The Complicated Relationship Between Manuscripts and Print Within the Islamic Written Tradition of East Africa
2021–2023
FNT09
Drawing on the networks of intellectual exchange between the Muslim communities of East Africa and Egypt, this project examines the world of textual production from the mid-19th through mid-20th centuries as a case study in the written Islamic tradition. Looking at a range of genres (hagiographies, theological treatises and Sufi litanies and poetry), produced in various locales (Zanzibar and Pemba in Tanzania, Lamu and Pate in Kenya) technologies (manuscripts and print) and formats, for diverse audiences (religious scholars, lay people and, on occasion, the colonial state) the project examines the impact of technological change on the Islamic written tradition among East African Muslims. The project challenges the idea that mechanical print naturally and inevitably displaced handwritten texts as well as the notion that the so-called transition from manuscript to print was unidirectional. Rather than distinct technologies that emerge in a progressive series (one naturally following the other), this project sees manuscript and print as deeply intertwined forms, co-existing in complex, complementary and often non-linear relationships.
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