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Fulfulde Literature in Arabic Script

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

David Robinson
David Robinson*
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
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Extract

Scholars of the West African savanna have long been familiar with the use of the Arabic alphabet to create cajami or “non-Arabic” literatures in Fulfulde and Hausa. Maurice Delafosse took a rather negative position on the value of this material, basing his opinion on two formidable obstacles: the absence of natural correspondence between a Semitic alphabet and non-Semitic phonemes and the difficulty of establishing a unified system of of conventions where such a natural correspondence was lacking. He argued that the ajamiyya manuscripts were few in number, poor in quality, and did not deserve the name of literature. By contrast, several more recent authors have stressed the importance and the continuing composition in ajamiyya: Gilbert Vieillard and Alfa Ibrahima Sow, in their work on the Fulfulde of Futa Jalon, Pierre Lacroix in his work on the Adamawa dialect of the same language, and Mervyn Hiskett in his studies in Hausa. Even where the volume of material is small, they have pointed to the critical pedagogical functions of ajamiyya for the spread of Islam.

In this paper I wish to show both the importance and the problems of exploiting Fulfulde literature in a somewhat different milieu, the jihad of al-hajj Umar of the mid-nineteenth century and the state which his son Amadu Sheku ran from Segu. To achieve this I will examine a narrative poem taken from the library and archives of Segu but housed since the 1890s at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris under the title Fonds Archinard. In the process I hope to draw attention to the historical circumstances in which the ajamiyya conventions for Fulfulde were developed and maintained in Futa Jalon and then extended to the Umarian entourage, and to the necessity for textual and contextual criticism of written documents based on an understanding of the close relationship between oral and written media and the continual revision that characterize a received tradition.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 9 , 1982 , pp. 251 - 261
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1982

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References

NOTES

1. Delafosse, Maurice, Haut-Sénégal-Niger (3 vols.: Paris, 1912), 1:377–80.Google Scholar

2. Sow has used material in the Fonds Vieillard at the Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire in Dakar to prepare his major studies of Jalon, Futa literature: La Femme, la vâche, la foi (Paris, 1966)Google Scholar, Chroniques et récits du Fouta Djalon (Paris, 1968)Google Scholar and (with Kesteloot, Lilyan) Le Filon du bonheur éternel (Paris, 1971).Google Scholar For Lacroix, see his Poésie peule de l'Adamawa (2 vols.: Paris, 1965).Google Scholar For Hiskett, , his A History of Hausa Islamic Verse (London, 1975).Google Scholar

3. The collection is described in the Guide des sources de l'histoire de l'Afrique au sud du Sahara dans les Archives et Bibliothèques françaises (2 vols.: Zug, UNESCO, 1976–1977), 2:699–804.Google Scholar

4. The best example of this relationship and revision that I have seen is Alain Delivre's treatment of Imerina material in L'histoire des rois d'Imerina. Interpretation d'une tradition orale (Paris, 1974).Google Scholar

5. In addition to the reference cited in note 2 see Last, D.M., The Sokoto Caliphate (New York, 1967), xxxvii, 9, and 223Google Scholar, and Hiskett, , The Sword of Truth (London, 1973), 33, 157, 177.Google Scholar

6. John Hunwick has cited some evidence for a Fulfulde literature in Katsina and other parts of northern Nigeria in the eighteenth century. The material he refers to probably consists primarily of commentaries on the Qur'an and Muslim belief, some of which were oral. See Hunwick, , “Arabic Language and Muslim Society in West Africa,” Ghana Social Science Journal, 4/2 (November, 1977).Google Scholar

7. Sow, , Filon, 11–38Google Scholar; Marty, Paul, L'Islam en Guinée (Paris, 1921), 349–55.Google Scholar

8. Sow, , “Notes sur les procédés poétiques dans la littérature des peuls du Fouta Djalon,” Cahiers d'études africaines, 5(1966), 371.Google Scholar

9. Sow, , Femme, 15.Google Scholar

10. I develop these points further in a forthcoming study of the jihad of al-hajj Umar. The Futa Jalonke influence is most clearly revealed in a study of the Fonds Archinard collection, particularly the colophons of the authors and copyists.

11. The most systematic exposition of Fulfulde prosody is contained in Sow “Notes.” See also the remarks of Henri Gaden in his edition of Tyam, Mohammadou Aliou, La vie d'El Hadj Omar. Qaçida en Popular (Paris, 1935), ix–xivGoogle Scholar, and Lacroix, , Poésie, 1:371–73.Google Scholar

12. For example, Gaden, Vie d'El Hadj and Lacroix, Poésie.

13. I have followed the system of UNESCO set out in the Bamako conference of 28 February to 5 March 1966. See Calvet, M.J., La transcription des langues du Sénégal. Problèmes theoriques pour le choix d'un alphabet officiel (Dakar, Centre de Linguistique Appliquée de Dakar, vol 29 bis, 1967)Google Scholar; Lacroix, P., “Remarques préliminaires à une étude des emprunts arabes en peul,” Africa, 37(1967), 195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. The inventory was completed by Sidi Mohamed Mahibou and Noureddine Ghali in 1981 under the sponsorship of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities entitled “Malian Arabic Manuscript Conservation.” The inventory is being prepared for publication by the Centre National de Recherches Scientifiques in collaboration with Michigan State University.

15. Based on a scrutiny of the dates of accessioning and binding at the beginning of each volume.

16. See Willis, John Ralph, “The Writings of al-hajj ʿUmar al-Futi and Shaykh Mukhtar b. Wadiʿ at Allah: Literary Themes, Sources and Influences,” in Willis, , ed., Studies in West African Islamic History. The Cultivators of Islam (London, 1979).Google Scholar

17. Most of the information about the author comes from his Arabic colophon at the conclusion of the poem.

18. He wrote three poems in Arabic in honor of Amadu Sheku in 1871-72, on the occasion of Amadu's victory over the Bambara at Gemukura and his installation as Commander of the Faithful. These poems are part of a corpus found in the Bibliothè;que Nationale, Manuscrits Orientaux, Fonds Arabe 5640, ff 25-38. They are part of the Fonds Archinard.

19. The letters from the post commanders of Bakel and Senudebu are contained primarily in folder 13G 167 of the Archives Nationales du Sénégal, Ancienne Série.

20. Referred to in note 11. Most of the biographical information on Mamadu Aliyu, or Mohammadou Aliou, is contained in Gaden's introduction.

21. Reichardt, C.A.L., Grammar of the Fulde Language (London, 1876), xix and appendices.Google Scholar