@article{947143,
      recid = {947143},
      author = {Nobili, Mauro,},
      title = {Sultan, caliph and the renewer of the faith : Ahmad Lobbo,  the Tarikh al-fattash and the making of an Islamic state in  West Africa /},
      pages = {1 online resource (xix, 262 pages :},
      abstract = {The Tārīkh al-fattāsh is one of the most important and  celebrated sources for the history of pre-colonial West  Africa, yet it has confounded scholars for decades with its  inconsistences and questions surrounding its authorship. In  this study, Mauro Nobili examines and challenges existing  theories on the chronicle, arguing that much of what we  have presumed about the work is deeply flawed. Making  extensive use of previously unpublished Arabic sources,  Nobili demonstrates that the Tārīkh al-fattāsh was in fact  written in the nineteenth century by a Fulani scholar, Nūḥ  b. al-Ṭāhir, who modified pre-existing historiographical  material as a political project in legitimation of the West  African Islamic state known as the Caliphate of Ḥamdallāhi  and its founding leader Aḥmad Lobbo. Contextualizing its  production within the broader development of the religious  and political landscape of West Africa, this study  represents a significant moment in the study of West  African history and of the evolution of Arabic historical  literature in Timbuktu and its surrounding regions.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/947143},
}