Vient de paraître Sultan, Caliph, and the Renewer of the Faith. Ahmad Lobbo, the Tārīkh al-fattāsh and the Making of an Islamic State in West Africa de Mauro Nobili aux Cambridge University Press

Vient de paraître Sultan, Caliph, and the Renewer of the Faith. Ahmad Lobbo, the Tārīkh al-fattāsh and the Making of an Islamic State in West Africa de Mauro Nobili aux Cambridge University Press, coll. "African Studies series", 2020, 284 p. ISBN : 9781108479509 Prix : 75 £.

"The Tārīkh al-fattāsh is one of the most important and celebrated sources for the history of pre-colonial West Africa, yet it has confounded scholars for decades with its inconsistences and questions surrounding its authorship. In this study, Mauro Nobili examines and challenges existing theories on the chronicle, arguing that much of what we have presumed about the work is deeply flawed. Making extensive use of previously unpublished Arabic sources, Nobili demonstrates that the Tārīkh al-fattāsh was in fact written in the nineteenth century by a Fulani scholar, Nūḥ b. al-Ṭāhir, who modified pre-existing historiographical material as a political project in legitimation of the West African Islamic state known as the Caliphate of Ḥamdallāhi and its founding leader Aḥmad Lobbo. Contextualizing its production within the broader development of the religious and political landscape of West Africa, this study represents a significant moment in the study of West African history and of the evolution of Arabic historical literature in Timbuktu and its surrounding regions."

Mauro Nobili is Assistant Professor at the Department of History and the Center for African Studies at the University of Illinois. A historian of pre-colonial and early-colonial West Africa, he has published on West African chronicles and Arabic calligraphies including in the journal History of Africa. He has been the recipient of several prestigious awards, including a National Endowment for Humanities grant.

Vincent Hiribarren a signalé la parution de cet ouvrage précieux sur son compte Twitter et sur le blog Libé Africa4, qu’il co-anime avec Jean-Pierre Bat.
On lira avec le plus grand intérêt l’entretien ("Histoire et héritage de l’empire du Macina") qu’il a mené avec Mauro Nobili, à propos de l’ouvrage :
https://twitter.com/bixhiribarren/status/1221390152494473222
http://libeafrica4.blogs.liberation.fr/2020/01/26/histoire-et-heritage-de-lempire-du-macina/