Ibadi Muslims of North Africa: Manuscripts, Mobilization, and the Making of a Written Tradition (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization)

The Ibadi Muslims, a little-known minority community, have lived in North Africa for over a thousand years. Combining an analysis of Arabic manuscripts with digital tools used in network analysis, Paul M. Love, Jr takes readers on a journey across the Maghrib and beyond as he traces the paths of a group of manuscripts and the Ibadi scholars who used them. Ibadi scholars of the Middle Period (eleventh-sixteenth century) wrote a series of collective biographies (prosopographies), which together constructed a cumulative tradition that connected Ibadi Muslims from across time and space, bringing them together into a 'written network'. From the Mzab valley in Algeria to the island of Jerba in Tunisia, from the Jebel Nafusa in Libya to the bustling metropolis of early-modern Cairo, this book shows how people and books worked in tandem to construct and maintain an Ibadi Muslim tradition in the Maghrib. "The Ibadi Muslims, a little-known minority community, have lived in North Africa for over a thousand years. Combining an analysis of Arabic manuscripts with digital tools used in network analysis, Paul M. Love Jr. takes readers on a journey across the Maghrib and beyond as he traces the paths of a group of manuscripts and the Ibadi scholars who used them. Ibadi scholars of the Middle Period (eleventh-sixteenth centuries) wrote a series of collective biographies (prosopographies), which together constructed a cumulative tradition that connected Ibadi Muslims from across time and space, bringing them together into a "written network." From the Mzab valley in Algeria to the island of Jerba in Tunisia, from the Jebel Nafusa in Libya to the bustling metropolis of early-modern Cairo, this book shows how people and books worked in tandem to construct and maintain an Ibadi Muslim tradition in the Maghrib."-- Back cover The Ibadi Muslims, a little-known minority community, have lived in North Africa for over a thousand years. Combining an analysis of Arabic manuscripts with digital tools used in network analysis, Paul M. Love Jr. takes readers on a journey across the Maghrib and beyond as he traces the paths of a group of manuscripts and the Ibadi scholars who used them. Ibadi scholars of the Middle Period (11th-16th c.) wrote a series of collective biographies (prosopographies), which together constructed a cumulative tradition that connected Ibadi Muslims from across time and space, bringing them together into a "written network." From the Mzab valley in Algeria to the island of Jerba in Tunisia, from the Jebel Nafusa in Libya to the bustling metropolis of early-modern Cairo, this book shows how people and books worked in tandem to construct and maintain an Ibadi Muslim tradition in the Maghrib. Cover 1 Half-title page 3 Series page 4 Title page 5 Copyright page 6 Dedication 7 Contents 9 List of Figures 10 List of Tables 12 Acknowledgments 13 Note on Transliteration and Dates 16 List of Library and Archive Abbreviations 17 Prologue: Tunis, 2014 21 Introduction: Mobilizing with Manuscripts 25 1 Ibadi Communities in the Maghrib 45 2 Writing a Network, Constructing a Tradition 60 3 Sharpening the Boundaries of Community 78 4 Formalizing the Network 99 5 Paper and People in Northern Africa 118 6 Retroactive Networking 130 7 The End of a Tradition 144 8 Orbits 159 9 Ibadi Manuscript Culture 179 Conclusion: (Re)inventing an Ibadi Tradition 199 Appendix: Extant Manuscript Copies of the Ibadi Prosopographies 207 Bibliography 216 Index 227 Examining the Ibadi Muslims of North Africa, this book traces the history of Arabic texts to tell the story of how people and their networks build religious traditions. Combining the study of Arabic manuscripts with digital tools, it explains how this religious community created and maintained a tradition over nearly a millennium.