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. Thus, we write Lélouma for a local name spelled as Lelumā in the Arabic and ʿAjamī texts, Lelumaa in the Pular (the Fuuta Jalon variety of Fula) Roman transcription based on the 1966 Bamako Conference recommendations. Finally, we should note that in the old days in Fuuta Jaloo, people referred to local personalities by the name of their place of origin, instead of their last names as it is done today. Thus, we can read Cerno © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi 10.1163/21540993-00801007Downloaded from Brill.com10/06/2021 01:26:52PM via free access <UN> “Corners Conceal Treasures” 71 Keywords Fuuta Jaloo – Fuuta Toro – colophons – marginalia – scribes – astronomy Introduction Most scholars working on West African Arabic manuscripts have focused on their content. When editing and translating manuscripts, many scholars looked only for information on political history, sociology, anthropology, and Islam in Africa. It took the steadfast dedication of a few pioneers to transform libraries and manuscripts into repositories of an amazing amount of biograph- ical evidence. Following Professor John Hunwick’s leadership, scholars realized that in African manuscripts, “Corners conceal treasures.”2 Thus, they devoted greater attention to the social environment of texts. This article uses a simi- lar approach to unearth a neglected – but critical – aspect of a West African Islamic polity.3 The Islamic confederation of Fuuta Jaloo was set up in the early eighteenth century as the brainchild of an influential group of scholars.4 Thanks to public policies and cultural innovations, it became “a magnet for learning” of regional importance.5 Literacy increased and scholarship became both a mark of social status and a diplomatic tool (i.e. “soft power”). However, limited attention has been paid to the material dimension of Fuuta Jaloo’s intellectual output and its regional diffusion. Indeed, through this abundant production of original local works, literate people from Fuuta Jaloo and from the other Islamic states Samba Mombeyaa in Pular ʿAjamī texts. Today, the same person would be called Mr. Tierno (or Thierno) Samba Diallo, and his village would be spelled as Mombéya in the existing maps. 2 See John O. Hunwick, “West African Arabic Manuscript Colophons I: Askiya Muḥammad Bani’s Copy of the Risāla of Ibn Abī Zayd”, Sudanic Africa, 13 (2002), pp. 123–130. 3 Many thanks to El-hadj Abdourahmane Diallo (Poyé), Abdel Wedoud Ould Cheikh, Abderrahim Saguer, Claude Surmely, and Jean Salvaing for their assistance. 4 As Cerno Saʿdu Dalen (1788–1854) wrote in 1851: “Thanks to Allah […], great Saints and active scholars were born in our land. They put themselves to work in earnest […] to the point that […] religion and jihād have illuminated our country.” See “Tadhkira li-ṣlāḥ dhāt al-bayn bayna al-fi’atayn al-ʿaẓīmatayn” in Islam et bonne gouvernance au xixe siècle dans les sources arabes du Fouta-Djalon (textes de Tierno Sadou Dalen, Modi Tahirou Lélouma, Almami Ibrahima Sori Dara, et Alfa Gassimou Labé), eds. Georges Bohas, Alfa Mamadou Diallo Lélouma, Abderra- him Saguer, Bernard Salvaing, and Ahyaf Sinno, Paris, Geuthner (forthcoming). 5 See chapter 2 in David Robinson, La guerre sainte d’al-Hajj Umar. Le Soudan occidental au mi- lieu du xixe siècle, Paris, Karthala, 1988, p. 59; and “Les espaces, les métaphores et l’intensité de l’islam ouest-africain”, Annales, 40/6 (1985), pp. 1395–1405. islamic africa 8 (2017) 70-110 Downloaded from Brill.com10/06/2021 01:26:52PM via free access <UN> 72 Diallo Lélouma and Salvaing developed a regional network of knowledge and transmission of learning. So, Muslims in West Africa took over an Arab-Islamic heritage for their own use and Africanized (ʿAjamized) it. We will show in this article that together with the already initiated investiga- tions related to the content of the texts, we have to take their formal aspect into consideration. The data available in the marginalia are precious because they enable us to know how the ancient network of knowledge was structured. They reveal the deepening of a long-standing ʿAjamization of Islam. This process be- gan with the diffusion of Islam in West Africa, which took place for nearly over a millennium, through the trans-Saharan trade, leading to the Islamization of authorities and societies in places such as Timbuktu and Walata, and then to the Court Islam present in the medieval empires of Western Sudan.6 But a new step was taken during the eighteenth and nineteenth century jihads in West Africa. The texts we are commenting on were produced in the new Fulɓe (Fulani) jihād states created at that time. Those moments witnessed a deepening of Islam and a local appropriation of its culture. These processes were led by the State of Fuuta Jaloo (northwestern Guinea and part of south- ern Senegal) created in 1727, the Fuuta Toro (Senegal and Mauritania), created in the 1770s, and finally the Sokoto Caliphate (Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon) and the Maasina Empire (Mali), both of which were created at the beginning of the nineteenth century. A new community of culture and religion was built up, and this process was unexpectedly amplified during the colonial period in the twentieth century. As a result, books and manuscripts represent some of the most tangible evi- dence of the ʿAjamization process of Islam in West Africa. We will therefore analyze the marginalia7 of a corpus of manuscripts collected in Fuuta Jaloo, Fuuta Toro and Maasina to illustrate how much information can be obtained from colophons, marginal notes, and other material elements.8 As they embody 6 Here we follow a traditional statement related to the three stages of West African Islam. We regard it as a convenient framework, while being aware that such a notion should be kept in perspective. In this regard, David Robinson wrote: “If these three stages are presented in a loose and general form, they can be very useful to understand the different forms of expres- sion of religion.” But at the same time, David Robinson notes that such a framework should be called into question or at least qualified, as Nehemia Levtzion noted. This is because there may be situations where there prevails “the peaceful coexistence between Islam and tradi- tional religions, with rites related to the two spheres and even individuals creating some form of synthesis between Islam and local institutions.” See Robinson, “Les espaces”, pp. 1395–1405. 7 By marginalia we mean all the formal elements supporting the explicit textual content that can be used as a basis for a codicological description of the manuscript. 8 In this paper, we will refer mainly to unpublished manuscripts. In this respect, we must note that the manuscripts from those regions published to this day are few in number – except islamicDownloaded africa from Brill.com10/06/20218 (2017) 70-110 01:26:52PM via free access <UN> “Corners Conceal Treasures” 73 crafts, know-how, values and ways of life, manuscripts are repositories of local knowledge, representations and social practices. This article documents how they shaped an international marketplace bringing together authors, produc- ers, readers and collectors over several generations. It looks at colophons as time capsules revealing interesting evidence on manuscripts, producers and readers. Finally, through the study of several versions of a nineteenth-century treatise on astronomy, remarks will be made on the diffusion and rendition of manuscripts in Fuuta Jaloo, Fuuta Toro and Maasina. Figure 1 Source: Adapted from: J.F. Ade Ajayi and Michael Crowder (eds), History of West Africa, vol. 2, London, Longman, 1974, p. 22. The map also appears in David Robinson’s book: The Holy war of Umar Tal, Oxford University Press, 1985. Many thanks to david Robinson for his assistance the manuscripts from Sokoto, a region outside our main area of study. For instance, the only manuscripts published from Fuuta Jaloo are ʿAjamī manuscripts written in the Fuuta Jalon Fulfulde variety commonly spelled as Pular. See Alfâ Ibrahîm Sow, La femme, la vache, la foi, Paris, Julliard, 1966, p. 376; Chroniques et récits du Foûta Djalon, Paris, Librairie C.