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From the 17th-20th centuries, Ibadi Muslims from the Maghrib traveled to Ottoman Cairo to seek financial, spiritual, or intellectual gain. At the center of their community lay a trade agency, school, residence, and library known as the “Buffalo Agency” (Wikālat al-jāmūs), located just around the corner from the famous Ibn Tulun Mosque. Using the Agency’s manuscript library as its material and geographic anchor, this project sketches the lives of Ibadi merchants, students, and scholars to show how Maghribi Ibadis participated in the legal, intellectual, and commercial worlds of Ottoman Cairo.

Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid, Fihrist al-makhṭūṭāt nashra bi-‘l-makhṭūṭāt allatī aqtanathā al-dār min sanat 1936-1955. 3 Vol.s (Cairo, 1961-1963). This is a brief follow up to the previous post about I…

The cover of al-Wujūd al-Ibāḍī fī Miṣr (Maktabat Khazāʾin al-Āthār, 2018). I borrow the image here from a remarkably detailed summary of the book available in Arabic here. I recently had the pleasu…

Saʿīd b. ʿAlī b. Taʿārit (d.1289/1872) occupies an important place in the history and historiography of Ibadi communities in the Maghrib as the author of The Epistle on the History of Jerba (Risāla…

(Tawfīq Pāsha) “Do you have wine in your country?” (Sultan Barghash) “Yes, we have wine made of date palms. The dissolute (al-fasaqa) drink it—in secret. When it gets the be…

Using the example of a recent inventory carried out in 2015 of the private library of the late Ibadi scholar and historian Salim b. Ya’qub (d.1991) in Tunisia, this presentation argues the late 19th and early 20th centuries represent a formative period for many major Ibadi manuscript collections in Tunisia. The Bin Ya’qub library, similar to manuscript collections through the Maghrib, the Sahara, and West Africa, reflects the archive-building travels and efforts of a Muslim scholar during the early 20th century and typifies a broader trend in Northern Africa toward the accumulation of large manuscript collections that today represent the main repositories of primary source material used by historians to write the history of Islam in the region. By offering a brief history of the creation of the Bin Yaq’ub library and the accumulation of its contents, the presentation suggests that thinking of the history of these and other Ibadi manuscript collections in terms of a network of scholars and books, constantly in motion, can help reshape the way historians use the texts of Ibadi archives. In addition, this paper considers the impact of the history of this and other Ibadi libraries in Tunisia on current research on pre-modern and early modern Ibadi history. In short, it considers the ways in which the story of the creation of this 20th century collection influences the ways in which we understand the history of pre-modern Ibadism.

Unable to travel lately, I have been searching for Ibadi lithographs listed in research libraries online. .. I did not anticipate [finding] the former owner of these volumes…

Organizers of the second annual Workshop on Ibadi Manuscripts and Manuscript Cultures are delighted to invite proposals from participants under the theme: “Ibadi Manuscripts in European and N…

A couple of years ago, I received a photocopy of some handwritten notes on Ibadi manuscripts in the Egyptian National Library, the Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya (Figure 1). The notes are dated 1408/1988…

When an Arabic text had appeared in print, there was no reason to copy it by hand anymore, right? Not quite. The reality is way messier and far more interesting.

This interesting and concise book finds its origin in Paul Love’s doctoral thesis defended in 2016 at the University of Michigan. It presents an innovative study of medieval Ibadi North-African Siyar. In the Maghrib, Siyar are books containing anecdotal and biographical information about individuals, playing the role of chronicle-style history; they function as prosopographies, collective biographies in which stories about individual members come together to form the biography of the community, constructing a North-African Ibadi tradition (p. xx). Love’s book tells the story of the compilation, adaptation and circulation of that prosopographical corpus through five scholars’ works. The pioneer is Abû Zakariyyâ’ al-Wârjalânî who provided Ibadi scholars of the second part of the eleventh century with a cohesive narrative of their history, when the community was suffering an ongoing numerical decline; he chose to write in the Arabic language at a time when use of the Berber language was also in decline. The author then studies the works of al-Wisyânî, al-Darjînî and al-Barrâdî. The last Ibadi scholar is al-Shammâkhî (d. 1522), who compiled all of the biographies of his predecessors into one collection and brought that medieval tradition of Ibadi prosopography to a close.

Episode 92: The Buffalo Agency: Maghribi Ibadis in Cairo, 1850-1950 In this interview, Paul Love discusses the early stages of his new book project on the history of Ibadi Muslims from the Maghrib who lived, worked, and studied in Ottoman Cairo. Tentatively titled The Buffalo Agency: Ibadi Muslims in Ottoman Cairo, the book follows the history of a trade agency, school, and library known as the ‘Buffalo Agency’ (Wikalat al-jamus), operated by Ibadis for nearly four centuries in the Tulun district of Cairo. From its founding in the 17th to century to its closure in the 20th, the Agency served as a waystation for students, scholars, and merchants on their journeys through Cairo. During that same period, it also became a school and library for Ibadi students and scholars connected to the famous al-Azhar mosque, some of whom stayed in Egypt for decades. By exploring the lives of Ibadi Muslims as they moved through the world of sharʿiah courts, made use of waqf to endow properties and books, and studied alongside and did business with their Sunni coreligionists, The Buffalo Agency shows the way in which Ibadis belonged fully to the Ottoman world. At the same time, the book shows how Ibadis in Cairo maintained connections with their coreligionists in North Africa, East Africa, and the Arabian Peninsula. The interview focuses on the early chapters of the book, including those based on research in the Tunisian National Archives during summer 2019. Paul spent part of the summer on an AIMS grant, which allowed him time to examine the correspondence of one of the most prominent Ibadis of the Ottoman Empire: Saʿid b. Qasim al-Shammakhi, who served as both the director of the Buffalo Agency and the representative of the Tunisian Bey in Egypt during the mid-19th century. Paul Love earned his PhD in Near Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan (2016). He is currently Assistant Professor of North African, Middle Eastern, and Islamic History at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. His research focuses on the history of Ibadi Muslim communities in northern Africa, the Arabic manuscript traditions of the Maghrib, and colonial knowledge production in North Africa and the Sahara. His first book, Ibadi Muslims of North Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2018), traced the history of the formation of an Ibadi Muslim tradition in the Maghrib from the 11th-16th centuries. His recent publications have appeared in the Journal of African History, the Journal of Islamic Manuscripts, and Etudes et Documents Berbères. This interview was led by CEMAT Director, Dr. Laryssa Chomiak, and was recorded on July 19, 2019, at the Centre d'Études Maghrébines à Tunis (CEMAT). Posted by Hayet Lansari, Librarian, Outreach Coordinator, Content Curator (CEMA).