Download or read book Arabic Medieval Inscriptions from the Republic of Mali written by P. F. de Moraes Farias and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2004-02-05 with total page 614 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This analytical edition makes available a unique corpus of primary-source material and demonstrates its wide implications for African and Arabic studies.Through Arabic transciptions, English translations, line-drawing reconstructions, and plate illustrations, the volume catalogues the large number of eleventh-fifteenth century Arabic-Islamic inscriptions from the Republic of Mali - including the earliest datable writing from West Africa. Dr Moraes Farias uses this rich resource to reinterpret West African chronicles and oral traditions, and to demonstrate that the Tuareg and Songhay, peoples divided by civil war in the 1990s, share a composite history. This volume also discusses a wide range of linguistic and literary issues, and contributes to current debates about the nature of epigraphic evidence.
Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Mali written by Pascal James Imperato and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2008-04-25 with total page 555 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mali is currently the seventh largest country in Africa. It shares borders with Mauritania and Senegal in the west, Algeria in the north, Guinea and Ivory Coast in the south, and Burkina Faso and Niger in the east. After decades of dictatorship, in 1992, a new democratic constitution was adopted and today Mali is one of the most politically and socially stable countries in Africa. While Mali still has a long way to go with their economy_they are considered to be among the 10 poorest countries in the world_they continue to make progress and their increase in cereal and gold production are steps in the right direction. The fourth edition of the Historical Dictionary of Mali, through its chronology, bibliography, introductory essay, and over 500 cross-referenced dictionary entries on important persons, places, events, and institutions and significant political, economic, social, and cultural aspects, provides an important reference on this African country.
Download or read book Essouk Tadmekka written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-11-20 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essouk-Tadmekka presents the first archaeological exploration of one of the most important market towns on the trans-Saharan camel-caravan routes in the early Islamic period, supplying West African gold, slaves, and ivory to the Mediterranean world. Excavation of Essouk-Tadmekka’s ruins – in Saharan West Africa – has enabled Sam Nixon and a team of scholars to better understand this town described by early Arabic geographers, therein providing insights into such wider questions as the origins of trans-Saharan trade, the commerce in gold, and the arrival of Islamic culture in West Africa. This window into the earliest period of trans-Saharan exchange includes illustration of some of the best-preserved ruins along the camel-caravan routes, the earliest-known Arabic writing in West Africa, and rare gold-working remains. Contributors are: Stephanie Black, Sophie Desrosiers, Laure Dussubieux, Thomas Fenn, Dorian Fuller, James Lankton, Kevin MacDonald, Paulo de Moraes Farias, Mary-Anne Murray, Sam Nixon, Thilo Rehren, Peter Robertshaw, Jane Sidell, and Benoit Suzanne.
Download or read book The Puppet written by Ibrahim al-Koni and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2015-05-18 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Puppet, a mythic tale of greed and political corruption, traces the rise, flourishing, and demise of a Saharan oasis community. Aghulli, a noble if obtuse man who has been chosen leader of the oasis, hankers after the traditional nomadic pastoralist life of the Tuareg. He sees commerce (understood as including trade in gold, marriage, agriculture, and even recreation) as the prime culprit in the loss of the nomadic ethos. Thus he is devastated to learn that his supporters are hoarding gold. The novel's title notwithstanding, the author has stressed repeatedly that he is not a political author. He says that The Puppet portrays a good man who has been asked to lead a corrupt society. The subplot about star-crossed young lovers introduces a Sufi theme of the possibility of transforming carnal into mystical love. The Puppet, though, is first and foremost a gripping, expertly crafted tale of bloody betrayal and revenge inspired by gold lust and an ancient love affair.
Download or read book Architecture Islam and Identity in West Africa written by Michelle Apotsos and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-20 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Architecture, Islam, and Identity in West Africa shows you the relationship between architecture and Islamic identity in West Africa. The book looks broadly across Muslim West Africa and takes an in-depth study of the village of Larabanga, a small Muslim community in Northern Ghana, to help you see how the built environment encodes cultural history through form, material, and space, creating an architectural narrative that outlines the contours of this distinctive Muslim identity. Apotsos explores how modern technology, heritage, and tourism have increasingly affected the contemporary architectural character of this community, revealing the village’s current state of social, cultural, and spiritual flux. More than 60 black and white images illustrate how architectural components within this setting express the distinctive narratives, value systems, and realities that make up the unique composition of this Afro-Islamic community.
Download or read book Historic Mosques in Sub Saharan Africa written by Stéphane Pradines and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-11-07 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first comprehensive synthesis on mosques in sub-Saharan Africa, bringing together sites from more than twenty states from sub-Saharan Africa; and more than 285 monuments, from the IXth to the XIXth centuries.
Download or read book A History of Race in Muslim West Africa 1600 1960 written by Bruce S. Hall and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-06 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The mobilization of local ideas about racial difference has been important in generating, and intensifying, civil wars that have occurred since the end of colonial rule in all of the countries that straddle the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. From Sudan to Mauritania, the racial categories deployed in contemporary conflicts often hearken back to an older history in which blackness could be equated with slavery and non-blackness with predatory and uncivilized banditry. This book traces the development of arguments about race over a period of more than 350 years in one important place along the southern edge of the Sahara Desert: the Niger Bend in northern Mali. Using Arabic documents held in Timbuktu, as well as local colonial sources in French and oral interviews, Bruce S. Hall reconstructs an African intellectual history of race that long predated colonial conquest, and which has continued to orient inter-African relations ever since.
Download or read book Writing the Early Medieval West written by Elina Screen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-03 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Far from the oral society it was once assumed to have been, early medieval Europe was fundamentally shaped by the written word. This book offers a pioneering collection of fresh and innovative studies on a wide range of topics, each one representing cutting-edge scholarship, and collectively setting the field on a new footing. Concentrating on the role of writing in mediating early medieval knowledge of the past, on the importance of surviving manuscripts as clues to the circulation of ideas and political and cultural creativity, and on the role that texts of different kinds played both in supporting and in subverting established power relations, these essays represent a milestone in studies of the early medieval written word.
Download or read book Islam and Social Change in French West Africa written by Sean Hanretta and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-03-23 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the history and religious community of a group of Muslim Sufi mystics in colonial French West Africa, this study shows the relationship between religious, social and economic change in the region. It highlights the role that intellectuals played in shaping social and cultural change and illuminates the specific religious ideas and political contexts that gave their efforts meaning. In contrast to depictions that emphasize the importance of international networks and anti-modern reaction in twentieth-century Islamic reform, this book claims that, in West Africa, such movements were driven by local forces and constituted only the most recent round in a set of centuries-old debates about the best way for pious people to confront social injustice. It argues that traditional historical methods prevent an appreciation of Muslim intellectual history in Africa by misunderstanding the nature of information gathering during colonial rule and misconstruing the relationship between documents and oral history.
Download or read book The Arts and Crafts of Literacy written by Andrea Brigaglia and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2017-09-25 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the last two decades, the (re-)discovery of thousands of manuscripts in different regions of sub-Saharan Africa has questioned the long-standing approach of Africa as a continent only characterized by orality and legitimately assigned to the continent the status of a civilization of written literacy. However, most of the existing studies mainly aim at serving literary and historical purposes, and focus only on the textual dimension of the manuscripts. This book advances on the contrary a holistic approach to the study of these manuscripts and gather contributions on the different dimensions of the manuscript, i.e. the materials, the technologies, the practices and the communities involved in the production, commercialization, circulation, preservation and consumption. The originality of this book is found in its methodological approach as well as its comparative geographic focus, presenting studies on a continental scale, including regions formerly neglected by existing scholarship, provides a unique opportunity to expand our still scanty knowledge of the different manuscript cultures that the African continent has developed and that often can still be considered as living traditions.
Download or read book Exploring Multilingualism and Multiscriptism in Written Artefacts written by Szilvia Sövegjártó and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2024-05-06 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores multilingualism and multiscriptism in a great variety of writing cultures, offering an in-depth analysis of how diverse languages and scripts seamlessly intertwine within written artefacts. Insights into scribal practices are particularly illuminating in that respect, especially when exploring artefacts originating from multicultural communities and regions where distinct writing traditions intersect. The influence of multilingualism and multiscriptism on these writing cultures becomes evident, with essays spanning various domains, from the mundane aspects of everyday life to the realms of scholarship and political propaganda. Scholars often relegate these phenomena, despite being frequently encountered, to the status of exceptions compared to the more prevalent monolingualism and monoscriptism. However, in daring to challenge this viewpoint, this book emphasises the profound significance and relevance of multilingualism and multiscriptism in shaping the development of languages, cultures, and societies across Asia, Africa, and Europe. It caters to a diverse readership keen on delving into the intricacies of these phenomena within this rich tapestry of writing cultures.
Download or read book Great Kingdoms of Africa written by John Parker and published by Thames & Hudson. This book was released on 2023-03-16 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the ancient Nile Valley to the savannas of medieval West Africa, the highlands of Ethiopia and on to the forests, lakes and grasslands to the south, African civilizations have given rise to some of the worlds most impressive kingdoms. Yet Africas history is often little known beyond the devastation wrought by the slave trade and European colonial rule. In this groundbreaking new book, nine leading historians of Africa take a fresh look at these great kingdoms and empires over five thousand years of recorded history. How was kingship forged in Africa and how did it operate? Was dynastic power maintained by consent or by coercion? Did kings and queens display and project that power for all to see, or did they hide it away, as beneath the fringed crowns that concealed the faces of sacred Yoruba rulers? In what ways have African peoples themselves recorded, celebrated and critiqued the deeds of their kings? Great Kingdoms of Africa explores some of the most important questions in the continents deep past. As elsewhere in the world, absolute monarchy in Africa has been on the wane in the modern era. Yet kingship continues to thrive within many present-day African nations, preserving deep-rooted ideas about culture, identity and sacred power. Presenting exciting developments in the understanding of how states and societies have interacted with each other across time, this book shows how powerful and sophisticated kingdoms have shaped the course of African history and continue to do so in the present day.
Download or read book Culture and Customs of Mali written by Dorothea E. Schulz Ph.D. and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2012-01-06 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Touching on everything from its rich musical heritage to its varied cultural traditions, this is a thorough and accessible introduction to the contemporary lives of the different peoples who call Mali their home. Rated among the world's ten poorest nations, Mali has a glorious past and a less-certain present. Culture and Customs of Mali touches on the first as background for understanding the second, exploring multiple facets of contemporary social life and cultural practices in this landlocked, West African nation. The book offers an overview of diverse aspects of everyday social, cultural, and religious life in Mali, paying particular attention to regional and ethnic variations. It shows how current social conventions and cultural values are the product of a centuries-long history, while at the same time dispels the common perception that African societies are rooted in unchanging tradition. Readers will come away with a better understanding of the multiple ways in which Malians, starting from their own customs and cultural foundations, integrate themselves into an international economic order and a globalized world of shared media images and cultural practices.
Download or read book Libraries and Archives in the Digital Age written by Susan L. Mizruchi and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-03-09 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The role of archives and libraries in our digital age is one of the most pressing concerns of humanists, scholars, and citizens worldwide. This collection brings together specialists from academia, public libraries, governmental agencies, and non-profit archives to pursue common questions about value across the institutional boundaries that typically separate us.
Download or read book Trans Saharan Africa in World History written by Ralph A. Austen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-19 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the heyday of camel caravan traffic--from the eighth century CE arrival of Islam in North Africa to the early twentieth-century building of European colonial railroads that linked the Sudan with the Atlantic--the Sahara was one of the world's great commercial highways, bringing gold, slaves, and other commodities northward and sending both manufactured goods and Mediterranean culture southward into the Sudan. Historian Ralph A. Austen here tells the remarkable story of an African world that grew out of more than one thousand years of trans-Saharan trading. Perhaps the most enduring impact of this trade and the common cultural reference point of trans-Saharan Africa was Islam. Austen traces this faith in its various forms--as a legal system for regulating trade, an inspiration for reformist movements, and a vehicle of literacy and cosmopolitan knowledge. He also analyzes the impact of European overseas expansion, which marginalized trans-Saharan commerce in global terms but stimulated its local growth. Indeed, trans-Saharan culture not only adapted to colonial changes, but often thrived upon them, remaining a potent force into the twenty-first century.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Archaeology written by Bethany J. Walker and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 793 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Islamic archaeology is young discipline, emerging only over the course of the 1980s and 1990s. The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Archaeology is the first work of its kind to cover the archaeology of the Islamic world on a global scale, from North Africa to China and Europe to sub-Saharan Africa.
Download or read book The Trans Saharan Book Trade written by Graziano Krätli and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2011 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Concerned with the history of scholarly production, book markets and trans-Saharan exchanges in Muslim African (primarily western and northern Africa), as well as the creation of manuscript libraries, this book consists of a collection of twelve essays that examine these issues from an interdisciplinary perspective.
