The demise of 'the Manuscript of the Week'...

I am really quite cross.

During the last few years of working with the three great libraries of Timbuktu I used to put up a ‘manuscript of the week’ on the Facebook page I  created for the project www. https://www.facebook.com/ELITTOMBOUCTOU  This was in order to show what is found in the manuscripts- because most of the time people are not aware of the content of these documents- they just believe what they are told, i.e. that the manuscripts are a fount of all wisdom, and that it is possible to find every subject matter in them. This is something of an exaggeration. They are very interesting for many reasons, but the large majority of them are copies of canonical Islamic texts, or often talismans or recipes for various forms of ‘maraboutage’.

To me, who is not an Arabist, the subject matter nevertheless became known to me in quite some detail because when we were working at Djenne in  connection to the British Library, I had to translate the descriptions of each manuscript’s subject matter, which had been entered by the Djenne archivist  in French. This was something which I really enjoyed. It brought the manuscripts alive for me, and made the work seem all the more interesting and worthwhile.

One recurring problem during my 12 years of working with the manuscripts of Mali has been the reluctance of the manuscript owners to publish anything online- this is of course a problem when the project’s aim is to digitize and make available to scholars online the contents of the libraries!

However, that hurdle has been successfully crossed and the projects continue. Nevertheless, here we are again, up against the same old problem: we have been told to stop the publication  on our Facebook page online of the Djenne manuscripts: https://www.facebook.com/DjenneManuscriptLibrary where I have published over the last year or so, images and descriptions of the Djenne collection which is being digitized. And every time we publish on Facebook we make sure that we do it with the consent of the manuscript owner!

And now, last July, a conference was held in Bamako, organized by UNESCO, at which the representative of the Djenne Manuscript Library was asked to cease the Face book publications! Asked by whom? This remains something of a mystery to me, but I have been told that the concensus of the assembled grandees was that we must stop. 

No one said anything during our three years publications on Facebook of the Timbuktu manuscripts!

And what exactly are we told to stop? Who has the right to tell the Djenne Manuscript Library that they should not publish on Facebook?

It is almost  entirely  a question of images from Qur’ans with beautiful calligraphy, or handsomely illustrated Dalā’il al-khayrāt  (Prayers upon the Prophet.) which have, as I said, been admitted for publication by their owners! I can only guess that our lively presence on Facebook is making others jealous? 

Here are two examples:

                                      

"The manuscript of the week comes from the Traoré 23 family.It is an exegesis of the Qur'an from the 19th century. The pale writing is the quotations from the Qur'an, the black sections contain the commentary. It has many marginal annotations in Ajami- Bozo and Songhoy, two main languages of Djenne.

تفسير الجلالين

Tafsīr al-jalālayn. Exégèse du Saint Coran"

 And another Week's special manuscript:

جزء من المصحف الشريف

Djenne continues to delight with the beautiful manuscripts that the population keeps bringing in to the library.The manuscript of the week is another lovely 19th century Qur'an from the Yaro family.

                                                           

Chicken farming with Mamane

Many Malians are trying to get into the 'Poulet de Chair' business. That means the raising of chickens for their meat, rather than the eggs. The 'Poulets de Chair' are quite different from the chickens called 'Poulets de Bicyclette', so named since they are often seen  hanging in multiple pairs from the handlebars of bicycles as the owners cycle around try and sell them. The 'bicycle chickens' are rather stringy, scrawny and chewy- but normally quite tasty. They are happy chickens that have run around the village freely and have now reached the conclusion to their days as they hang on the handlebars. 

The 'poulets de chair ' on the other hand have never enjoyed any happy village days. However, they are not battery chicken, and as is shown in the picture above, behind Mamane, they are able to enjoy a certain amount of scratching around freely amongst their peers...

And those ones, above, are the type that everyone are trying to 'get into' as a business proposal. It is true, it is possible to make money raising chickens in Mali especially in the Bamako area, for the Toubab hotels and guest houses as well as for the ever increasing affluent Malian city population.

When Keita was alive we tried it. Keita wanted to make some money on the side of his hospital employment and invested in chicken farming in Segou- it was an unmitigated disaster. The first lot arrived on the bus and were all dead on arrival- the hardships of the road had killed them. The second lot arrived alive, but were dead by the morning- they had been put into their pen which had been disinfected rather too enthusiastically and the fumes from the bleach killed the chicks  during the night. And so it went on. If you want to deal in chickens, you need to know what you are doing. 

This is exactly what Maman thinks he knows- or rather he knows someone who knows what to do. He will keep  his job at the Sleeping Camel of course, but he wanted to invest in a venture run by a nice old Malian chap that I met when I was there last March. He has been raising 'Poulets de Chair ' for many years and has an excellent track record. Maman's brother-in-law has just done three 'cycles' with him-that is to say: one cycle is the amount of time from the arrival of the chicks to their sale- about 60 days.

Mamane and I have now gone into business together and I have put up enough money for a 'cycle' of 300 chicks. I did this at first just to help him- but who knows- it may become a proper business? Inchallah it will!

 

Journey to Gao

On the second of August Columba and I boarded a small prop plane at Bamako in the company of Fred, an American journalist writing a story about our intrepid Benedictine  and his saving of Islamic manuscripts. 

It was once more an UNHAS flight- United Nations Humanitarian Air Service and our destination was the troubled city of Gao, in the out-of-bounds northern territories of Mali. It had taken many months to arrange this visit and we were staying at the UN Headquarters- a rambling desert of prefabs where more than a dozen different nationalities are housed, making up the security forces in this, purportedly the most dangerous UN mission in the world.

 Our purpose  was to meet up with the Kounta family and see their manuscripts in order to decide whether it would be worth starting a project here. No one else has attempted such a seemingly daft idea before - it is virtually impossible to move anywhere here without heavy security and travelling in armoured vehicles. 

But our project in Timbuktu has now come to an end. Columba wants to explore new possibilities here- we are still operating in Djenne, and that will continue for at least the next year. The ancient city of Gao, the seat of the Songhai Empire- of course we would be able to find interesting treasures here! 

And the Kountas, a famous clan of Malian Arabs with historic connections to the West African Soufi movement Qādirīyah should be able to come up with some material to work with.

 Because of time and security restrictions we were unable to visit their library, and our meeting took place at the Governor's Residence. This charming and welcoming  southerner was called General Moussa Traore, like the long serving erstwhile  Malian Dictator. The General promised to lend us any help we needed for any future visits, and also potentially for transporting the digitising material. We were unable to see more that a few manuscripts, but there is probably no doubt about the quality and quantity of this family collection's manuscripts. Everyone seemed genuinely pleased that we should have made the effort to come.

At our UN camp we met an old acquaintance:  Major Johnny Ericsson, the only Swede at the camp, although there are quite a few others with  the TACOUBA ; the new force that combines French, British and Swedish forces - and possibly others- that have offensive power and actively seek out the Jihadi terrorist elements. There was radio silence concerning this group, and one felt uncomfortable asking any questions...

We had all met a couple of year previously in Timbuktu, below!

Johnny came and spent some time with us one night, and we discussed many things- Mali, the deployment of all these troops etc. Our discussion has taken on a new significance and urgency now, in the wake of the Fall of Kabul... The situation in Mali has many similarities with the Afghanistan campaign. This little makeshift meeting spot for sunset drinks below was the only concession to relaxation and 'normal' life in this  austere desert outpost. 

After our Gao adventure we flew to Mopti and visited Djenne of course.  The last leg of our journey, back down to Bamako, was made by car, through the verdant Malian rainy season countryside.