A Timbuktu bibliophile between the Mediterranean and the Sahel: Ahmad Bul'arāf and the circulation of books in the first half of the twentieth century

Abstract

This essay focuses on the role of Ahmad Bul'araf in the circulation of books – in their manuscript and their printed forms – from his place of residence in Timbuktu for about 50 years, in the first part of the twentieth century. In this endeavour of a lifetime, he communicated with people involved in the book business in a number of locations across a wide expanse, from Beirut and Cairo in the East, to Algiers and Fes in the North; Dakar in the West, and Kano to his southeast. Here is a case of how a network was kept going and animated through the concern with an object central to the life of learning, the book. His activity is one example of the ways in which contacts and connections were cultivated across spaces in and on the edges of the Sahara.