Digital preservation of Fuuta Jalon Scholars’ Arabic and Ajami Materials in Senegal and Guinea (EAP1430)

Aims and objectives

The project will digitally preserve 50,000 pages of endangered Arabic and Ajami manuscripts (texts written with the modified Arabic script) produced by Fuuta Jalon scholars who lived between the 18th and early 20th century in the Republic of Guinea. The 50,000 pages of the endangered Arabic and Ajami manuscripts to be preserved in this project will include surviving texts of important scholars and handwritten copies made by their students, followers, and family members who keep them in their private libraries in the Fuuta Jalon region in Guinea and in Senegal where the second largest Fuuta Jalon community in Africa lives.