islamic africa 8 (2017) 70-110 Islamic Africa brill.com/iafr “Corners Conceal Treasures”: Arabic Manuscripts’ Marginalia in Fuuta Jaloo and Fuuta Toro in the Nineteenth Century Alfa Mamadou Diallo Lélouma Independent Scholar
[email protected] Bernard Salvaing Université de Nantes
[email protected] Abstract So far, studies of West African Arabic manuscripts have paid limited attention to scribes and their social environment. Fuuta Jaloo’s Islamic confederation emerged in the early 1700s as the brainchild of a group of scholars. Thanks to public policies and cultural innovations, its intellectual output and regional diffusion left indelible marks on manuscripts. The article illustrates how much information can be obtained from colophons, marginal notes, and other material elements. Analyzing several versions of a nineteenth-century treatise on astronomy, comments will be made on the diffusion and rendition of manuscripts in Fuuta Jaloo, Fuuta Toro and Maasina.1 1 Notes on the transcriptions used in this article: Place names of Fulani origin are written ac- cording to the recommendations of the 1966 unesco Conference in Bamako, Mali. Thus, we write Fuuta Jaloo, Fuuta Toro (usually written as Futa Jallon and Futa Toro in English, and as Fouta-Djalon and Fouta Toro in French, among other spellings). We also follow the same rule regarding people’s names. For example, we write Cerno Samba Mombeyaa. When such people are mainly known through old Arabic manuscripts, we prefer the Arabic tran- scription. For example, we use al-Ḥājj ʿUmar Tall (Umar Tall in English and Oumar Tall in French). With respect to people currently alive and local names, we follow the official spell- ing in use in African countries.