GloPhiMay 12, 2025

The Islamic Archive and Intellectual History in Sub-Saharan Africa
Lecture by Ousmane Kane

May 15, 2025, 2 pm (CEST)
Cultural Campus, Aula & Live Streaming
Part of the Lecture Series Philosophizing in African Languages.

https://www.uni-hildesheim.de/glophi/2025/05/12/the-islamic-archive-and-intellectual-history-in-sub-saharan-africa-ousmane-kane/

#AfricanIntellectualHistory #AfricanPhilosophy #Ajami #Archive #IslamicPhilosophy

The Islamic Archive and Intellectual History in Sub-Saharan Africa (Ousmane Kane) – GloPhi – Philosophizing in a Globalized World

For most of the twentieth century, the debate about the production of knowledge in Africa centered on the colonial library and writings in European languages. There was little acknowledgment that a whole world of debate has been going on vigorously and extensively in other languages in Africa. This lecture will bring the Islamic library into the debate about the production of knowledge in postcolonial Africa. It will argue that a substantial number of intellectuals have made significant intellectual contributions in Arabic and Ajami (African languages written in Arabic script). The formation of this library spans a period of 800 years. It consists of historical writings, devotional writings, pedagogical writings, polemical writings, and political writings that must be taken into account in reconstructing African intellectual history.

GloPhi – Philosophizing in a Globalized World
Anne Fausto SterlingJan 31, 2023
#ajami #africanwritingsystem #literacy #Africanhistory
https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/fallou-ngom-discovers-ajami-african-writing-system/?fbclid=IwAR2ysYH3r1xuqNJO7CExnWnH__PyjMu4x1IIRl_4BgfLsfQXPYEiDSnu05s
Unearthing a Long-Ignored African Writing System, One Researcher Finds African History, by Africans

A note in Ajami, a modified Arabic script, from Fallou Ngom's late father opened the door to a lifetime of discovery in African language and history.

The Brink
CorinnaBalkowJan 4, 2023

“That’s when I realized: we’ve been told that these people are #illiterate and they’re absolutely not,” says Ngom, a Boston University College of Arts & Sciences professor of #anthropology .

#ajami
#African #Writing

https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/fallou-ngom-discovers-ajami-african-writing-system/

Unearthing a Long-Ignored African Writing System, One Researcher Finds African History, by Africans

A note in Ajami, a modified Arabic script, from Fallou Ngom's late father opened the door to a lifetime of discovery in African language and history.

The Brink
Alex 🍁 🇨🇭Jan 2, 2023

Unearthing a Long Ignored African Writing System, One Researcher Finds African History, by Africans

#Ajami #WestAfrica #Linguistics #Literacy

Barbara Saunders on #Post

https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/fallou-ngom-discovers-ajami-african-writing-system/?fbclid=IwAR3Le48kbXpbij7QMrBmEZJrH3nzeJR5bal5ZpkG5lrqqUxqXmuTaBlCrqs

Unearthing a Long-Ignored African Writing System, One Researcher Finds African History, by Africans

A note in Ajami, a modified Arabic script, from Fallou Ngom's late father opened the door to a lifetime of discovery in African language and history.

The Brink
Andrew ShieldsJan 1, 2023
"people in Senegal, Guinea, Nigeria, and other parts of West Africa use a modified Arabic alphabet to write in a number of local languages: Wolof, Hausa, Fula, Mandinka, Swahili, Amharic, Tigrigna, and Berber among them." https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/fallou-ngom-discovers-ajami-african-writing-system/ #Africa #Writing #Ajami
Unearthing a Long-Ignored African Writing System, One Researcher Finds African History, by Africans

A note in Ajami, a modified Arabic script, from Fallou Ngom's late father opened the door to a lifetime of discovery in African language and history.

The Brink
Author-ized L.J.Jan 1, 2023

This is a fascinating article on #Ajami, a system of using a modified Arabic script to write various languages from West #Africa including "Wolof, Hausa, Fula, Mandinka, Swahili, Amharic, Tigrigna, and Berber." https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/fallou-ngom-discovers-ajami-african-writing-system/

Anthropologist Fallou Ngom and other African scholars introduced Ajani, a writing of trade, medicine, poetry, science, and anticolonial resistance, to Western academia, disproving the colonialist lie that Black communities south of the Sahara had no writing systems of their own.

Unearthing a Long-Ignored African Writing System, One Researcher Finds African History, by Africans

A note in Ajami, a modified Arabic script, from Fallou Ngom's late father opened the door to a lifetime of discovery in African language and history.

The Brink
Ro Gutiérrez Abréu ✨️Dec 30, 2022
What a beautiful awakening and acknowledgment of misjudged populations whose method of written communication has emerged from the centuries long shadows of its use despite the colonialist suppositions of illiteracy. #Africa #Ajami #Writing #Language #BlackHistory
https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/fallou-ngom-discovers-ajami-african-writing-system/
Unearthing a Long-Ignored African Writing System, One Researcher Finds African History, by Africans

A note in Ajami, a modified Arabic script, from Fallou Ngom's late father opened the door to a lifetime of discovery in African language and history.

The Brink
kjcDec 29, 2022

Fascinating article!

"Unearthing a Long Ignored African Writing System, One Researcher Finds African History, by Africans: BU anthropologist Fallou Ngom discovered Ajami, a modified Arabic script, in a box of his late father’s old papers" posted December 21, 2022, written by Molly Callahan

https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/fallou-ngom-discovers-ajami-african-writing-system/

#linguistics #Ajami #Africa

Unearthing a Long-Ignored African Writing System, One Researcher Finds African History, by Africans

A note in Ajami, a modified Arabic script, from Fallou Ngom's late father opened the door to a lifetime of discovery in African language and history.

The Brink