Ajami Lab Fieldwork in Kaduna

28 November 2025

Researchers from the Ajami Lab regularly travel across West Africa to catalogue and study manuscripts that contain African languages written in Arabic script. This month, the team was in Kaduna, Nigeria, to initiate new projects.

Kaduna is one of Nigeria’s foremost educational centres, home to numerous universities, research institutes, archives, and museums. The Kaduna branch of the National Archives of Nigeria, in particular, houses rich collections of historical documents and manuscripts. Among its treasures are two Qur’anic manuscripts annotated in Old Kanembu and dating back to the 18th century — currently the focus of research by Dmitry Bondarev and Lina Sabbah.

Another distinguished institution in the city is Arewa House, the Centre for Historical Documentation and Research affiliated with Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. From 2013 to 2017, the CSMC collaborated with Arewa House on various projects and events. In 2020, a significant collection of Islamic manuscripts, including the earliest known Old Kanembu manuscript dated to 1669, was transferred from Jos Museum to Kaduna Museum. That same year, CSMC permanent fellow Michaelle Biddle, in partnership with Arewa House, initiated a remedial conservation project funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation.

This month, Dmitry Bondarev and Maria Luisa Russo visited Kaduna to assess the current condition of the Jos Museum collection, in preparation for a new project focused on the preservation and digitisation of these manuscripts. Plans are underway to begin research on the collection’s Ajami manuscripts next year, in collaboration with colleagues from Arewa House.

The main objective of the Ajami Lab is to catalogue and study manuscripts that are written — or partially written – in African languages using Arabic script. Long marginalised by research, the project aims to deepen our understanding of how Ajami has facilitated literacy, cultural transmission, and knowledge production among various African communities. The project is funded by the German Research Foundation and has recently entered a new phase, shifting its focus from cataloguing to researching the content of the manuscripts. It has started in 2017 and runs until 2031.