Work · African & Africana Philosophy
Achieving Joy by Embroidering the Brocade
A biographical dictionary of Maliki scholars, written as a continuation of Ibn Farhun’s Dibaj, with entries on the scholars of Timbuktu that are a main source for the intellectual history of the Sahel.
Introduction
Ahmad Baba completed this biographical dictionary in 1596, during his captivity in Marrakesh. It continues Ibn Farḥūn’s fourteenth-century dictionary of Mālikī scholars, al-Dībāj al-mudhahhab, and adds several hundred biographies. Among them are entries on the scholars of Timbuktu and the Sahel, including members of his own family, which are among the most important sources for the intellectual history of West Africa. The work was widely copied and later printed in Fez and Cairo.
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