See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/325135987

The Arabic Script in Africa: Studies in the Use of a Writing System, edited by
Meikal Mumin and Kees Versteegh

Article  in  Islamic Africa · May 2018

DOI: 10.1163/21540993-00901008

CITATIONS READS

0 469

1 author:

Albrecht Hofheinz
University of Oslo
30 PUBLICATIONS   215 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

In 2016: How it felt to live in the Arab World five years after the ‘Arab Spring’ View project

In 2016: How it felt to live in the Arab World five years after the ‘Arab Spring’ View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Albrecht Hofheinz on 12 December 2019.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Book Review

Meikal Mumin and Kees Versteegh (eds.). The Arabic Script in Africa: Studies in the Use of a Writing
System. Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics 71. Leiden: Brill, 2014. xx, 400 pp. €142.00, hard-
back; €137.00, e-book.

This is a rich and inspiring collection of articles that emerged from a 2010 workshop held at the Uni-
versity of Cologne on the diffusion, usage, diversity and dynamics of the Arabic script (AS) in Africa.
One reservation needs to be made at the beginning: the work does not cover AS as used for Arabic
(with the exception of Chadian Arabic), nor the varieties of calligraphic styles that have been used
on the continent over the centuries to pen Arabic-language manuscripts. The latter in particular is
still a field where detailed research is sourly lacking. The reservation made here betrays the back-
ground of this reviewer as an Arabist with an interest in Africa, not a scholar of Africa with a
knowledge of Arabic.

Having said this, I am impressed with the fascinating diversity documented in this book, both with
regard to the number of African languages for which AS is attested (at least 80, see the well-done
map p. 45), and for the diversity and range of the purposes for which such texts exist. The term ajami
has gained some popularity for Arabic-script based writing in non-Arabic languages; it is derived
from the Arabic ʿajam, which in origin corresponds to the Greek βάρβαρος but has come into emic
use in particular in West Africa. To cover the huge phonemic and graphemic diversity of the mate-
rial, the editors devised a sophisticated system of transliteration and transcription (5-21), which is
beautifully applied throughout the book, paying attention to minute detail (cf. the discussion of
graphs, graphemes, and glyphs p. 8) and succeeding admirably in rendering computerised forms of
an astonish array of dotted letters in use in ajami across the continent; the only exception I could
find was in Haron’s article (356-9) where the subscript dagger ʾalif is omitted, even though it is in-
troduced on p. 13.

The first chapter surveys the origin and spread of AS outside Africa; the second highlights the ajami
field as understudied. The stereotype that “Africa was a continent without writing” has become a
straw man by now; its repeated refutation (41, 46 & passim) is excessive, and it is also unnecessary
to downplay the importance of oral culture (42) in order to underline the significance and the long
history of written culture in Africa. A certain bias appears not only in that the role of the Arabic
language itself in the cultural economy of ajami writing is only given cursory attention.1 Also, the
claim that AS predated the use of Roman script in Africa by more than 500 years (42) is a slight
distortion in that it disregards the use of Latin in North Africa in antiquity. This is not, however, to
belittle Mumin’s exposure of various forms of prejudice that have inhibited the proper understand-
ing and study of the use of AS in Africa; nor his pleas to overcome the Latin bias and give Arabic-
based scripts greater practical recognition, including in the further development of Unicode (59).
The article concludes with a very useful bibliography (63-76).

The remaining chapters are arranged geographically, covering AS use for Tuareg, Kanuri/Kanembu,
Fula, Hausa, Mande, Swahili, and Afrikaans. Obviously, not every language for which AS is attested
could be included; notable absentees are, e.g., Songhay and Yorùbá. It is, however, a pity that there

1
Cf., i.a., the map p. 45 of “Languages in Africa for which Arabic script usage is attested,” which includes Afrikaans and Malay but not Arabic. The
map also ignores the use of AS to write the Nobiin language in Egypt.
2 Post-print ms of a book review published in ISLAMIC AFRICA 9 (2018), 113-132

is no separate contribution on Wolofal, which has a strong tradition of ajami writing and the only
complete ajami Qurʾān translation in any sub-Saharan language (266). Also, East Africa is treated
less thoroughly than West Africa, with nothing on the writings in Somali or any of the other lan-
guages of the Horn (incl. Harari, Oromiñña, Afar, Tigre, Amharic), even though “the orthographic
debate is more complex in Northeastern Africa than anywhere else in Muslim Africa.”2 There re-
mains an unresolved tension in the book between those who hold that AS, like most any writing
system, can be adapted to write any language (Daniels 32, Mumin 59, Warren-Rothlin 270/3, Haron
346) and those who see “technical and practical obstacles” (Humery 181) inhibiting the use of ajami
for, e.g., Fula (181), Manding (Vydrin, 203, 207), or Swahili (Vierke 326), compared to a Roman-based
alphabet. It should be said that a comparison of the reasons given for the presumed ‘Roman superi-
ority’ with the documentary evidence provided in this book suggests that the ‘Roman’ view largely
rests on cultural prejudice (cf. also the quotation p. 274 from Knappert on the superiority of an Ara-
bic-based script for rendering Swahili).

The documentation of orthographic practices is the book’s primary contribution, and this review
can only extol the painstaking care with which this has been achieved. The book’s second focus is
on the sociolinguistics of writing, and the richness of the material uncovered here is such that I can-
not do justice to it, but only bemoan the fact that no attempt has been made to integrate it by provid-
ing a more systematic overview over the principal purposes and reasons ajami writing has been used
for. Popularisation of knowledge vs. use as a secret code (186-7); publicly performed poetry vs. per-
sonal letters and notes; defence of tradition (as against ‘Wahhabi’ trends); affirmation of an ‘Islamic’
identity; spread of Christian teachings (by missionaries, 262); distancing from the Christian/Western
world; distancing from Arab cultural hegemony (191, 265)—all of these and more are exemplified in
the book, but their dispersal makes it somewhat challenging to consider them more systematically.
Not least, faced with overwhelming evidence for the wide spread of ajami writing, one is left won-
dering how ‘deep’ this reached. Literacy statistics, we learn, often only count the ability to read Ro-
man script, disregarding AS literacy. Nevertheless, the effort to highlight the significance of ajami
writing meant that the limits of this literacy are given less attention. Thus, the idiosyncrasies and
the lack of orthographic standardisation described for many cases here (e.g. 80-1, 99, 148, 180, 187,
273, 317, 327) would suggest that AS usage was and is not very common socially (since standardised
writing practices come about not only via institutions, but also through common usage). While the
numerous varieties of ajami manifestations across Africa are exemplarily documented here, the so-
ciocultural diffusion could perhaps have been explored further in a book that expressly emphasises
its focus on the sociolinguistic aspects (1).

Another dimension where the book opens up questions that suggest promising avenues for further
research is the history of ajami writing in Africa. The oldest extant example mentioned is a 16th-
century, 500-folio Tuareg manuscript discovered in Niger in the 1990s (80).3 Hausa ajami probably
goes back to the late 15th century, though the earliest surviving manuscript is 300 years younger
(274). The earliest interlinear Kanembu ajami is dated before 1669 C.E., but the tradition appears to
go back to at least to the early 17th, if not the 16th century (108). As for the earliest Swahili ajami
manuscript, there is reference to (an apparently lost) one from 1652 (274, 320 n. 3), but the oldest
texts that have come to light are letters dating back to 1724 (320). In any case, it “is only in the 18th

2
R.S. O’Fahey, Arabic Literature of Africa 3 A (Leiden: Brill, 2003), xxii.
3
Reference is to David Gutelius, “Newly Discovered 1oth/16th C. Ajami Manuscript in Nigeri and Kel Tamasheq History,” Saharan Studies Association
Newsletter 8, no. 1-2 (2000): 6.
HOFHEINZ, REVIEW OF THE ARABIC SCRIPT IN AFRICA 3

century that we find more substantial (paper) proof of Swahili texts being written in Arabic script.”
Some researchers have taken perfection of style and other indications as evidence that the tradition
of ajami writing was well-established by then; others surmise that a flourishing oral literature was
not committed to writing much before 1700 (319-22). Manding ajami is attested in the first half of the
18th century in southern Senegambia (201) and Fuuta Jalon (181-2), and in Sokoto in the late 18th
century. All these fascinating glimpses into the past leave this reader craving for more: how wide-
spread did ajami become in the course of its precolonial history, compared to the development of
writing in Arabic? For all we know, Arabic was vastly predominant, but just what ‘percentage’ of
writing was done in ajami, in the various contexts? To what extent, and via what trajectories, have
various African Arabic orthographies influenced each other?

A brief review cannot do justice to the individual chapters in a book as rich as this, so I must limit
myself to a few examples. Among many well-researched papers, Warren-Rothlin (261-289) provides
an outstanding survey of contemporary conventions and developments in ajami writing in the Cen-
tral Sudanic belt, with fascinating detail on the socio-political context: not only growing Muslim-
Christian as well as inner-Islamic tensions since the colonial takeover (e.g. the Tijāniyya-Izāla con-
flict), but also marketing and the media as well as national, pan-African, and international cultural
and educational policies. The author’s expertise ranges from the historical differences between
ajami writing in Hausa, Fula, and Chadian Arabic (262) to his nuanced perception of the positive
and negative aspects of attempts at standardisation (example: Alphabet national du Tchad (version
arabe), 273).

Bondarev (107-142) presents fascinating insights into Old Kanembu as a specialised exegetical lan-
guage separate from and eventually largely unintelligible for speakers of Kanembu/Kanuri. The
question left open is: why a second ‘learned’ language in addition to Arabic? What was its function?
Apparently, its development into a fully-fledged indigenous literary language was cut short by polit-
ical developments, namely the fall of the Borno Sultanate (140).

Vydrin & Dumestre (199-260) give an exhaustive survey of both the socio-political context and the
orthographic and grammatological properties of Manding ajami. Two remarks: p. 227/9: I would sug-
gest that ‫ﺤﱠﻤﺪﻱ‬
َ ‫ﺤﱠﻤﺪﻱ َﻭﺍَﻟﻌﻠِﻰ ُﻣ‬
َ ‫ َﺳَﻠَﻌِﻞ ُﻣ‬should be interpreted as deriving from the standard Arabic formula
‫“ ﺻﻠﻰ ﻋﻠﻰ ﳏﻤﺪ ﻭﻋﻠﻰ ﺁﻝ ﳏﻤﺪ‬Greetings to Muḥammad and to the family of Muḥammad” rather than as
meaning “Greetings to Muḥammad and the Highest Muḥammad.” And on p. 228, the authors write,
“The first spelling could be read as ‫[ ﺧﺴِﺒﻰ‬but this] hardly makes any sense.” Being followed by ‫ﺍﷲ‬, it
might also be interpreted as the standard formula ‫“ ﺣﺴﱮ ﺍﷲ‬God is sufficient for me.”

I take most issue with Breedveld’s chapter (143-157) on the “Influence of Arabic Poetry on the Com-
position and Dating of Fulfulde Jihad Poetry […].” The title promises more than is delivered in the
article, which merely shows the use of takhmīs and of the chronogram. The Arabic term for the latter,
by the way, is not tārīkh (that is rather the Ottoman Turkish term; cf. G.S. Colin, “Ḥisāb al-Djummal”
in EI2, which would have been a better reference than the one Breedveld refers to p. 157). Where
Breedveld writes that in her material, “some Arabic letters vary slightly in value from the values as
used in Arabic poetry,” wider reading would have alerted her to the fact the Fodiawa merely followed
the common Maghrebi order of the Arabic abjad. Also, the year 1206 AH is not “approximately 1791
CE” (156), but rather 1791/2; and the larger part of it falls in 1792. Such lack of Arabist training led
Breedveld to conclude: “The different numerical values of Arabic script graphemes for Arabic and
 4 Post-print ms of a book review published in ISLAMIC AFRICA 9 (2018), 113-132

Fulfulde already show that these influences [of Arabic poetry] are not copied in their entirety. Fur-
ther study is needed to explain the differences.” In fact, there are no differences from the Maghrebi
tradition in her examples. Breedveld transcribes rather than transliterates (as she claims p. 148). Her
presentation of the ajami orthography used in her examples is rudimentary; and where she claims
that the dot for the Arabic character ‹f› “is sometimes omitted or put under the body of the graph-
eme” (153 n. 3), her example (149) clearly shows regular use of the Maghrebi/Warsh form ‫ ڢ‬. I find it
somewhat puzzling that these issues were not discovered in the editing process.

The penultimate chapter (Haron, 343-64) could equally have benefitted from a stricter editorial
hand. The introduction highlighting the important role of the Cape Muslim community in the for-
mation of the Afrikaans language—a role subsequently suppressed in white Afrikaner memory—is
interesting, but barely connected to the text Haron analyses. And the discussion of the ‘combination
of graphemes’ at the end is left hanging in the open, as the reader is shown that a combination of
fatḥa and kasra is used to render /e/ in en, /i/ in in, and the vowellessness of a consonant in the third
example—without these differences being discussed.

Overall, the collection succeeds not only in demonstrating the richness of ajami writing cultures,
but wets the reader’s interest in further exploration of both their history and their future (which may
be completely detached from older tradition; cf. p. 93). The importance of new media (internet and
mobile phones) is highlighted in Souag’s article (91-104) on emergent Shelha literacy in southwest
Algeria. Souag is both right and wrong in saying (103) that “the use of the vernacular [as phatic com-
munication in the private sphere] may be compared to the use of colloquial Arabic, not usually writ-
ten.” His reference is a 2003 study of the use of 3arabiizii (a form of romanisation) in Dubai; since
then, the use of colloquial Arabic has exploded on the internet. The question thus remains: Is this
different for ajami in Africa? and if so, why? Perhaps the use of ajami in new media, which appears
rather restricted compared to the dominant use of Arabic, mirrors the historical situation of ajami
writing as well?

Corrigenda
Given the meticulous attention to detail in this book, it is almost surprising that a few errors escaped
the editors’ eyes—but then, ‫ﺍﻟﻜﻤﺎﻝ ﷲ ﻭﺣﺪﻩ‬. Here is what I found: (27) ‫ ﺍﻟﻴﻪ‬read ʾUlaih, not ʿUlaih; incon-
gruence between the Arabic ‫ ﺍﳋﻠﻴﺪ‬and the romanised al-ʿUbaid (the inscription might be read both
ways); (29 l. 4) full stop missing at end of sentence; (42/44) repetition of paragraph “The Arabic script
is the only supra-regional script in Africa besides Roman/Latin;” (181 l. 17) read “semble-t-il, que”, not
“semble-t-il. que”; (144 vs. 157) Haafkens’ Ph.D. thesis has been published in 1983—it should have
been cited from the published version; (148) read “two-hundred-year-old texts,” not “two hundred
years old texts;” (157) Musammaṭ, not Musammat; (185) ahistorical use of “Saudi Arabia” as the place
where al-ḥājj ʿUmar spent three years; (186 n. 41) read Mā ’d-dīn, not Mā’d-dīn; (225/6): repetition of
paragraph “In the following […];” (348) logic: “the languages […] slowly disappeared and in the pro-
cess, some of them eventually disappeared.”

Albrecht Hofheinz, University of Oslo

View publication stats