Mali Stories
HMML Stories — Mali
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A Decade in Mali
“It began with a dinner in 2013...”
- Dr. Columba Stewart
What Are The Animals Trying To Tell Us?
“In historical Timbuktu—as in any part of the pre-modern world—animals were...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor
Eclipses in Early Muslim History — Between Myth and Reality
“The best-known eclipse mentioned in Muslim sources was the solar eclipse that occurred on...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor
Nasheeds from West Africa: Uniting Texts and Sound
“All of Timbuktu’s family libraries that were digitized by HMML include numerous compositions that...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor
A Scribble of Scribes: Men, Women, and Children Copyists Across Mali’s Manuscript Collections
“...each manuscript is an artistic production and requires physical labor performed by a single individual—the scribe...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor
A Book You Would Love to Read...
“A book you would love to read is lost, altered, destroyed, buried, hidden, left unpublished, unwritten, banned.”
- Dr. Catherine Walsh and Margaret Bresnahan
Where We’re Working: Mali
“In the spring of 2012, the desert city of Timbuktu in northern Mali was attacked and...”
- Dr. Columba Stewart
The Story of the Talking Camel and the Exploits of Ali Genre in West Africa
“While some elements of the story are fiction, others are clearly inspired by real events in Khaybar.”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor
Tracing Folktales in Magic Texts — The Story of Umm al-Ṣibyān
“Despite having been contested in Islamic history by powerful groups rejecting them as illegitimate practices, magic and...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni
Travelers and Texts Crossing the Sahara
“Mobility was a central feature of individuals, societies, and texts within Muslim West Africa’s...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor
Yeɗi Sanba Ɓooyi, a Fulani Scholar and Poet
“Yeɗi Sanba Ɓooyi was a scholar who belonged to the Fulani, a traditionally nomadic people who...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor
Creating Cataloging Standards for Regional Names
“Yeɗi belonged to the Fulani people, one of West Africa’s many ethnic groups, which...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor
Database Partnership Expands Access to West African Manuscripts
HMML is now in partnership with the West African Arabic Manuscript Database
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor