Mauritania's Hidden Manuscripts

Mauritania's desert libraries are vanishing. Will their holdings also disappear? This is the question the Guardian asks.

From the piece...

With a sudden decline in tourism, Mauritania is spending all available resources on security and combating al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. The government has no time for heritage. "It's not been a priority in recent years," the arts minister, Cissé Mint Cheikh Ould Boide, acknowledges. Handed down from generation to generation the manuscripts, some of which date from the 10th century, still belong to families and are dispersed around four main centres, Chinguetti, Ouadane, Oulatane and Tichitt. The towns have been on the Unesco World Heritage list since 1996. On the route of pilgrims travelling to Mecca and of caravans loaded with dates and salt serving a vast area from northern Mauritania to Sudan, the towns used to be a major tourist attraction. But visitors are scarce and the books are being forgotten.

"Until the colonial era they were the only form of reading matter, often consulted and sometimes copied. But with our modern ways they are increasingly regarded as mere relics," says Jiyid Ould Abdi, the head of Mauritania's Scientific Research Institute. To remedy this situation the government is planning a big event – Nouakchott, Capital of Islamic Art – for 2011. It hopes to form an international panel to select 35 projects and attract foreign capital. The scheme will focus largely on Moorish civilisation, disregarding black Mauritanian culture represented by the Pular, Wolof and Soninke ethnic groups.

The institute, located next to the National Museum in the capital, lacks the resources to protect the manuscripts.