The person on a mission to save lots of Mauritania’s ‘metropolis of libraries’ from encroaching desert sands | Mauritania

On a current afternoon, 67-year-old Saif Islam made his approach into the courtyard of a library in Chinguetti, a tiny desert settlement nestled within the Sahara in Mauritania.

Decked in a flowing boubou robe striped in two shades of blue, his steps unsteady however his presence nonetheless commanding, he sat on a handwoven mat stroking his gray beard, together with his black croc sandals neatly positioned to the aspect.

“It’s these books that gave it this historical past, this significance,” he mentioned, pointing to a Tenth-century Qur’an, its pages brown with age. “With out these previous dusty books, Chinguetti would have been forgotten like some other deserted city.”

Chinguetti rose to prominence within the thirteenth century as a sort of fortified settlement referred to as a ksar that served as a stopping-off level for caravans plying trans-Saharan commerce routes. It then turned a gathering place for Maghreb pilgrims on the way in which to Mecca, and, over time, a centre for Islamic and scientific scholarship, referred to variously as town of libraries, the Sorbonne of the desert, and the seventh holy metropolis of Islam. Its manuscript libraries performed host to scientific and Quranic texts relationship from the later center ages.

For many years, encroaching desert sands have threatened to bury this centuries-old effectively of information. Residents have left, and vacationer numbers have fallen. A lot of the present inhabitants reside in buildings outdoors the unique ksar boundaries.

Islam, the custodian of Al Ahmed Mahmoud Library Basis, one among solely two libraries nonetheless open to the general public, is preventing to save lots of the manuscripts and drive up curiosity amongst his compatriots within the ksar, which was one of many Mauritanian settlements designated a world heritage website by Unesco in 1996.

“Chinguetti is Africa’s religious capital,” mentioned Islam, who was born and bred within the city and returned in 2015 when he retired from a job within the civil service within the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott.

Islam introduced out some manuscripts and different artefacts and laid them on the ground. An air cooler stood in a single nook, to assist towards the extraordinary Saharan solar. For weeks or generally months, he mentioned, no guests had come.

“The vacationer season is from September or generally December to March,” Islam mentioned. “Earlier than, lots of of vacationers got here each day. Now, it’s barely 200 per season. After Covid, tourism dropped drastically. The insecurity in Mali impacts Mauritania too.”

In complete there are 12 family-run crimson brick libraries nonetheless in operation within the city. Collectively they maintain greater than 2,000 volumes, together with Quranic manuscripts and books on astronomy, arithmetic, drugs, poetry, and authorized jurisprudence throughout the Maghreb and west Africa, relationship again to the eleventh century.

Many had been among the many valuables introduced by merchants from throughout the area. Others reportedly got here from Abweir, a close-by settlement that in response to oral custom was based in AD777 and later totally submerged underneath sand dunes.

As a lot as 90% of Mauritania is taken into account desert or semidesert. Throughout the Sahel, desertification retains accelerating. The dunes in Chinguetti are already on the peak of the home windows of a few of the city’s buildings.

Residents say that inside residing reminiscence there have been as many as 30 family-run libraries within the city, however the quantity has dwindled as folks left, significantly in the course of the droughts of the Sixties and 70s. An absence of vacationers means little by the use of funding for the few that stay. Unesco recognition didn’t translate into sustained monetary assist, they mentioned, and guarantees of funding from private and non-private entities have gone unfulfilled.

In recent times, the Madrid-based nonprofit Terrachidia, working with Mauritania’s cultural authorities and the Spanish authorities’s improvement company has helped restore a number of libraries.

The work was achieved with native builders and supplies utilizing conventional constructing methods to make sure faithfulness to the city’s centuries-old aesthetic whereas preserving the treasured manuscripts. A 2024 cultural heritage undertaking introduced schoolchildren into ksar for video games, lessons, and scavenger hunts.

“It was incredible,” mentioned Mamen Moreno, a Spanish panorama architect who has visited the location and is Terrachidia’s co-founder. “Some kids had by no means been there earlier than though they’ve all the time lived in Chinguetti.”

The top objective, she mentioned, was not merely preservation however to draw extra sources to generate exercise and even perhaps deliver folks again. “The precariousness of the buildings … has led to overcrowding within the new neighbourhoods, and the ksar is lifeless,” she mentioned. “Cities, like homes, are preserved when they’re inhabited.”

Islam agreed. He mentioned he additionally wished his compatriots to take part within the race to save lots of the traditional legacies from going underneath. “Sadly, I see that Europeans are extra focused on Chinguetti than Arabs and even Mauritanian officers [but] Chinguetti is in misery,” he mentioned. “It wants everybody.”