|
View the H-AfrPol Discussion Logs by month
View the Prior Message in H-AfrPol's December 2005 logs by: [date] [author] [thread] View the Next Message in H-AfrPol's December 2005 logs by: [date] [author] [thread] Visit the H-AfrPol home page.
The African and Middle Eastern Division of the Library of Congress is pleased to announce the release of the Global Gateway collection: "Islamic Manuscripts from Mali" < http://international.loc.gov/intldl/malihtml/malihome.html >. Please direct any questions regarding this collection to the Global Gateway inquiry form at: http://www.loc.gov/help/contact-international.html. "Islamic Manuscripts from Mali" is a collection of twenty-two Islamic manuscripts containing important insights into the life and culture of West Africans during the late Middle Ages and Early Modern Era. The Library of Congress, through a collaborative effort with the Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library of Timbuktu, Mali, is making available online these rare and important documents. The manuscripts are the work of a number of authors and cover a variety of topics, including--but not limited to--astrology, commerce, Islamic law, health care, mysticism, slavery, and agriculture. All of the manuscripts are written in various forms of the Arabic script. The twenty-two manuscripts available on this website are important primary sources for the study of the traditional Islamic states and culture of West Africa. These documents were previously unavailable to scholars outside of Mali. Their use as research resources should provide a means to a much fuller and more accurate understanding of life in Mali and West Africa over the past five hundred years. The presentation also contains photographs of Mali by Philip Harrington, as well as a selection of maps from the Library of Congress's Geography and Map Division. A related Library of Congress exhibit of items from the Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library is available at: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mali/. The Library of Congress Global Gateway Web site of international collections and links to international Web sites is available at http://international.loc.gov/. "Islamic Manuscripts from Mali" may be found by selecting the link to "Individual Digital Collections," which includes links to presentations of other international materials. ******* Laura Gottesman Reference Librarian Digital Reference Team Library of Congress -- Amos Anyimadu accraboy@fastmail.fm
 Humanities & Social Sciences Online 
|