Team News
Susana Molins Lliteras
After two remarkable years at the Project, Dr, Mauro Nobili is moving to greener pastures and taking up a position of of Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (USA). He will be filling the position of one of the doyens of West African History and pioneer of manuscripts studies in the area, Professor Charles Stewart. This is an incredible achievement and we wish him all the best in this new adventure although he will be greatly missed. Mauro will however still remain connected to the Project as Research Associate and we hope to continue collaborating with him in the future.
On the other hand, we bid a warm welcome to our new Project member Abubakar Sadiq Abdulkadir. Abubakar has studied Arabic language and Islam at different institutes and circles in Nigeria, Syria, Mauritania, Senegal and South Africa. Abubakar’s interest is in West African intellectual and social history. His major focus is on Islam and the role played by Muslim scholars which laid the social-cultural foundations for the Muslim societies that developed before the pre-the-nation-state and after colonial period. He has translated ʿUthmān b. Fodio’s Tanbīḥ al-ikhwān ‘alā jawāz ittikhādh al-majlis li ajli taʿlīm al-niswān ʿilm furūḍ al-aʿyān min dīn Allāh among other works he is working on. When Abubakar is not studying or teaching, he is with friends entertaining the minds with jokes or alone reflecting on the art of Arabic poetry verses and their usage as a medium of dissemination of ideals and thoughts. He has a gluttonous love for chicken.
Finally, we would like to congratulate our affiliated researcher from Mozambique, Chapane Mutiua, on the completion of his MA thesis in the Department of Historical Studies at UCT. Chapane submitted a thesis entitled “Ajami literacy, class and Portuguese pre-colonial administration in northern Mozambique, 1861-1913.” This thesis, based on archival and fieldwork research, provides an historical analysis of the northern Mozambique ajami manuscripts held in the Mozambican Historical Archives (AHM). The main focus is on the role played by ajami literacy in the creation of a local Muslim intellectual class that played a significant role in the establishment of a Portuguese pre-colonial administration in northern Mozambique. The appendix to the thesis presents a detailed list of 266 letters in the AHM collection. We have uploaded this appendix to the database as it is a very useful guide to facilitate interested researchers or scholars with easy access to the documents.
http://www.tombouctoumanuscripts.org/db/entry/207/