The Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco studies the Sahrawi script in the Shinqeeti manuscripts
On Tuesday, May 28 in Rabat, the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco studied the subject of the history of Saharan calligraphy and its styles through the Chinguetti manuscripts, within the framework of its scientific program “The History of the Book from the Maghreb to West Africa from the Sixteenth Century to the Twenty-First Century.”
The Mauritanian calligrapher and researcher, Mohamed Ahmed Salem, highlighted in a lecture organized by the Academy in partnership with the “Jacques Burke” Center for Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences, the geographical area in which the Sahrawi calligraphy spread, starting from the Moroccan Sahara to include the total territory of Mauritania (the country of Chinguetti at the time), to the north. Mali and regions of Niger.
In his lecture entitled “Desert Calligraphy in the Chinguetti Manuscripts, Its History and Styles,” Ahmed Salem reviewed, in front of a group of doctoral students, researchers, and those interested, the features of this Saharan script and the development it witnessed according to the specificity of each region in which it spread, by presenting many examples of Chinguetti manuscripts, which date back to... For the 17th and 18th centuries AD.
In a statement to the official Moroccan News Agency, the Mauritanian researcher said that this scientific session is of interest, in particular, to doctoral students in order to enrich their scientific knowledge in this field, and to introduce researchers and those interested, in general, to the styles and characteristics of Saharan calligraphy, through the Chinguetti manuscripts spread throughout the country of Chinguetti. During the eighteenth century.
He added that the desert calligraphy spread over vast areas, but with characteristics that differed from one region to another, pointing out that the country of Chinguetti had a distinct desert calligraphy that was closely related to the Moroccan calligraphy.
It is noteworthy that, in the year 2012, Mohammad Ahmed Salem completed, in calligraphy and decoration, the official Qur’an of his country and the Qur’an of Ma’at Mawlana, which is the largest Qur’an in the world completed on cloth. He also has several valuable books on Mauritanian calligraphy, in addition to writing several reports on manuscripts in Mauritania.
Source: websites