Book Title | Collected Works Of Nana Asmau |
Book Author | Nana Asmau |
Total Pages | 784 |
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Language | English |
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Collected Works of Nana Asmau, Daughter of Usmandan Fodiyo (1793-1864) By Jean Boyd and Beverly B. Mack
COLLECTED WORKS OF NANA ASMAU
A The Nana Asma’u Collection – Verifying Authenticity
At the turn of the nineteenth century, in what is now north-western Nigeria, the illustrious Fulani Fodiyo clan was comprised of prolific scholars concerned about the nature of Islam and politics in the region.
Like other scholars in her family, Nana Asma’u wrote in the Islamic literary tradition, using Arabic script to compose poetic and narrative treatises in several languages, primarily Arabic, Fulfulde, and Hausa; when Arabic script is used for writing local languages, the script is called ajami.
These ajami compositions were written with vegetable dye inks on unbound sheets of paper, and traditionally kept together in a leather bookbag called the Hausa term gafaka.
This is the way Nana Asma’u produced and stored her manuscripts, in the manner of her day. Her collected works have remained in storage in her home since her death in 1864.
Owing to the vagaries of time and circumstance, it is possible that some of her works were lost by various means: perhaps some were loaned out and lost or destroyed; perhaps others disintegrated before they were recopied, or were lost to weather and insect damage.
Nevertheless, it is assumed by her descendants, who have inhabited her house continuously since her death, that the bulk of her collected works is preserved in that leather gafaka.
Her historic stature and the veneration she commanded both in her own time and since her death, guarantee that her works would be treated reverentially by the generations that followed her.
The contents of the gafaka is the collection that Alhaji Dr. Junaidu, Waziri of Sokoto, the doyen of West African Islamic scholars, made available to Jean Boyd in August 1975. From his personal library, situated in the private rooms of his house,
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