Haron, Muhammed

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TYDSKRIF VIR LETTERKUNDE • 44 (1) • 2007 205Heritage of African LanguagesManuscripts (Ajami).Helmi Sharawy. 2005. Bamako:Institut Culturel Afro-Arabe. xiii + 538 pp.The idea of the formation of The Afro-ArabCultural Institute was already mooted in thelate 1970s between The Arab League andthe Organisation of African Unity which hassubsequently been transformed into theAfrican Union (AU). One of the main objec-tives was to closely cooperate in projects thatare of mutual interest to the two organisa-tions and “to stress the interaction betweenthe African and Arab heritages in the fieldsof language, literature and arts as well associal and natural sciences” (5). Soon after itwas officially inaugurated – according toSharawy, reinvigorated (17) – during April2002 under the directorship of Dr. Abdullahbin Abdel Rahman al-Dousary who wrotethe preface (xi–xiii) to this publication, theInstitute’s representatives got to work onspecific projects of which this publication wasone. This particular publication, which hasbeen long in the making, is clear proof thatearly African Muslim intellectuals left behinda rich legacy that Africans can and indeedshould feel proud of.The compiler and editor of this signifi-cant work, which was officially launched atthe joint Arab League Education, Culture andSciences Organisation and Afro-Arab Cul-tural Institute two day seminar during No-vember 2006, is none other than a seasonedAfro-Arab scholar, Dr. Helmi Sharawy, whohas been the director of the Arab-AfricanResearch Centre in Cairo, Egypt. He has beenpassionate about the importance of explor-ing and excavating earlier materials and in-formation that demonstrate the connectionbetween the Arab and African worlds. Sincethe Arabic script was creatively employedby non-Arab scholars in the respective con-tinents of Asia and Africa in writing the locallanguages such Persian (Southwest Asia) andFulani (West Africa), it attracted the interestof scholars such as Sharawy. In his quest toidentify the languages that successfully em-ployed the script, he notes that more than20 African languages made use of this script.This says a great deal about the scripts adapt-ability and also tells us about the creativeAfrican intellectual minds at work.In Sharawy’s lengthy introduction, whichappears in both English (1–30) and Arabic(alif to lam), he highlighted the fact that nu-merous sources such as those of Ibn Batutaand others have pointed to the variety ofextant African literature that informs usabout the African social history. Sadly, heobserved, these literatures were totally ig-nored by the various European colonialmasters. It was only when nationalist move-ments on the continent were emerging andbecame organised to challenge the hegem-ony of these powers that African intellectu-als also “rediscovered their identity and theirrich cultural heritage” that has only, of late,been globally acknowledged. This was tan-gibly demonstrated when former Malianpresident, Omar Konaré, then chairpersonof the AU met with South Africa’s ThaboMbeki. Mbeki has been a protagonist of theAfrican Renaissance project, and co-spon-sored in 2001 a joint project for the preser-vation of extant African Islamic manuscriptsthat are located in parts of the West Africancontinent – by 2003 it was unanimously en-dorsed by the AU representatives as one ofits important cultural projects.The anthology of African manuscriptswas compiled during 2003 and 2004 and wasa special project undertaken by the editor incollaboration with the Afro-Arab Cultural In-stitute in Bamako, Mali. Sharawy dedicatedthe anthology to the late Dr. MoheiddeenSaber, former director-general of the ArabLeague Education, Culture and Sciences Or-ganisation, with whom (and others) he had13 Resensies 03.pmd 2/18/2008, 5:48 PM205TYDSKRIF VIR LETTERKUNDE • 44 (1) • 2007206been in constant dialogue over a period of25 years regarding cultural dimensions ofAfro-Arab relations. In his introductorypiece Sharawy provided a background tothe anthology’s compilation and editing, andhe discussed the context in which the inter-est in Ajami – Arabic scripted languages –manuscripts arose. He stated that over theyears until 2002 about 20 conferences andseminars were convened to discuss the stateof these manuscripts. Apart from the inter-est of African (and Arab) governments inthis project, African civil society representa-tives have also shown their interest in mak-ing their input. In the case of South Africa,for example, the Jami’at ul-‘Ulama of Gau-teng held a joint “The Ink Road” seminarwith Malian researchers during August 2002and this has consequently resulted in collab-orative efforts between the South Africangovernment and its civil society representa-tives on the Mali manuscripts.This anthology, which is divided into 8chapters of varying length, contains sam-ples of manuscripts from different parts ofthe continent, and they cover a variety ofthemes. Before Sharawy inserted photocop-ies of each of the manuscripts in this anthol-ogy, he made sure that they were authentic.In his efforts to make certain that this wasthe case, he depended on earlier criticalscholarship that assured and guaranteed thecontents and manuscripts’ validity and le-gitimacy. Sharawy, who crisscrossed thecontinent to view and select the materials,was somewhat amazed at the lack of inter-est by African academic institutions in pre-serving and archiving these rich socio-his-toric documents (23). These negative atti-tudes did not, however, dampen his spiritsin pursuing his objective. In the end he man-aged to select 16 manuscripts that represent-ed the following languages:  Malagasy, Swa-hili, Hausa, Fulani, Wolof, Mandingue, Song-hay, and Tamasheq.Prior to presenting the photocopied man-uscript, the editor gave a brief historico-cul-tural and geographic background to the lan-guage and its peoples. For example, in thefirst chapter Sharawy provided a generaloverview of the Malagasy language in Ara-bic and French respectively (33–43) beforethe appearance of the Malagasy manuscript.The manuscript was then followed face-to-face by its respective French and Arabic ver-sions (47–100); the former was rendered intoFrench by Ludvig Munthe, who also offereda transliteration (in the Latin script) of theMalagasy text. And the Arabic version wasundertaken by Patsy Gamal; the latter ’stranslation as indicated in the contents’ pagewas not directly translated from Malagasybut from the French version; this is indeed areal pity since it is quite obvious that whentranslating from one language to another itis inevitable that certain nuances would belost. In this instance, there is therefore stillan urgent need for an Arabist to familiarizehim/herself with Malagasy and provide afresh and direct translation to the target lan-guage. Fortunately, the anthology only hadone Malagasy manuscript as compared toothers that had two and three respectively.The second chapter and third chapter con-sisted of three manuscripts each; the formerfocused on Swahili (101–186), which incident-ly was adopted as one of the AU’s officiallanguages during July 2004 for the East Afri-can region, and the latter on Hausa (187–280), which is a widely spoken West Africanlanguage akin to Swahili. In both instancesthe introduction was in Arabic and Englishrespectively. The format was the same asthe first chapter; the only difference was theuse of English instead of French and differ-ent translators were responsible for thetranslations into the respective target lan-guages. Each of the other five chapters thatfollowed the editor introduced the sets ofmanuscripts in Arabic and French. In fourth13 Resensies 03.pmd 2/18/2008, 5:48 PM206TYDSKRIF VIR LETTERKUNDE • 44 (1) • 2007 207chapter two (281–364) Fulani manuscriptswere reproduced with translations in Ara-bic and French and the texts’ transliteration.The same goes for Wolof (365–442) withthree manuscripts in the fifth chapter, Man-dingue (443–484) with two manuscripts inthe sixth chapter, Songhay (485–516) withone manuscript in the seventh chapter andTamasheq (517–538) with one manuscript inthe final chapter.As mentioned earlier, the manuscriptsdealt with a variety of themes and genressuch as historical documents and poems;whilst it might not be possible to elaborateon each of the included manuscripts in thiswonderful anthology, it of interest to dis-cuss at least one of the sixteen to give glimpseof the contents of this anthology. One fasci-nating manuscript is the well-known andwidely distributed Swahili – Lamu/Momba-sa dialect – poem entitled “Inkishafi” (“TheAwakening [of the soul]”); said to be the old-est poem that was composed in this EastAfrican language. It was written by Bin Nasr(d. 1820) who lived off the Kenyan coast onthe island of Pate. In 1972 Professor W. Hich-ens produced an English version – includedin this anthology – of the 79 verse poemthat was arranged in stanzas of four lines;this was in line with the ruba‘iyyat style (i.e.the Arabic metric tradition) prevalent in Ar-abic. The contents are very much likened tothose penned by Muslim mystics because ofits emphasis on the soul. This text will there-fore be of relevance to those studying Afri-can poetry in general and Swahili poetry inparticular.Even though one of the shortcomings ofthis anthology is the limited number of man-uscripts that has been included, its impor-tance cannot be ignored by anyone inter-ested in African studies. It is, however, as-sumed that editor and his team of contribu-tors will be working on a complementaryanthology that will include manuscriptsfrom other Arabic scripted languages suchas Afrikaans. Nonetheless, the anthologyplainly demonstrated that it is an importantcompilation that showed to what extent Af-rican languages have employed the Arabicscript to make significant linguistic interven-tions. This sociolinguistic engineering feat,which has only been given global recogni-tion during the latter part of the 20th centu-ry, is an achievement that subsequent gen-erations on this continent must be informedabout. The publication is indeed a signifi-cant compilation that should be consideredseriously in academic programmes that dis-cuss the origin, history and development oflanguages and literatures not only on theAfrican continent but also elsewhere. It isindeed a timely work that will be of interestto all African social scientists.Muhammed HaronUniversity of Botswana, Gaborone,BotswanaOnbedoelde land.Bernard Odendaal. Pretoria: ProteaBoekhuis. 2007. 102 pp.ISBN: 978-0-624-04580-9.Die kernkonsep van Bernard Odendaal seOnbedoelde land is  kreatiwiteit, en sy teenhan-ger, destruktiwiteit.Dit gaan in die eerste plek om die krea-tiewe vermoë van die digter. In verskillendegedigte gaan dit om naamgewing as vormvan die kreatiewe vermoë en die ver-woor-ding in die gedig, “Heemkunde”, dit gaanom die digter wat lappies mens en wêreldetot gedigte stik.Die kreatiewe sluit ook die mens se sek-suele voortplanting in, vandaar die famili-ale gedigte in die bundel. Verder sluit dit ietsin soos die verbouing van groente deur ’n13 Resensies 03.pmd 2/18/2008, 5:48 PM207

Heritage of African Languages Manuscripts (Ajami) (Helmi Sharawy)

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Heritage of African Languages Manuscripts (Ajami) (Helmi Sharawy)

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