Acknowledgements

Contents

Introduction: African History and Islamic Manuscript Cultures

Section 1: Writing Supports

New Strategies in Using Watermarks to Date Sub-Saharan Islamic Manuscripts

Fī Lawḥin Maḥfūẓ: Towards a Phenomenological Analysis of the Quranic Tablet

Section 2: Around the Texts

Islamic Education and Ample Space Layout in West African Islamic Manuscripts

A Preliminary Appraisal of Marginalia in West African Manuscripts from the Mamma Haïdara Memorial Library Collection (Timbuktu)

Section 3: Writing Practices and Authorship around the Continents

Writing in Africa: The Kilwa Chronicle and other Sixteenth-Century Portuguese Testimonies

Bamana Texts in Arabic Characters: Some Leaves from Mali

Arabic and Swahili Documents from the Pre-Colonial Congo and the EIC (Congo Free State, 1885–1908): Who were the Scribes?

Section 4: Notes

Moodibbo Bello Aamadu Mohammadu and the Daada Maaje, a Handbook in an Indigenous Fulfulde Script

Elements of a ‘Timbuktu Manual of Style’

Seven Gravestones at the Muslim Tana Baru Cemetery in Cape Town: A Descriptive Note

Kaʾana Umar’s ‘CCI Quran’: The Making of a Bornuan Manuscript in the Twenty-First Century

Index of Place Names

List of Contributors