyas (Sufi lodges and centers of learning) and that of the defeated Sa‘adī dynasty (1549–1659) to create the embryo of the KhḤ in Fès and enriched it with books copied on his behalf. The library then expanded with further purchases, copies, requisitions and moved to the different palaces, first in Meknès and then in Marrakesh. Eventually, it was moved in 1961 by the king Ḥassan II (d. 1999) in Rabat, where it is located today, and became accessible in 1962 to researchers.Footnote 17 Currently located in the royal palace, the KhḤ holds c. 45,000 works in 15,000 manuscripts, not including archival documents, lithographs, and printed books.Footnote 18 An ongoing process of cataloguing resulted in the publication of 13 thematic cataloguesFootnote 19 and a general index.Footnote 20
As for the BNRM, it was founded as the Bibliothèque Générale with public access in 1919, only seven years after the establishment of the French Protectorate on Morocco (which lasted until 1956).Footnote 21 The first Resident-General, Hubert Lyautey (d. 1917), decided to open a public library in the newly established capital in Morocco, as part of the broader plan of documenting Moroccan history, which involved several activities, including the opening of the Institut des Hautes Etudes Marocaines and publication of famous journals such as the Hespéris: Archives Berbères et Bulletin de l’Institut des Hautes-Études Marocaines (published today as Hesperis-Tamuda).Footnote 22 Renamed in 1926 as Bibiothèque Générale et Archives, the BNRM eventually assumed its current name in 2003.Footnote 23 A 2007 estimate refers to c. 13,000 manuscripts with 34,000 titles as the holdings of the Department d’archives et des manuscrits of BNRM—and the number refers only to actual works and not archival documents.Footnote 24 These manuscripts entered the BNRM via purchases, donations, pious endowments (ḥubūs), and confiscations.Footnote 25
At the BNRM, I focused specifically on five collections, marked with the Arabic letters:
-
• Dāl—which stands for dhakhīrat al-maktaba or “library holdings.” This collection comprises the manuscripts that were in the possession of the BNRM when it opened, plus later additionsFootnote 26
-
• Kāf—from ʿAbd al-Ḥāyy al-Kattānī (d. 1962–1963) whose library was confiscated in 1956 and deposited at the BNRMFootnote 27
-
• Qāf—from awqāf or “pious endowments” and includes, among others, manuscripts from the Zāwiya of the Nāṣīriyya brotherhood in Tamgrūt, from the Grand Mosques of Rabat and MeknésFootnote 28
-
• Ḥā’—from Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Ḥajwī (d. 1956) whose library was also confiscated after Moroccan independence and deposited to the BNRMFootnote 29
-
• Jīm Kāf – from Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar al-Kattānī (d. 1927), whose descendants donated these manuscripts to the BNRMFootnote 30
In what follows, I will present the most important document concerning West African history that I have analyzed in KhḤ and BNRM. For each work, I refer in the footnote to the
-
1) call number;
-
2) entry in the KhḤ and BNRM catalogues;
-
3) and reference to the multi-volume John O. Hunwick et al., The Arabic Literature of Africa, 5 vols. (Leiden – Boston: Brill, 1993–), specifically to the volumes: John O. Hunwick, The Arabic Literature of Africa. Vol. 2: The Writings of Central Sudanic Africa (Leiden: Brill, 1995) (henceforth ALA II); and John O. Hunwick, The Arabic Literature of Africa. Vol. 4: The Writings of Western Sudanic Africa (Leiden: Brill – Boston, 2003) (henceforth ALA IV).
To identify authors, in the main text I use the name by which each is typically referred to, but for the sake of identification and searchability, I have used in footnotes the form recorded in Hunwick in ALA. In the case of works that appear in the local catalogues with a slightly different title than the one that Hunwick records, I use in the main text the one in the catalogues of KhḤ and BNRM, and in the footnote I will refer to the alternative titled listed in ALA. Lastly, I will only list in footnotes the existing translations into English and French of the manuscripts that I analyze, when existing, but not the Arabic editions, which are listed by Hunwick in ALA.
Earlier Materials (c. Fifteenth–c. Seventeenth Centuries)
The Works of al-Maghīlī
The KhḤ and the BNRM preserve a large corpus of works by Muḥammad b. ‘Abd al-Karīm al-Maghīlī.Footnote 31 Born in Tlemçen on the Mediterranean shores of contemporary Algeria sometime in the middle of the fifteenth century, this controversial scholar exemplifies the connection between North Africa and the regions south of the Sahara. Al-Maghīlī travelled extensively in West Africa after his disputes with other North African jurists concerning the status of the Jewish community in Tamentit. This dispute is represented by several copies of the al-Maghīlī’s Ta’līf fī-mā yajib ‘alà al-muslimīn min ijtināb al-kuffār, a polemical work in which the Saharan jurist argues that the prosperous conditions of Jews of Tuwāt was against the principle of abasement of the dhimma (protection).Footnote 32
Some of the entries of the KhḤ and the BNRM confuse the Ta’līf with another of al-Maghīlī’s treatise, the Misbāḥ al-arwāḥ fī uṣūl al-falāḥ, which includes similar arguments but also questions associated to tawhīd (theology) and ma‘rifa (gnosis).Footnote 33 The latter work is lost and only known in the extensive passages quoted by another North African scholar, Ibrāhīm b. Hilālī al-Sijilmāsī (d. 1497), who wrote his “notes” (taqāyīd), available in its only extant copy at BRNM, in refutation of the arguments of the Misbāḥ. Footnote 34 Al-Maghīlī also composed a qaṣīda (poem) in rhyme dāl against the Jews of Tuwāt.Footnote 35
In West Africa, al-Maghīlī stayed at the court of Gao, the capital of the Songhay Empire, where he wrote the famous “Replies” to the king Askiyà al-ḥājj Muḥammad (d. 1538), which is very widespread in West Africa but not available in the Moroccan archives I visited.Footnote 36 Prior to stay Gao, in the 1490s, al-Maghīlī visited the Hausa city-states of Kano and Katsina. During his time in Hausaland, he wrote two other treatises of advice to Muḥammad Rumfa (r. 1463–1499), king of Kano. One of these treatises, the Risāla fī umūr al-salṭana (also known with different names such as the Tāj al-dīn fī-mā yajib ‘alà al-mulūk min al-istiqāma wa-l-‘adl wa-l-naẓr fī al-maṣāliḥ), is available at BNRM.Footnote 37
Among the other works of al-Maghīlī, unrelated to his stay in West Africa, are two other works preserved in Morocco, namely the only copy of a sharḥ (commentary) he wrote on an influential treatise in verses on logic he had previously composed, which is titled Mināḥ al-Wahhāb fī radd al-fikr ‘alà al-ṣawāb,Footnote 38 and a treatise on kalām (speculative theology) only available at KhḤ.Footnote 39
The Moroccan Conquest of the Niger Bend
While the case of al-Maghīlī exemplifies the intellectual exchanges between North African scholars and West African nobles, the history of the two shores of the Sahara is also characterized by moments of tension and violence. One such instance is the Moroccan conquest of the Niger Bend and the Songhay Empire, a pivotal event symbolically marked by the Battle of Tondibi (13 March 1591), a location 30 miles north of the capital city Gao.Footnote 40 Surprisingly, this event in the history of West Africa has left few traces in the North African archives that I have explored, as I have only found two relevant manuscripts in the KhḤ and BNRM.
The first is the only existing copy of letter from the Moroccan king Aḥmad al-Manṣūr listed with the descriptive title: Kitāb Aḥmad al-Manṣūr li-ahl Fās yukhbiruhum bi-fatḥ bilād al-Sūdān, meaning “Letter from Aḥmad al-Manṣūr to the people of Fez informing them about the conquest of the Land of the Blacks”Footnote 41—which is in fact composed by the head of the court chancery ‘Abd al-‘Azīz al-Fishtālī (d. 1621).Footnote 42 This letter represents a piece of an extensive documentary corpus of correspondence concerning the Moroccan conquest of the Niger Bend that awaits full examination.Footnote 43
The second is an incomplete copy of the famous Timbuktu chronicle known as the Tārīkh al-Sūdān, which was written in seventeenth century by al-Sa‘dī (d. after 1655–1656).Footnote 44 This chronicle extensively covers the events of the Moroccan conquest of the Songhay Empire, and the KhḤ copy is potentially a relevant manuscript, as it was not used by Octave V. Houdas in his Arabic edition and translation into French, nor by Hunwick in his translation of Tārīkh al-Sūdān into the English.
Aḥmad Bābā, the Aqīt, and the Baghayogho
A consequence of the Moroccan conquest of the Songhay Empire was the capture and exile of several notables of Timbuktu who were taken as captives in North Africa.Footnote 45 Hence, it comes as no surprise that the West African scholar most represented in the KhḤ and the BNRM is Aḥmad Bābā of Timbuktu (d. 1826).Footnote 46 Aḥmad Bābā, who acquired important fame during his forced stay in Morocco between 1594 and 1608, belonged to the Berber family of the Aqīt who emerged in Timbuktu in the second half of the fifteenth century as a prominent scholarly lineage of the city. The earliest member of the Aqīt to become a renowned scholar was Maḥmūd b. ‘Umar Aqīt (d. 1548), who was the qāḍī of Timbuktu.Footnote 47 Maḥmūd b. ‘Umar Aqīt is remembered as the one who introduced in Timbuktu the teaching of the famous manual of jurisprudence the Mukhtaṣar (Abridgment) of Khalīl b. Isḥāq (d. 1365).Footnote 48 Testimony of his engagement with this important work is a commentary (A. Ḥāshiyya) of the Mukhtaṣar, which is preserved only at the KhḤ.Footnote 49
Son of Maḥmūd b. ‘Umar Aqīt’s brother, Aḥmad Bābā contributed to numerous fields of Islamic sciences with several works, some of which are available in Moroccan libraries. Among these are the two famous biographical dictionaries of Mālikī scholars: the Nayl al-ibtihāj bi-taṭrīz al-Dibāj (806 bibliographic entries) and the Kifāyat al-muhtāj li-ma‘rifat man laysa fī al-Dibāj (with 704 entries).Footnote 50 Written while Aḥmad Bābā was in Morocco respectively in 1596 and 1603, these works were composed as supplement to Ibn Farḥūn’s (d. 1397) Dibāj al-mudhahhab fī ma‘rifat a‘yān al-madhhab.
Knowledge and the role of scholars was a topic particularly dear to Aḥmad Bābā. His Tuḥfat al-fuḍalā bi-ba‘ḍ faḍā’il al-‘ulamā’, composed in Morocco in 1603, focuses on the merit of knowledge and the role of ‘ulamā’. Footnote 51 Aḥmad Bābā also explored the issue of the relationship between empirical knowledge and gnosis. The role of scholars, vis-à-vis the prince, repository of political power, is the topic explored in one of his earlier works, completed in Timbuktu 1589, the Jalb al-na‘ma wa-daf‘ al-naqma bi-mujānabat al-ẓalama wa-dhāwī al-ẓulm (also listed as Taqyīd fī-mā jā’a fī taḥdhīr min qurb al-ẓalama wa-maṣāḥabatihim ṭulban li-ḥiṭām al-dunyā), in which Aḥmad Bābā expresses his view on the essential dichotomy between temporal power and religious knowledge.Footnote 52
The bulk of the works composed by the Timbuktu-based scholar pertains to the field of jurisprudence, in which Aḥmad Bābā excelled. Most famous is his 1615 fatwà on slavery titled Mi‘rāj al-ṣu‘ūd ilà nayl ḥukm mujallab al-sūd, represented in multiple copies.Footnote 53 Composed in Timbuktu, in this legal opinion Aḥmad Bābā argues against a racial argument widespread among slave traders across the Sahara that every Black Africans was enslavable regardless of his/her being a Muslim.Footnote 54 Besides the legal arguments, this work also bears witness of another facet of the relationship between North and West Africa, which is the history of the enslavement of dark-skinned Africans and their forced relocation from the regions south of the Sahara into those north of the desert.Footnote 55
Most of Aḥmad Bābā’s writings in the field of jurisprudence are derivative works from classical Muslim jurists. For example, he penned a commentary on the al-I‘lām bi-ḥudūd qawā‘id al-Islam by al-qāḍī ‘Iyād (d. 1149)Footnote 56 and other one on Abū Zayd ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Ru‘qī’s (d. 1554-5) versification of the Muqaddima by Ibn Rushd “the grandfather” (d. 1126).Footnote 57 However, the work Aḥmad Bābā commented most upon was the Mukhtaṣar of Khalīl on which he wrote several derivative pieces, namely the 1606 Ta‘līq ‘alà qawl Khalīl fī ākhar al-khayār “wa-khayr al-mushtarī”, which focuses on trade;Footnote 58 as well as the numerous pieces on marriage-related subjects: the 1583 Tanbīh al-wāqif ‘alà taḥqīq “wa-khaṣṣaṣat niyyat al-ḥālif”;Footnote 59 and its later abridgment, the Irshād al-wāqif li-ma‘nà “wa-khaṣṣaṣat niyyat al-ḥālif”, composed in 1605;Footnote 60 the Anfas al-a‘lāq fī fatḥ al-istighlāq min fahm kalam Khalīl fī darak an-ṣadāq dated 1606 and composed in Morocco;Footnote 61 the Ifhām al-sāmi‘ bi-ma‘nà qawl Khalīl fi al-nikāḥ bi-l-manāfi‘;Footnote 62 Fatḥ al-Razzāq fī mas’alat al-shaq fī al-ṭalāq, written in Morocco in 1606;Footnote 63 the very early work al-Maqṣid al-kafīl bi-ḥalla muqfal Khalīl, dated to 1583 and of which the only extant copy is at the BNRM;Footnote 64 and its 1609 gloss titled Minan al-rabb al-jalīl bi-bayān muhimmāt Khalīl, which includes also multiple issues of jurisprudence.Footnote 65
In the field of jurisprudence, Aḥmad Bābā was also active in the debate on the legality of the consumption and trade of tobacco, which, by the early seventeenth-century, was a new commodity in the Islamic world that in fact reached North Africa from the Guinea Gulf and Timbuktu.Footnote 66 A fervent supporter of the opinion that tobacco is a ḥalāl plant, he wrote on this topic in prose in his al-Lam‘ fī al-ishāra li-ḥukm al-tibgh written in 1607 in Tamgrūt while on his way back to Timbuktu, in response to a request of a local scholar;Footnote 67 and in verses, the Qaṣīda qāfiyya fī sharb al-dukhān Footnote 68 and the Manẓūma fī intishār tābigha. Footnote 69
Aḥmad Bābā also contributed to the field of Grammar, with a very early work dated 1583, al-Nukat al-mustajāda fī musāwāt al-fā‘il wal-mubtada’ fī sharṭ al-ifāda, which is preserved only in Moroccan libraries, including a copy at the KhḤ;Footnote 70 and a commentary titled the Fatḥ al-muḥyī fī mas’alat ḥayiya. Footnote 71 This work, composed in Morocco in 1599, comments upon some verses of Ibn Mālik’s (d. 1203–1204 or 1304–1305) famous work on syntax, the Alfiyya. Footnote 72
Sufism and devotional practices are also represented in Aḥmad Bābā’s manuscripts in the KhḤ and the BNRM. A work celebrating the virtues on al-Sanūsī (d. 1486) is the al-La’ālī al-sundusiyya fī faḍāil al-Sanūsiyya, completed in Morocco in 1595, available in multiple copies at the BNRM.Footnote 73 This work, also composed in North Africa in 1594, is in turn an abridgment of Muḥammad al-Mallālī al-Tilimsānī’s (fl. c. 1500) al-Mawāhib al-qudsiyya. Collections of prayers for the prophet at the Khamā’il al-zahar fī-mā waradan min kayfiyyat al-ṣalāt ‘alà sayyid al-bashar, completed in 1615 after his return in Timbuktu;Footnote 74 and the al-Durr al-naḍīr fī kaifiyyat al-ṣalāt ‘alà al-bashīr, composed in Morocco in 1606.Footnote 75 Finally, still in Morocco in 1598, Aḥmad Bāba composed the Tanwīr al-qulūb bi-takfīr al-a‘māl al-ṣāliḥa li-l-dhunūb, a work on ritual purification in which he discussed the relationship between sins and pious actions.Footnote 76
A celebrated teacher of Aḥmad Bāba was the Wangara scholar Muḥammad Baghayogho (d. 1594), who also belonged to a celebrated family of scholars based in Djenné and Timbuktu.Footnote 77 Although none of his works are found in the KhḤ and the BNRM, some of his descendants and students are represented in these libraries. His nephew, Muḥammad b. Aḥmad Baghayogho (d. 1655),Footnote 78 authored a work titled al-Ḥawāshī al-mūjazāt ‘alà al-khaṣā’iṣ wa-l-mu‘jizāt, available at KhḤ.Footnote 79 A famous student of Muḥammad Baghayogho was Muḥammad Bābā (d. 1606).Footnote 80 He was the author of al-Minaḥ al-ḥamīda fī sharḥ al-Farīda, a commentary on a work on grammar by the Egyptian polymath Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (d. 1505).Footnote 81 Another student of Muḥammad Baghayogho’s disciples was Aḥmad b. Anda Ag-Muḥammad b. Aḥmad Buryu (d. 1634–1635).Footnote 82 The latter authored a 1593 commentary on Ibn Ajūrrum’s (d. 1323) Ajūrrumiyya, a basic manual of syntax very popular in West Africa, which is titled al-Futūḥ al-qawmiyya fī sharḥ al-Ajurrūmiyya, and is wrongly attributed in the catalogues of BNRM to Aḥmad Bābā.Footnote 83
With the seventeenth century, the popularity of the Aqīt and the Baghayogho of Timbuktu waned, and the number of West African manuscripts represented in the KhḤ and the BNRM also declined, until a new phase in the intellectual, religious, and economic connections between North and West Africa was then trigged by the emergence of the Arabo-Berber Kunta clan of the Niger Bend.
The Kunta and the Qādirī-Tijānī Dispute; and Other Fulani scholars (c. Eighteenth to Nineteenth Century)
The Kunta and the Qādirī-Tijānī Dispute
The early history of the Kunta is shrouded in mystery.Footnote 84 Beyond a mythical phase, the establishment of the clan’s status as prominent scholars and traders in the second half of the 1700s is associated with the life of al-Mukhtār al-Kabīr (d. 1811).Footnote 85 His son and successor as the head of the Kunta family was Muḥammad al-Kuntī (d. 1826).Footnote 86 The latter in turn left this role to his sons: al-Mukhtār al-Ṣaghīr (d. 1846) first;Footnote 87 and eventually Aḥmad al-Bakkāy (d. 1865), the last of the great Kunta scholars of precolonial West Africa.Footnote 88 With the exception for al-Mukhtār al-Ṣaghīr, works of all the other Kunta celebrated scholars are available in the KhḤ and the BNRN.
Al-Mukhtār al-Kabīr travelled extensively in today’s Mauritania and Morocco, and his reformed Qādiriyya spread widely in North-Western Africa between Morocco and the Guinea forest and the Atlantic shores to the Hausaland.Footnote 89 Unsurprisingly, his works are extensively represented in the KhḤ and BNRN. Classifying al-Mukhtār al-Kabīr’s writings is a difficult task due to the variety of the topics that he covers in treatises. An example of such variety is the Nuzhat al-rāwī wa-bughyat al-ḥāwī. Footnote 90 This work, in the words of today’s most renowned traditional scholar of Timbuktu Mahamane Mahamoudou, known as Cheikh Hammou, “summarizes an entire library in one volume,” covering issues of theology, Prophetic history, jurisprudence, Sufism, and more.Footnote 91 Other examples of works dealing with multiple subjects are the Fiqh al-‘ayyān fī ḥaqā’iq al-Qur’ān, which deals with the reality of natural phenomena but also with jinns, hadīth, the role of the scholars and their duties, Qur’ānic exegesis, etc.;Footnote 92 the al-Jur‘a al-Ṣāfiya wa-l-nafḥa al-kāfiyya, which covers Sufism, ethics, jurisprudence, the characteristics of evil scholars, the Dajjāl, and other topics;Footnote 93 and a series of replies titled Ajwibat al-muhimma li-man lahu bi-amr nīnihi himma devoted to Qur’anic commentary, ḥadīth, jurisprudence, and Sufism.Footnote 94
Many of these works display al-Mukhtār al-Kabīr’s concern with taṣawwuf (Sufism), a topic to which the Kunta scholar contributed substantially. His famous al-Kawkab al-waqqād fī faḍl dhikr al-mashā’ikh wa-ḥaqā’iq al-awrād, which comprises an explanation of the Kunta wird, as well as other issues related to Sufism.Footnote 95 Often attached to al-Kawkab, the al-Tadhyīl al-jalīl al-‘ādim li-l-mathīl covers similar topics.Footnote 96 Another major work on taṣawwuf is the Naf‘ al-Ṭīb fī al-ṣalāt ‘alà al-nabī al-ḥabīb, a devotional text containing several salutation for the Prophet.Footnote 97 Shorter texts on the topic, namely several du’ā (supplicatory prayers) and dhikr (formulas for the remembrance of God) ascribed to al-Mukhtār al-Kuntī, are present in both libraries. Footnote 98
Another important works by the forefather of the Kunta is the al-Nuḍār al-dhahab fī kull fann muntakhab, a long treatise that substantially sketches the author’s position regarding the issue of tajdīd, or renewal of the faith, and in which he explicitly claims to be the mujaddid (or renewer) for his age.Footnote 99 In addition, al-Mukhtār al-Kabīr is author of two works on tafsīr (Qur’anic exegesis): one on the first sūra of the Qur’ān, known as the Kashf al-niqāb ‘an asrār Fātiḥat al-Kitāb Footnote 100 and the Laṭā’if al-qudsī fī faḍāil āyāt al-kursī on the Throne Verse.Footnote 101 As for the field of jurisprudence (fiqh), the BNRM hosts two incomplete copies of the Hidāyat al-ṭullāb,Footnote 102 while the KhḤ has a manuscript of the author’s own commentary titled Fatḥ al-Wahhāb ‘alà hidāyat al-ṭullāb. Footnote 103 In regard to Arabic grammar, the Kunta shaykh authored the Fatḥ al-Wadūd bi-sharḥ al-maqṣūr wa-l-mamdūd, which is a commentary of a poem by Ibn Mālik called Tuḥfat al-mawdūd fī al-maqṣūr wa-l-mamdūd (d. 1274).Footnote 104 Lastly, a sermon (khuṭba)Footnote 105 is also ascribed to al-Mukhtār al-Kabīr.
All of these works are in prose, but al-Mukhtār al-Kabīr also wrote in verses: a poem on tawḥīd in rhyme nūn;Footnote 106 one in rhyme in rā’ in praise of Ibn ‘Arabī;Footnote 107 a versification (manẓūma), on istighātha, or the practice of beseeching the help of Prophets and awliyā’;Footnote 108 and a commentary (sharḥ) on the author’s own Qaṣīda al-fayḍīyya. Footnote 109
Some works held in the KhḤ and the BNRM are wrongly attributed to al-Mukhtār al-Kabīr, while in fact their author is Muḥammad al-Kuntī, namely a copy of the Fawā’id al-nūrāniyya wa-fawā’id sirriyya raḥmāniyya tashraḥu min mabānī al-ism al-a ‘ẓam mā inbaham on esoteric sciences;Footnote 110 and multiple copies of Rawḍ al-khaṣīb, in turn a commentary (sharḥ) on his father’s abovementioned Nafḥ al-ṭīb. Footnote 111 Other works from Muḥammad al-Kuntī represented in the KhḤ and the BNRM mostly focus on Sufism and esoteric sciences. First and foremost, several copies of the monumental al-Ṭarā’if wa-l-Ṭalā’id min karāmāt al-shaykhayn al-wālida wa-l-wālid, a history of the Kunta and a biography of al-Mukhtār al-Kabīr that is in fact a work proving the status of the author’s family as head of the Qādiriyya in West Africa.Footnote 112 More works in this field are a copy of the al-Futūḥāt al-laduniyya al-shar‘iyya fī sharḥ al-taṣliyya al-Nāṣiriyya al-dar‘iyya;Footnote 113 an injunction to piety (waṣiyya bi-taqwà);Footnote 114 multiple manuscripts of the Jannat al-murīd dūn al-marīd on Sufism;Footnote 115 a series of notes on talismans listed as Taqyīd fī al-asmā’ manqūl min al-ta’līf;Footnote 116 and a treatise on the greatest name of God titled Risāla fī ism Allāh al-a‘ẓam. Footnote 117 Of particular relevance is another of Muḥammad al-Kuntī’s work, which pertains to a different genre: the Awthaq ‘urà al-i‘tiṣām li-l-umarā’ wa-l-wuzarā wal-l-ḥukkām, a “mirror for princes,” written to Aḥmad Lobbo (d. 1845), the founding ruler of the Caliphate of Ḥamdallāhi (1818–1862).Footnote 118
More widely represented in the KhḤ and the BNRM is Aḥmad al-Bakkāy, whose exquisite mastery of classical Arabic is expressed, for example, in several poems such as Qaṣīda in praise of the Prophet;Footnote 119 and another Qaṣida in praise of the ‘Alawī Moroccan ruler Muḥammad b. ‘Abd al-Raḥmān (d. 1876).Footnote 120 Aḥmad al-Bakkāy also wrote several letters, the majority of which deal with inter-ṭuruq quarrels. Indeed, one of the major historical developments in West Africa in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries is the spread, in chronological order, of two major Sufi brotherhoods, the above-mentioned Qādiriyya in its reformed version propagated by the Kunta and the Tijāniyya.Footnote 121 Initiated by the North African scholar Aḥmad al-Tijānī (d. 1815), the Tijāniyya spread south of the Sahara with the movement led by al-ḥājj ‘Umar Tall (d. 1864).Footnote 122
Al-ḥājj ‘Umar Tall’s two major works on the Tijāniyya are represented in the KhḤ and the BNRM. His 1837 Suyūf al-sa‘īd al-mu‘taqid fī ahl Allāh ka-l-Tijānī ‘alà raqabat al-ṭarīd al-jānī is an early attempt to present the major tenets of the Tijāniyya, in a work that is crafted as a defense of the awliyā’ against the detractors of Sufism.Footnote 123 The arguments of the Suyūf al-sa‘īd are then reshaped and expanded in Al-ḥājj ‘Umar Tall’s most influential work, the Rimāḥ ḥizb al-Raḥīm ‘alà nuḥūr ḥizb al-rajīm. Footnote 124 Composed in 1845–1846, this lengthy work, comprising 55 chapters, represents one of the most comprehensive exposition of the Tijānī doctrine to date.
The spread of the new brotherhood did not go, however, uncontested. Especially, in the Middle Niger, the Tijāniyya generated strong polemics from the followers of the Qādiriyya. Adamant opponents to the Tijānī expansion were the Kunta. In particular, Aḥmad al-Bakkāy, the spiritual leader of the Qādirī order since 1847, became the center of a series of polemical writings that connected West Africa to Morocco during the mid-1850s. He composed the Risāla ilà ahl Marrakush, a letter to the Qādirī notables of Marrakesh, held by the BNRM, in which he denounces some of the Tijānī practices.Footnote 125 However, the bulk of the exchanges with Morocco was between Aḥmad al-Bakkāy and Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad Akansūs (d. 1877), a Moroccan notable and leading Tijānī figure who was very close to the ‘Alawī dynasty.Footnote 126 In particular, the KhḤ and the BNRM have copies of the most important correspondence between the two, i.e., two long letters normally referred to as al-Jawāb al-muskit from Akansūs, which is a reply to an earlier letter from Aḥmad al-Bakkāy and the latter’s Fatḥ al-Quddūs fī radd ‘alà al-Kansūs. Footnote 127
No traces exist in the KhḤ and the BNRM of the later phase of the dispute between the followers of the Qādiriyya and the Tijāniyya that took place in West Africa, with the exception of some poems. The first, a Qaṣīda nūniyya fī radd ba‘ḍ ahl al-ṭā’ifa al-Tijāniyya, was penned by Aḥmad al-Bakkāy, in rhyme nūn, against the Tijānī in West Africa;Footnote 128 the other two are poems in praise of Aḥmad al-Tijāni (d. 1815) by Yerkoy Talfi (d. c. 1862).Footnote 129 The latter was a Tijānī follower but also a notable of the Caliphate of Ḥamdallāhi who participated to the final confrontation in the Middle Niger between Qādirī and Tijānī. He was the author of a famous polemical work against Aḥmad al-Bakkāy titled the Tabkiyat al-Bakkāy, which is not available in the libraries in which I conducted research.Footnote 130
The Qādiriyya-Tijāniyya debate witnesses the emergence of the corporate identity of the ṭuruq that will then play a big role in the history of West Africa. Citing Louis Brenner, it was with the efforts of the Kunta and of al-ḥājj ‘Umar Tall, that “the ṭuruq [in West Africa] began increasingly to emphasize their distinctive identities and corporateness; concurrently, they became public institutions.”Footnote 131 In other words, it is with the emergence of the reformed Qādiriyya propagated by the Kunta and of the Tijāniyy that the phenomenon of ṭuruq became consolidated in West Africa, where priorly Sufism existed outside the structure of the brotherhoods.Footnote 132
Other Fulānī Scholars
Apart from the abovementioned writings by al-ḥājj ‘Umar Tall, a number of works of other Fulani scholars from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are also widely represented in the KhḤ and the BNRM. A common denominator of the experience of these Fulani scholars is their mobility across the continent, from the regions south of the Sahara into North Africa and the Middle East.
The oldest in chronological order is Muḥammad al-Kashnāwī (d. 1741).Footnote 133 Originally from Katsina, Northern Nigeria, Muḥammad al-Kashnāwī completed the Pilgrimage and then settled in Cairo, where he became a prominent scholar of al-Azhar, particularly known for his knowledge of esoteric sciences. On this topic, he wrote his famous Bahjat al-āfāq wa-īḍāḥ al-lubs wa-l-ighlāq fī ‘ilm al-ḥarūf wa-l-awfāq, completed in 1733, available in the KhḤ and the BNRM.Footnote 134
Another Fulani scholar whose works are preserved in KhḤ is Ṣāliḥ al-Fulānī (d. 1803).Footnote 135 Peripatetic scholar, Ṣāliḥ al-Fulānī left his native Fouta Djallon to study in Mauritania, Bakhounou, Tamgrūt, Tunis, and Cairo, before settling in Medina in the early 1770s. During his trips he had several teachers, including the celebrated Murtaḍà al-Zabīdī (d. 1790), and his isnāds are listed and discussed in his Qatf al-thamar fī raf‘ asānīd al-muṣannafāt fī al-funūn wa-l-athār. Footnote 136 He also had numerous students, such as the prominent Mauritanian Tijānī scholar Muḥammad al-Ḥāfiẓ (d. 1829) who was responsible for the early spread of the Tijāniyya from North Africa in Mauritania.Footnote 137
The most represented author among Fulan in the KhḤ and the BNRM is Aḥmad al-Timbuktāwī (fl. 1814).Footnote 138 Originally from Fouta Jallon but trained in Djenne, and then resident of Timbuktu, Aḥmad al-Timbuktāwī is known for his works denouncing the religious practices of the “blacks” in Morocco and Tunisia and accusing the local rulers of not opposing such practices.Footnote 139 Three works on this topics are available in the KhḤ: the Hatk al-sitr ‘ammā ‘alayhi sūdān Tūnis min al-kufr;Footnote 140 a Risāla fī al-radd ‘alà ba‘ḍ al-bida‘ al-fāsida;Footnote 141 and the Shikāyat al-dīn al-Muḥammadī ilà ri‘ayāt al-muwakkalīn bi-hi. Footnote 142 He also authored another work, titled Marāt al-hind li-af‘āl al-ḥajj wa-l-‘umra li-l-‘abd. Footnote 143
The last Fulānī scholar whose works are preserved in the KhḤ and BNRM is Alfā Hāshim (d. 1931), the nephew of al-ḥājj ‘Umar Tall.Footnote 144 Born in mid-1860s, Alfā Hāshim was among the members of the ‘Umarian family who fled Segou at the time of the French conquest of the Middle Niger and moved to Sokoto where he participated in the local resistance against the British invasion. With the final defeat of Sokoto in 1903, he fled again, refusing to live under colonial rule and resettled in Mecca first and then Medina, where he became a scholar of fame. Of his works, the KhḤ preserves a work on jurisprudence, listed as Ajwiba fiqhiyya,Footnote 145 two works of the Prophet, the Fatḥ al-mughīt fīta ‘rīf bi-ba‘ḍ ‘ulūm al-ḥadīth,Footnote 146 and a Faṣl fī ṣiffat ‘Ibādatihi ‘alayhi al-ṣalāt wa-l-salām. Footnote 147
Conclusion
This preliminary and unsystematic survey of only two of the many Moroccan manuscript libraries have revealed the potential of these repositories for scholars interested in the history of Muslim societies in West Africa. The KhḤ and the BNRM, however, do represent an exception and the many other libraries in Morocco presented by Benjelloun-Laroui, Binebine, Jocelyn Hendrickson, and Sabahat Adil most likely hold manuscripts that are similarly relevant for the history of West Africa. Furthermore, some materials might still circulate in local Moroccan markets.Footnote 148 In addition, libraries in Morocco potentially hold manuscripts that come from West Africa but were not authored by West African scholars.Footnote 149
All this evidence points to Moroccan libraries as important yet still underexplored resources for the history of Africa south of the Sahara. Likewise, other North African countries seem to present scholars with similar opportunities. Ismael Montana’s research on Aḥmad al-Timbuktāwī, for example, demonstrates that Tunisia is home of important documents for West African history.Footnote 150 The PhD dissertation of Abdulkader Zebadia on Aḥmad al-Bakkāy suggests that Algerian libraries hold very important manuscripts on the history of the Kunta.Footnote 151 The work of Terence Walz and Hadrien Collet opens new windows on the history of West Africa from Egypt.Footnote 152
This large corpus of primary sources for the history of Africa south of the Sahara in North African libraries points to two major shortcomings of the Area Studies paradigm. On a superficial level, the decapitation of the continent results in West Africa and North Africa being treated as separate and different domains. Consequently, sources that might not be available, for instance, in Mali but are held in libraries in Morocco, will remain inaccessible or unknown to scholars of West African history. On a deeper level, the very presence of these manuscripts in North Africa is a testimony of a long, shared history between the peoples living on the Mediterranean shores of the continent, those in the Sahara, and those living south of the great desert. This shared history goes beyond common narratives of violence and slavery, as Ousmane O. Kane points out in his description of the “microcosm” of Medina Kaolack in Senegal.Footnote 153 In sum, it is time to put to rest the old fictional divide between North Africa and Africa south of the Sahara.
Acknowledgements
During my archival work in Morocco, I was kindly hosted by Amir Syed (University of Pittsburgh), to which I extend my thanks. I also owe immense gratitude to Adrien Delmas (Centre Jacques-Berque), Said Bousbina (independent scholar), Ahmed Chokri (University Mohamed V – Rabat), Rahal Boubrik (Université Mohamed V), and especially Khaled Zahri (then Bibliothèque Royale Hasaniyya, currently Université Abdelmalek Essaadi) who facilitated immensely the work in the Moroccan libraries.
Open access
