Handlist of Manuscripts in the Centre de Documentation et de Recherches Historiques Ahmed Baba, Timbuktu - Mali

Summary

This catalogue describes in its five volumes 9000 manuscripts held in the Aḥmad Baba Institute of Higher Learning and Islamic Research in Timbuktu, Mali. It is a centre specialised in collecting the manuscripts of West Africa and cataloguing, preserving and restoring them.
The manuscripts are written in Arabic, Turkish, and African languages such as Hawsa and Fulani.
The collection is characterised by a wide variety of topics, scientific and religious, such as manuscripts of the Qurʾān and its sciences, Ḥadīth and its sciences, jurisprudence and its origins , the science of grammar and morphology, uniqueness of God (tawḥīd) and creed, the Prophets biography and praises of him. It also includes sources on Sufism, dictionaries, collections of poetry, invocations and litanies by the Prophet. Some manuscripts cover topics on the natural sciences, mathematics, the science of calculation, metaphysical sciences such as magic, trusts (awfāq) and astrology.